Yeah. I'm really excited to talk about a few things. Certainly, your work on emotional intelligence and and leaders with big companies around the world, I'm really excited to dig into that. But I've gotta ask about a bit of your journey first off. You were born in Ghana. You've lived in eight countries. You speak five languages. And I think I read that, you know, when you were little, you dreamed of being a professional tourist. And I don't know whether you made that term up because I don't I had never heard it before. But it kinda seems like that dream came true, and I'm just wondering how where that came from. Did you always have that ever since you were a little girl?

Yeah. You know, it's I'm smiling, Bob, because, my mother every so often reminds me of that that goal that I had when she asked me. I think I was about six years old at the time. You know, I would say that it comes really from my father. I'm I'm so sorry that the world has been deprived of his his presence for the last twenty one years, but he was the most one of the most emotionally intelligent human beings I've ever met. And as a result of his his emotional intelligence, the impact that he had on people was such that people were constantly looking out for him. You know, everywhere in the world he would go, people were always thinking of Eric Baffoe and the opportunities that they could could, essentially create for him in in other organizations in different parts of the world. And so we became globetrotters because of my father's emotional intelligence and the presence he had, the impact his reputation preceded him. And so we got the chance as a result to just travel the world because those opportunities happen to be spread out in different parts.

So I'm curious what you think those early experiences when you look back on them, the impact that those had on you, and whether there was something in there that almost predestined you to be working in this field of emotional intelligence.

I mean, I I know for a fact that having traveled and and lived in many parts of the world allowed me a unique lens into other people's worlds. Right? And and it connects with the idea that, fundamentally, we all have a desire to be understood and seen. And so the more I had an opportunity to to understand people and their way of living and their way of thinking in different parts of the world, the better I was able to connect. Right? Because when people feel understood and seen, even in moments when we're disagreeing with them, they open up their world to you and just connect more deeply, which then translates for me to the stage when I'm presenting a keynote. That it no matter who's sitting in my audience, it's in my blood to to present my ideas in a way that allows you to to connect with them, relate to them, experience and receive them without ego. We don't we don't, you know, we don't mix with people who are different from us and bring our egos to the table and expect to create meaningful connections. You know? So I don't know if I appreciate it as much when I was a little girl traveling so much. Right? But now I look back, and I'm so grateful that I that we did travel as much as we did.

Well, yeah, that's one of the most interesting things about it is as a child, that's the only life you know, and it's only after you become a little bit older you look back and go, oh, wow. That was different than most people experiences, and it gives me a unique set of talents that a lot of people don't have. And everybody's got that. Just that yours just seem to be a little bit more dramatic and pronounced than most. So one of the things that you mentioned when we met is that you were mentored by doctor Maya Angelou, the acclaimed poet, civil rights activist, author, speaker. And I'd love to know how that came about. How did you meet her?

Yeah. I I met her about twenty two years ago while I was waiting tables at mouthwatering restaurant in Washington, DC called B. Smith's. And in the last couple decades of her life, I know for sure that she didn't fly. She didn't like flying, so she would travel everywhere by bus or by train. And she had a home in Harlem and one in Winston Salem, and so she would go sort of back and forth between Harlem and Winston Salem via Amtrak. And so B. Smith's, which which is right in Union Station, was a convenient stop for her. And one day, she just happened to be in the cigar bar enjoying a martini and some red beans and rice. And my friend was bartending, and so I begged her to introduce me to her. I just wanted to say hi and get back to the business of what I was doing, waiting tables. In typical Maya Angelou fashion, she wanted to know a lot more about me and what my aspirations were beyond waiting tables. And and then she invited me to Thanksgiving at her home that year in Winston Salem. And then, of course, the next twelve or so Thanksgivings, I got a chance to be with her family, much to the chagrin of my own family. You know, I was never around during Thanksgivings because I was always in Winston Salem. You know, we had lots of celebrities coming and going through B Smiths from Catherine Zeta Jones to Michael Douglas, and you name you name them all. But Maya Angelou just had a distinct a distinct ability to see your humanity and and make you feel seen. You know? And it it's it just speaks to, you know, who she was. Yeah. And she she was she had this obsession with want with never wanting anybody to be elevated on a pedestal. So during Thanksgivings, it was a remarkable to see how all the celebrities in the room, because she'd have a few of them, whether it was, you know, Spielberg or Quincy Jones the first year I went, or Oprah or some of the others. And she had a remarkable ability to make them all feel the same as us, the ordinary people. It's almost like they could I use the word smell themselves. Right? It's like you sit there and you are human just like the next person who doesn't have the bank account and the fame that you have. Mhmm. And she just yeah. She didn't have a tolerance for people elevating themselves above others because she had this desire to ensure that the peep the kids coming behind us had something to aspire to. And it wasn't just everybody is on a pedestal and looking special and unattainable. It it just showed, and it's she lived out what she believed. You know? She didn't speak out of one mouth side of her mouth and then act a different way. She was just yeah. She was amazing in that way. So so long story short, that's really how I I came to be connected with her. And I had no idea that morning when I was going to wait tables that I would leave with an invitation to to spend Thanksgiving with her and be mentored by her, you know, for the the subsequent years after.

And to your credit, you said yes to that. So it's funny how sometimes these opportunities get presented to us, and we say yes. Sometimes they're small. Sometimes they're like getting invited to Maya Angelou's house for Thanksgiving, and you realize this this is a monumental occasion. But I'm sure even then, you couldn't have really appreciated the impact that that would have.

No. I couldn't have. No. Absolutely not. I I still I still can't appreciate it, and it's you know, she's been gone, what, since twenty fourteen. Instead of lamenting, you know, I think to myself, I'm at a point in my life where where her and I would just have like, you know, you you think about how she tried to help me for twelve years, but I was also I often see at the wrong the the right place at the wrong time of my life, you know, to really take full advantage of of the connection we had. And and and I look back now with more clarity about my life and my path and and just how much more she would have added to that. But then I I I I sit back in gratitude and say not many had the privilege of of twelve, thirteen years, you know, of of time with her. So that's what I'm gonna hang on to, you know, and think what would Maya Angelou do as I I move forward in my life?

For sure. So you've called her a mentor, and this is something I've spent a little bit of time too talking to, other leaders about. What does that term mean to you? Because I imagine there are people in your life that call you a mentor. How has that experience with, Maya Angelou kinda shaped the relationships that you have with people that you that you help along the way?

You know, that's an interesting question because I I I also think often about the idea of mentorship. And for me, I see it as someone who just who believes in you oftentimes more than you believe in yourself, you know, and somebody who is rooting for your rise and speaking your name in rooms that you're not in. And as a result of the the mentorship I got for Maya Angelou, I actually had a chance to exercise this a few years ago when I was I came off stage, and I was speaking to senior students. They were going to get ready to go to college. And there was an African contingent. So it's it's a room of, like, a hundred and eighty international students who had convened in America for a one year course. And when I was done speaking, I could tell the Kenyan students, the Ghanaian students, you know, all sort of gravitated towards me at the end. And two girls in particular, one from South Africa and one from Ghana, came up and had the courage to to say, hey. You know, would you mind being our mentor? And, you know, I told them how flattered I was by by the the request. And and but I said to them, look. You know, you're eighteen years old at the moment. I'm pretty sure that you don't yet know how I can help you in your life. You aren't to the point where you have the clarity of how I can best you can best leverage my guidance and and mentorship. And so what I want you to do is hold on to my contact information. There will come a time in the next couple of years when you will know exactly how I can help you. And I want you to pick up that contact information and reach out to me, and then we can hit the ground running. Because oftentimes, you know, we don't even know what we're asking people to mentor us on. You know? And and and so I learned that from Maya Angelou that it was you know, she helped me when I was waiting tables. This was before my speaking career really took off, right, and before I, you know, wrote my book and and all of that. And and yet she hung in there and kept the connection going long enough so that I would be in a position where she could help me more. You know? And that's how I got a chance to interview her for my tech platform that I created to help African students get spotlighted to US admissions officials, universities. And she gave me thirty minutes of time in an interview, and I, you know, I wouldn't have gotten that right if I had sort of rushed the process a bit. So, I think mentorship is really just, in my eyes, somebody who sees your potential oftentimes before you do and invites you to to stay connected, you know, as you you figure out how you can best help them.

That's definitely the most interesting and profound definition of mentorship that I've heard. Somebody that believes in you even more than you believe in yourself. And what I one of the things that I take away from that, Sylvia, is that it's not something to be taken lightly. You know? Let's spend some time figuring out what you need and what mentorship means to both of us because I do think it's a term that we kinda throw around, and it's a it deserves a certain level of respect, I think, that we that we owe to each other to define what this means and how we can help.

For sure.

So I'm really excited to dig into the the emotional intelligence work you do. But before we do that, I was reacquainting myself with some content from, doctor Maya in preparation for this. And I've been talking to more and more people about their creative process. And she says, I had a big house, but she would have a hotel room, and she would go there. And she would rent it for as long as she was there, and that would be her place where she would go and write and create. And she never slept there. It was just kind of like her office, and then she'd go back to her big house, and she never did any of that creative work in her own home. And I'm wondering, what is your creative process like, and has that changed over, you know, the last ten or twenty years as long as you've been doing this?

Well, it certainly has changed as I've gotten a little wiser. But, Bob, it's interesting that you share that story because I I smiled because I stayed at that hotel that she's, it was called the Brookstown Inn in Winston Salem, North Carolina. And I do remember that one day, I was, visiting her in Harlem, and she gave me a couple of hours of her time to talk through and answer any questions I had. And one of the things I was asking her was about her writing process. And then she would say that she went to the Brookstown Inn, and she would, they because they knew her, they take all the things off the walls. Right? Any no distractions. Paintings, carvings, everything comes out. And they leave her with a desk, a chair, lined piece of, pad, paper, and a pen. And and she would write and write and write. And once once she interestingly said that she said, miss Baffour, I I and she always called me by my last name, interestingly enough. But she said I would sit there sometimes and write uninterrupted and nonstop for eight hours continuously writing, writing, writing, writing. At the end of my writing, I would look at everything I had written and realize that I could only keep one sentence. And that's when she said to me, easy reading is damn hard writing because we often don't understand what an author goes through to bring a work to life. Right? But the more we enjoy it, the harder it probably was for them to create it. And so my writing process has my sorry. My creative creative process has evolved to the point where I befriend my best friend when I'm trying to be creative is curiosity, not judgment. Judgment for me becomes an enemy. Curiosity is the best friend that I have sitting beside me in the creative process. And I found, especially in writing my book four years ago, that it really helped me because I can be someone who self edits, and I'm so critical and just you know, I interrupt my own creative process by being too judgmental. And by the way, I I never do it in my office space either. I'm usually at a beach or in a beautiful garden or just somewhere out in nature. I I need to be out in the beauty of nature or seeing it to really have the creative juices flowing, not looking at four walls, you know, of of paint. And, but I I don't have a hotel room like her, but I I do you know, when I was writing my book, I would spend time, you know, in different beautiful places in Washington, DC. And it's amazing how much writing I would get done because I I was just in nature, right, and just listening to the birds and and just flowing. But curiosity is absolutely the friend that I must have beside me when I'm trying to be creative. Judgment is is the enemy that I leave. I literally just visually close a door and leave judgment outside until I'm done.

I love that. Curiosity is the friend that you have with you. Yeah. Judgment. I find that too. For one thing, I have to be outside, and it's my best ideas come when I'm I tend to walk out in nature. But that idea of curiosity, I think, is really powerful because I think what we often do, at least what I do, you know, you can see the guitars hanging on my wall behind me. I've I've never written a song because I write one line, and I'm like, oh, that sucks. That's terrible. I guess I'm just not a writer. Right? And that what you're saying really resonates with me. I like that a lot.

Yeah. And, Bob, just thinking about your guitar that I'm seeing behind you, for instance, I I think that maybe one of the helpful questions we could ask ourselves to really keep curiosity, that best friend beside us, is to say something like, I'm curious about what I can achieve in the next ten minutes just writing out some music. That just leads us one step at a time in front of the apprehension we might have or the perfectionism we may have.

That's I think that's powerful. I'm gonna try that, and I will send you a note in a few days and let you know how it's turned out. I'll send you an audio clip of what I come up with.

There you go. And and the point is is to just do it, right, as opposed to doing it perfectly.

So let's talk about emotional intelligence. I was reflecting on this, and I was thinking to myself, when's the first time I heard the term emotional intelligence? It's probably been so long that I don't remember. But in all the conversations that I've had, I don't remember ever talking about what it is or what people mean by it. And I think words matter because I don't think we're always talking about it in the same way. So what does it mean to you?

So I have a very succinct way of defining it for myself, and it's just look. How aware are you of your own emotions at any given moment of the day, and how much do you care about the impact your emotions are having on you and the people around you? That's, to me, the most succinct definition of it. If I was being a little bit more long winded in terms of how I share it with with audiences, I would say that it's it's about recognizing and understanding your own emotions and the emotions of those around you, and then using that awareness to manage your decisions and interacted interactions more effectively. But, yeah, that's how I'd I'd I'd I'd see it.

Yeah. If I'm honest, I don't know whether I would consider myself to be an emotionally intelligent person or not. That probably takes some more reflection. But if I'm honest and I broke down your definition into those two things, how how aware am I and how much do I care? The second one, I would say, yeah. I do care a lot, but it's really interesting. I'm not sure that I've ever excuse me. I'm not sure I've ever thought about how being aware of my own emotions impacts that second part.

Yeah. You know, Jim Carrey, the the comedian Jim Carrey, I think really said it wonderfully when he said the effect you have on others is the most valuable currency there is. And I think it speaks to you know, the effect you have on others is is absolutely the most valuable currency. Because if it's a good effect, you think about how your world opens up, what it invites into your space.

What do you think the biggest misconception about emotional intelligence is?

I would say the biggest misconception is that emotional intelligence is about being soft or being nice. I think that's huge, and it's the reason why we we I have so much resistance initially when I'm going to do presentations, especially for engineers, right, or some of the really technically minded people. It's this you know, in fact, I was doing a presentation, a keynote two weeks ago for some engineers. And and you could see in the very beginning, as you're introducing me, there was this energy of, look, we've been excelling at what we do for twenty, thirty years, so we don't need to learn emotional intelligence. And I think it's because of this notion that it's it's it's it's about being soft and about being nice. And it you know, I say that emotional intelligence is not a skill you need when your life is perfect and when your relationships are firing on all cylinders. It is absolutely the skillset you need in those uncomfortable, inconvenient, and challenging moments of your lives. Right. You don't need empathy when you're surrounded by a bunch of people who see the world the way you do. You need empathy for the person you can't understand or the person you don't agree with, and yet you still want to leave them with their humanity, you know, and agree to disagree, so to speak. So that to me is the most harmful misconception about it. It's not about being nice because emotional intelligence is actually what helps us have those difficult conversations and do them in a way that gives us the best chance of the best outcome. It's as you said, Bob, you know, words matter. And I often say that we can we have access to all of the words in the English language to use free of charge. But if we're not using our words mindfully, they can cost us a lot. And emotional intelligence is a skill set that allows us to choose words that are mindful enough to help us get to our ultimate goals, which at the end of the day is what we're all doing as we interact with people. So it's it's not about being soft. It's about having the difficult conversation, but doing it in a way that makes you effective, that that doesn't put someone on the defensive. So EI has nothing to do with softness or shying away, and it's the reason I actually don't like to call it soft skill. I find myself cringing a little bit when I hear it, and I know we've all been trained to call it a soft skill. It's a human skill. It's a fundamental human skill.

I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that the person that you think is so dynamic and enjoyable on stage is doing so without any nerves, without any apprehension. Right? That they just just arrive at this place of perfection. You know? And and the reality is even the most seasoned speakers out there have some nerves. I think what is what is cool is that we learn how to challenge channel the nerves in a way that's productive as opposed to harmful. And, you know, I once heard, to me, the most profound way this was put, and I heard it from Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love. I think she was getting ready to do a talk on Oprah's stage for one of Oprah's events. And it's something I use because, essentially, what she was saying, and I'm not going to be saying it perfectly. But she said that she came to the realization that every single human being sitting in those seats in front of her has come there with their own anxieties and their own insecurities and their own trepidation. And so it was not her job to impart her own anxiety and insecurity on this audience. That was not her job is to add to what they already are grappling with in their own private lives. You know? And and that is something that really centers me. You know? When I think about it, everybody sitting in my audience has their own anxieties and insecurities. What they do not need from me investing their time is to have me add to that with my own. You know? And and so it allows me to focus on the matter at hand. The people in the seats in front of you want you to do well because, selfishly, it allows them to have a good time.

Mhmm.

No one is there watch waiting for you to fail, and that is so much of what's behind our nervousness. You know? What if I look go bad, make a fool of myself? The bare bones reality is that even at a comedy show, right, I want you to make me laugh. I don't want to catch you in some boring, weird, awkward moment. I want you to I wanna laugh so hard my stomach hurts by the time I leave. And so we realize that the people who are listening to us, most of the time, are rooting for our eyes. And if we can really channel that, I think that helps a lot. So the misconception is that the seasoned people don't have nerves or butterflies, and that's not the case. Because if you care about doing a good job, you're gonna have some some butterflies. But it's it's how you allow them to take flight, you know, that makes a difference.

That's amazing. What do you love most about it?

The opportunity to impact others. You know? And I know that can sound a little cliche, but it's funny because when I was a little girl, my parents would tease me a lot because I was very shy. I was a painfully shy girl. I mean, really painfully shy. And to the point where if you were standing on my foot, for instance, I it was easier for me to just have you leave it there and move it when you would than for me to bring attention to the fact that you had your foot on mine. You know? And, but within my little household, with my parents and my two brothers, you couldn't stop me from talking. I mean, I just and my father would always say, you know, Sylvia, you talk so much. When you talk, don't you get tired? You know? And I'd always tease. I said, someday, I'm gonna grow up and keep running my mouth for a living. You know? I didn't quite knew how it would manifest. But I I because I love the opportunity to take care with my thoughts and articulate them in a way that can be helpful to somebody out there, That feels so meaningful to me, and I don't know what corner of the earth it's going to happen. Right? I I do presentations. I remember once I was doing a presentation, and there was a gentleman sitting in the front row with his arms crossed, and he I couldn't read him. I couldn't tell if he was bored, if he was angry. And at the end of my my talk, he came up to me. There were a few people lined up, and he said, Sylvia, the story you told at the beginning of your presentation, and it was a story about putting things in perspective. So from that moment when he heard the story, he was just thinking through his own life. And he said, I've been faced for the last nine months with a very difficult decision about whether to check my dear mother into a nursing home, and he was an only child. And he said that having been here for the last sixty minutes has given me the peace of mind, the clarity I need to make the decision. And he didn't tell me what the decision was, but you could see a lifting. And here I was judging this man for crossing his arms and and and looking at me in a way that I interpreted as weird and awkward. Right? And so we don't know where where people are going to you know, where where where the impact comes from. Right? And and so that's what I enjoy. Every opportunity for me to be on stage or to do a training or to even have a coaching experience, you know, I don't know the impact I'm going to have. And and that's exciting because it it reminds me to take what I do seriously.

Wow. Yeah. That's amazing. I must and I imagine you must hear some pretty powerful things, you know, to the to the left of the stage where people come and talk to you afterwards. You must hear some pretty powerful, stories from people about what they're taking away from those from those speeches you give.

Absolutely. And it's what keeps me going and and keeps me doing what I do.

So final question. What now? What are you most excited about?

I'm I'm excited about a signature keynote presentation that I am close to finishing. And, Bob, you'll appreciate this because this came from the workshop that we both attended, and I hired a speech coach to sort of help me take all the stuff I do best on stage and and kind of bring it together in a signature talk. And so I'm really excited to see how that comes together in the next couple of months. And, it's it's it's really about navigating the streets of your life with emotional intelligence because every every experience, every interaction we have is literally happening in the streets of our lives every day. And and what are we carrying in our emotional backpacks to ensure that we're not just surviving, but we're thriving both personally and professionally? And that's really what the the talk is all about. So I I'm very excited about that, and my hope is that it will it will parlay into a book in the fall if I if I maintain the focus. So those are things that are exciting me right now.

That's amazing. As you're sitting in a park in Washington, DC, you know, refining this speech and writing this book and yeah. I love that imagery of navigating the streets with this. I imagine myself navigating the streets of life with this probably pretty heavy backpack that I'm lugging around with all these biases and stories and self doubts and all this shit that most of us carry around with us most of the time.

Yeah. And being able to unload that backpack and and and have things in there that are actually going to serve us and make us enjoyable to be around.

Yeah. I can put good things in the backpack is what you're saying. I I hadn't even thought of that.

Absolutely.

So, yeah, I can't thank you enough. You know, I've I can look back on my, life, and there's a small number of people that I always aspire to be a bit more like. And they were people that if I had to sum it up, were people that made me feel like the most important person in the room. And I can look back and think of a small handful of these people over my career, and I always aspire to be that person. I think I've got a long way to go, but you certainly, in that dinner conversation where we had, you certainly made me feel that way. This conversation has been amazing. There are no less than a dozen things I'm gonna take away from it and try to apply to my life, and I'm just so grateful for the the time that you've given me today. It's just it's meant the world to me.

Well, thank you, Bob. It's been a privilege. I I'm grateful for the opportunity. You know, it's when you hear from others how you impact them, that's when it's most meaningful. Right? It's not us trying to toot our own horns and say that we are x, y, and z. So it means a lot for me to hear that that is the way you experience me, and it shows me that the way I live on stage is is the way I'm trying to live off stage, and and and it's nice to know that that's that's coming through. So thank you for the opportunity, and, hope your listeners get something fun out of this.

I'm sure they will. And I guess I owe you an audio clip of a couple lines of a a song that I'm gonna write. So prepare your ears for that.

You absolutely do, and I'm waiting. Thanks, Bob.

Thank you. The girl with mixed tape podcast with Bob Mathers is produced by Bespoke Projects, music by Jean Paul Walter Cronkite. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to follow and rate us. When you do this, it helps to raise our podcast profile so that more people can find us. If you wanna connect, you can find me on LinkedIn using the link in the show notes.