Speak For Change With Thomas Sage Pedersen
Welcome to Speak for Change with Thomas Sage Pedersen! Our mission is to inspire and promote positive and lasting change in our local & global communities.
Speak For Change With Thomas Sage Pedersen
Casey Coonerty | Leading in The Storm: Leading Through Change, Upfront vs Behind The Scenes Leadership, Power of Slowing Down, Obstacles of Running a Bookstore in Modern Times,
We explore people-first leadership with Casey Coonerty Protti of Bookshop Santa Cruz, from family roots in service to making brave, values-led decisions through crisis. COVID recalibrates pace, transparency meets limits, and empathy becomes a daily practice on the sales floor.
• family culture of service shaping leadership style
• upfront vs behind-the-scenes leadership trade-offs
• slowing down decisions during COVID for safety
• centring core values when answers are unclear
• balancing mission and financial sustainability
• training new staff on history and expectations
• transparency, what to share, and unionization
• anxiety, boundaries, and practical coping habits
• controversial books and courageous curation
• communication modes and avoiding performative input
• why fiction grows empathy and better leadership
• Readers Club details and community gratitude
Bio
Casey Coonerty Protti is the second-generation owner of Bookshop Santa Cruz located in the heart of downtown Santa Cruz for over 59 years. Casey received a BA from the University of California at Berkeley, a MPA from Harvard University and a MBA from Northwestern University. Casey returned to Santa Cruz to run daily operations of Bookshop Santa Cruz in 2006 after working in the nonprofit field and serving as a consultant for the American Bookseller’s Association. Besides raising her two children and trying to read and travel as much as possible, Casey served on the Downtown Commission of Santa Cruz and the boards of the Santa Cruz Downtown Association, the Santa Cruz Education Foundation, The Independent Booksellers Consortium, The Women's Educational Success Program at Cabrillo College and the Alliance of Women Entrepreneurs.
Hello, welcome back to Speak for Change Podcast. I'm your host, Thomas Sage Petterson. Um, today we have Casey Coonity Pratti.
SPEAKER_04:Perfect.
SPEAKER_03:Owner of uh Bookshop Santa Cruz, uh multi-generational family business. That's correct.
SPEAKER_01:That is correct, second generation owner.
SPEAKER_03:Wow, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Uh well, welcome to Speak for Change. It's honored to have you on.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for having me. We finally made it happen.
SPEAKER_03:I know. Like last time I feel like I got sick, and it was just like a whole whole thing. Um, but okay, we're just gonna dive in. Sure. Okay, so this series is about leadership in general, but also within like changing and times. And you are the leader and you deal with a lot of employees, you deal with a lot of things. I'm wondering, you know, what is your story behind leadership? Have you always been in leadership kind of roles in your life, or is this something new? Um, like what's your history with leadership?
SPEAKER_01:Leadership. Yeah, my well, my dad once gave me a bumper sticker when I was probably six that I put on my wall and it said, a woman's place is in the house, the white house. And so that's the kind of environment I grew up in. Yeah, no pressure at all. Um and you know, he was he was in city council and mayor when I was a kid or a teenager, so it really instilled in me the value of service, I think. And I know that there's service of a lot of different types. There's quiet service and then there's upfront service. My family has always been kind of out in the community kind of service. So I think I grew up in that environment. And so I I knew I always wanted to make change, do something meaningful and be of service. And I think I felt like I needed to be kind of upfront with some agency to do all that. So I think I always felt like motivated by wanting to be a leader and wanting to to take that kind of more active role. Right. Um, but of course, you know, through the various things I did, I I learned about different forms of leadership.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And so when you're a kid, you like think, oh, I'm just gonna run everything. And uh and then you go through life experience and you realize what leadership means. Um and I don't even know if uh there's this, I studied this in graduate school, but there's this kind of uh theory that there is no such thing as a leader, there's only people who practice leadership.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And so I think about that a lot too, just trying to figure out like how that plays out in a in a daily basis.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:How long have you been the the the head of bookshop?
SPEAKER_01:19 and a half years.
SPEAKER_03:Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:That's a long time.
SPEAKER_01:It is a long time. I I keep introducing myself as like the new owner. You know, obviously when your your parents build something and it's such a central part of everyone's life, you I mean, the a huge reason I came back to run the store was because of that family legacy and how much it meant to me. So I just could I just like feel like I'm a steward for them, even though they've been out of the business for almost two decades. But um, but yeah, so it's been a while.
SPEAKER_03:So what was your vibe like in high school and stuff?
SPEAKER_01:Were you like, were you like leadership of different things or like was this yes, were you just saying I'm also the other thing new about me is I'm type A. I you know, I'm very fast answer. Yes, yeah, no, I'm I'm type A. I I do not want to fail. I you know, I'm one of those like my anxiety drives my drive, you know, kind of person. So yeah. So I was, you know, I did all the things in high school, all the the present student body and editor of the newspaper and captain the soccer team, you know, like it was like always the that kind of world. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And what did you what did what was something that you learned that kind of is applicable from that period of time?
SPEAKER_01:Um what I learned, what was funny about doing it during that point of time is you're with teenagers, right? And so there's uh there's a whole bunch of people who didn't care and didn't want to do any of that stuff, right? And then there was the people who were like really engaged with it. And the thing I learned a lot about that time is there was some other people in the middle that wanted to be engaged but were quieter.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And I kept like dragging them, like, let's go and do this, this like thing in the middle of the quad because this is what leaders do. You know, like you drag them into things. And um, I think about them a lot because I feel so bad that I did that to them, especially as now that I have teenagers. Um, but I think what I think it did help me at the time realize that um you gotta have to meet people where they are to lead them. And so you have the unengaged kids, you had to figure out how to engage them a little bit. Yeah, you had to engage the quiet ones, and I think that was my first understanding of that at that age.
SPEAKER_03:That's amazing. Um, you mentioned I mean, you kind of gave me this look right now that I kind of want to comment on because no one else is here. You're like, yeah, I guess, but it is amazing because um I don't know, like like uh I think you're not seeing how much of an impact that that has made on your life right now, right? You know, and I think that's important to acknowledge, right? That that seeing like almost through trial and error to understanding being in that position, like, oh, how do I get these people engaged, even having those questions? Right. There's so many people in high school who did not think about those questions. Did not think about, yeah, you know, yeah, it's true.
SPEAKER_01:The people come to different people come to leadership at different moments of their life. And um, I also my older brother, I had an older brother by two years, yeah. And he was a leader too, but in a completely different way than me in high school because he was like an innovative, out-of-the-box thinker, ideas guy. Yeah. And so he like stirred up all this controversy by doing all these things that had never been done before. He distributed condoms in the school newspaper. He got a national news. He, you know, he was doing, and I was like, I am never gonna break a rule and I'm gonna do everything according to plan. Um, so that was also interesting because it was I leaned into like my idea of leadership, which is you do what's assigned to the nth degree higher than what anyone ever expects of you. Um, but I was watching him this whirlwind of chaos basically also provide incredible leadership for a bunch of people. So yeah, it was it was, and then my dad was mayor at the time when I was in high school. So it was like also, it was just yeah, it was I was growing up in a very um, we were thinking about it a lot in a way, and we talked about it at family dinners and things like that in a way that I think you know, a lot of kids don't grow up maybe with that atmosphere.
SPEAKER_03:Uh no. Yeah. I would say, no, I would say it's a kind of a rare situation, I would say. But yeah, but that's but that's really that's cool to see. And so I guess, you know, you mentioned something about like upfront service or leadership or something like that. And it you're meant you kind of briefly mentioned like kind of the combo of people who are kind of like behind the scenes for up leadership and that kind of thing. So I think, in your opinion, like what are the benefits of being kind of more upfront versus more kind of like behind the scenes? Like what what would be like the benefit, like more of the benefit of that to you?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, the benefit of being up front is a lot of times really driving the process.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So if you um if you really you know want a certain outcome or care about the outcome in a certain way, yeah, I think you sometimes the loudest voice gets gets more gets more of what they want. Um I also think that um you get all the good and bad with being public about it. You know, I mean that's the thing of bookshop is I I'm the public face of the store. And you know, 98% of the time it's people telling me how much they love books and they love the space and they love, and then 2% of the time, I'm the person that takes all of the negative feedback about things. So you have to be willing if you're the upfront person to be able to take both sides and realize it's part of the job.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, versus a behind-the-scenes person, I think you go deep into relationships.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And um, and you really have to believe in the idea of service in that way. Um, and you have to kind of be willing. I mean, hopefully people are recognizing you and like calling in in quiet ways, calling you out and thanking you.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But I don't think that's always the case. I think a lot of times people don't see that, especially in this world with social media and like the most outrageous thing was gets the you know, the attention. Yeah. I think it's um, but if you're that type of person who doesn't need that feedback to drive your drive, I think that's a nice way to be where you you really touch lives, right? But you just uh you might not get all the attention.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you may have to like. I think seeing that former leadership and seeing the upfront former leadership. I like I'm just echoing what you're saying in the sense of I think there has to be an acceptance, right? A deep acceptance that um you may not get those roses, right? You know? And sometimes I think some people who do that don't necessarily fully understand that. Like there's like a hope in people like giving credit where they think credit is due or some ideology, and then there's people who genuinely are just like, Yeah, I don't I'm just doing this because I love to do this, right? You know, and I'm I'm in service and I'm I'm truly not expecting. Right. You know, um but I think there's also I think a nuance, there's no black and white to it, right? There may be a little bit of both, right? Yeah, wanting recognition, but also just also just loving to help. Yeah. And and I think that's an interesting perspective, right? And I don't think many people talk about like those type both those types of leaderships a lot.
SPEAKER_01:Um and how you can learn from each other. I mean, right. So we have a I have a manager at the store who is very focused on kind of the staff and the morale and the leadership of leading a staff. And but she does it by checking in with people on a daily basis and asking them how they're doing and how their dog is doing and how the you know what happened to them yesterday at home. And I um try to do that, but I'm go, go, go in a million meter in whatever. And I uh I learn from her that sometimes the most impactful thing I can do, rather than like write the memo to the whole stuff, thinking somebody is literally going up to somebody and knowing what's going on in their life and talking to them about it. And that's leadership. That's not I always thought, like, okay, I just I gotta do the next thing, I gotta I gotta build it, I gotta grow it or whatever. But it's actually that's the most important thing.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So I learned from her style of leadership, you know, and then there's probably moments where people learn how to stand up in front of a room and be a leader by watching me and they're deathly afraid to public speak or whatever, and I'm a and I I'm fine with it, or whatever. So that's the fun thing is as you go on with your journey is to learn from other people doing it well, and then adopt your leadership style, right? To yeah, hopefully incorporate as much as you can of all of it, which is hard to do.
SPEAKER_03:But you're right, yeah. Uh I'm just gonna do all of that. Yeah, and uh become the the ultimate leader. Um Wow, that sounds like a game show all of a sudden. Yeah. All right. So, you know, speaking about like you've been doing this for almost 20 years. Um that means you've had to deal with COVID. Yes. You've had to deal with numerous uh like public-facing obstacles, um, and then obviously most internal obstacles and challenges. I'm wondering, A, do you have any stories, right, that you can share that kind of show um how you manage things? Um I think that's connected to like any like um ideologies or ideas or types of leadership skills that you learned from turbulent times or obstacles or conflicting times.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I mean, yeah, COVID was really tough, obviously for everybody. Um Bookshop, we only closed for one day, uh, and we became a curbside pickup and shipping institution overnight.
SPEAKER_04:Totally.
SPEAKER_01:Um, and went from really the whole purpose of the store is having people come in and like be together to like then becoming like a shipping warehouse essentially, and then keeping our staff safe and different levels of everyone's understanding of safety. Um so it was definitely difficult. I I mean, I think um the a couple things that I think I learned during that time, and this might be very specific to the pandemic, but this is fun. Uh yeah, I was I was, you know, the store has had a lot of challenges through the years, not just when I was there. There's earthquake that destroyed it. Um, there was borders coming in down the street, there's ebooks, there's Amazon, there's change, yeah, there's just like there's on and on and on. And we've had a number of times where we've been close to closing the store from from being financially in the hole so much. And I was like, when COVID hit, I was like, this is not gonna happen on my watch. I am I am not gonna fail. I'm not gonna be the person that made Bookshop Santa Cruz close. Yeah. And so it's a little bit going back to what I was talking before. It was like, go, go, go. It's like, how do we survive? How do we fight for this? How do we do this thing? Yeah. And I think one of the things COVID taught us is you gotta slow down. Like you can't, uh, you can't just drive 150 miles per hour through the the thing just because you want it to will it to happen so badly. And that's not leadership when you do that. Um, but obviously it comes from your back, your, I don't know if it's baggage or whatever, your you know, belief system is making you do it. So I, you know, you gotta, you we had to stop. We had to check in with people, we had to make sure everyone was okay. We had to make sure safety was first. We had to, you know, there's a lot of things that made us have to slow down. And I think that's helped with a lot of future leadership moments where something happened and I just want to react and fix it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And I instead I stop and I say, you know what? I can think about this for a moment. I can get back to somebody about it. I can, I don't need to have that initial just like, okay, I'll take it on and run. Um, and so I think that was something that COVID really taught me about leadership in that way. And the second thing was really about values, about how you place values at the center of what you do. Because one of the things that COVID really brought about was everyone had a different personal definition of safety, of um, you know, all kinds of different things. Um and when you have 50 employees that each have their own definition, you have customers have their own definition, you have your own personal definition, you know, uh, then you're like, how do I make choices here when people want, like, you know, some of our staff is like, close the entire store for six months and all of us just go home and never work. And other people were like, we need to be the resource for all the kids in the community whose schools are shut down and we have to be open for them. Right. You know, if I see a person five feet away from me with a mask, that is a personal safety problem. And other people are like, no, let me help that person. You know, it's like, how do you make decisions? And we were making decisions endlessly during that time because nobody knew anything. And the only thing that I think got us through and still drives how I think about things, is I just can't be like, what are our core values? What are our core values? As long as I'm consistent with our core values, it's gonna be the best decision I can possibly make. It might not make everyone happy, it might not be the right decision, but I'm gonna be consistent to those core principles and um and communicate that. Obviously, you need to communicate what those are, and you have to make sure you buy-in to those core values. But I think that's something that um was a big kind of I don't know if it's a wake up call because Bookshop's always been driven by values. Yeah. But definitely for my sense of leadership style, I think it was a it was a moment because I was questioning everything. I was questioning whether I was the I didn't feel like I was the right person to make decisions because so many decisions I was making were medical.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And I'm not a doctor, but I had to make safety decisions for my staff. You know, so I was just like, I'm not the right person to be making this. I'm so risk averse. Should I be the one making this? I like there's all these things in my head that were, but at the end of the day, I was like, okay, if it aligns with this, this, and this, yeah, and these are what Bookshop holds dear. Yeah, it's the best decision I can make at this moment.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Speaking on values, um, like what are what how have how have you seen your personal values and like the values of the organization uh relate with one another when you're when you're doing this work?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, part of it was um when I started at the store, I worked on the sales floor and I um ran sections and I did a bunch of things, kind of just didn't know what it felt like on the day-to-day, like the customer flow and being the community's living room and all that kind of stuff. So a lot of ways the values of the store were so, you know, we're already there because of the earthquake experience and the community saving us and showing up for us and getting us through borders and saving us and showing up for us. So it's really was, you know, I embraced that. Um and then, but then we were failing financially when I took over because of all those factors. And so, you know, one of the things, one of my values is that I'm the only person at the store who's trying to figure out how to make the store be around 20 years from now. So many other people are making the store perfect for the moment.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And I'm the only person who's like, this should be here 30 years from now. How do I make that work? So there's a value of like sustainability that I needed to bring in. Otherwise, like all you can have all the great feeling values of the world about community and democracy and living room and all this stuff that Bookshop stands for. But if you don't have that sustainability piece, it's not gonna be there. Yeah. And it's not gonna be, and it's not fair to our employees. That's I'm my job is to keep them employed, like, and I take that very seriously. So that that's how I can combined the feeling that Bookshop always had. I grew up with, I saw an action with kind of okay, what do I need to bring to the table to make it work? And then I I still um when we hire new staff, I still train them for the first two and a half hours of the first day. And I walk them through the store and explain every decision we made and why, and then I go through the history and what's important about that. Um, because I do hope that from the very beginning they understand the value system of the store. Right. And I do say very clearly, like, if this is not right for you, this is not the right thing, you know, like you need to make a decision about whether this value system, which means if we're a community living room and we're a mission-based business, like it means chaos is gonna flow through our doors, you know, democracy is gonna be in front of us every single day. There'll be really hard conversations going on. And if you need like a quiet, safe workspace where like no controversial things ever happen, this is not the place for you, right? So we do talk about that a lot at the very beginning and make sure people feel like this is the place they want to be.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, what what would you what would you consider your personal values?
SPEAKER_01:I um I'm all about um treating people with respect. Yeah. I believe in our connection to each other, is the most important part of what makes us human. human. So things like building community and um being there for others. That's just like I think that's kind of like the meaning of, you know, someone's like, what's the meaning of life? Casey's meaning of life is that. So I I think it's a little bit of that. Um and so it's it's I I do think service really like a word of service really comes to mind. I think that is kind of the driving value of of my life. Yeah. Um you know and obviously family like what family means and yeah that mom. You know, all those things like there's there's things of like how do you how do you be a unit and then a larger unit of you know how you how do you nurture your family and then the larger unit of your extended family and then the larger unit of where you work and then the larger unit of the community and then you know all of those circles need to be nurtured and loved and respected and created. And I think that's that's my juice.
SPEAKER_03:I love that. Yeah. So this we're going to transition a little bit on um kind of like employee stuff, right? So like you know you you aren't in the position where you manage employees on like you know you have a manager but you also are in this position. And I'm wondering like you know what is what do you think the role of transparency is in that right like you know I hear a lot in leadership books and in seminars like transparency transparency transparency clarity all these things. Versus kind of like strategic holding you know what I mean like you know what what like what is your view on that kind of premise?
SPEAKER_01:I I mean I I think in general um we always lean more towards transparency. Yeah that's that's a way you're like when to do that you need to get people on the same page you need to the whole system has to be a place where people trust each other.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Otherwise nothing else kind of matters. So I think I think that if you withhold you still need to build that trust in other ways. So I I don't you know I we lean more towards transparency so I'm not exactly sure what that would look like for somebody who held back I do think that there's moments though at the store you know like we there is an owner of the store I actually don't own the store my dad still owns the store but like there's an owner of the store and we try to build this transparency in this world process but ultimately like we have to make decisions and we have information that is private. Right. Like I mean it's it's like a it's not a public company. It's not there's not shareholders. Right. There's um a family you know who at times have mortgaged their house to like make this happen. So there are things that need to be withheld yeah because it needs to kind of you know because because but there needs to be a belief in the transparency in the communication to know that whatever we're withholding we're doing to try to do the best by the people who work there and do the best by the store and not just do the best by ourselves. Right. Yeah. So um but you know like you know we we actually had a posted pay scale on the wall we had I would share our financials with our staff every year.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um and we still unionized and one of the things they said is they wanted more transparency. So like you know even you know so I I don't know so you know I there must have been something I wasn't being transparent enough around you know interesting um even though we had all of that posted and we shared it liberally with staff. But so there's always more to learn you know about how to do that right.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah so it's you it's officially unionized.
SPEAKER_01:Yes I didn't know that yeah yeah that was I mean we it unionized in COVID in 2020. So that tracks it was a very yeah it was and you know it was a very hard time for everybody in the store for making trying to feel safe and trying to figure out how to do that. And and you know and the store was on the edge of not existing and with so there's a lot going on. Um so probably the communication in that year kind of broke down a little bit. We were also at home we'd never been had a whole bunch of people at home and some people in the store there was a difference between the people who were at home and in the store and how much they felt there's a lot of contributing there's a lot of things that were going a lot of stuff about race and equity and um stuff um so yeah there was a lot of things going on.
SPEAKER_03:I'm always surprised about like some I'm always I'm fascinated about Bookshop because of you know it is like a like a hub of freedom freedom of speech kind of mentality right so there's this this essence of it's inevitable for there to be um conflicts and culture and you have like a lot of like well read people working there. You know what I mean? People who love books you know and love ideas and love theories and love practice you know all these different things. So I I always just imagine that that that would be an interesting thing to manage, you know like you know in in general. But um all that being said I'm sure and maybe I'm wrong but like some people you know uh like for for one do you do you get internally stressed at all? Like do you get anxiety or anything like that? Or are you just like are you just like I'm good. Like like like and like like with that anxiety like what are some strategies that you've found that has helped you be able to manage that or to move through harder times on an internal level?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah I yeah I'm always stressed. I I I think I came out of the womb that way though. I like I'm not sure we asked my brother anybody in my family they're just um I think I've always I'm a warrior I'm a risk averse person I'm stressed all the time and stuff. Um you know when my dad turned over the store it was a very quick process because he was running for office um and he was just like it's a marathon it's not a sprint. Yeah and it's hard because there's always more work to be done. And I think at some point you just have to accept that you're human and you can do the best you can today in this moment and then you're gonna wake up and do the best you can tomorrow.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_01:And you know I was a working mom I had two kids and my husband worked over the hill so I was the primary parent because I was the one in town who dealt like what so a lot of my days are running up and going to school and going back and going back and going back and back. And I basically felt like I just wasn't doing well on either front.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And all I could do was just repeat that mantra like every day just like you're doing the best you can you're doing the best you can and so I think um gratitude um just also being like you know if nothing if if I see the 17 things that are not working but I watch a customer come in and have a good experience and find a book that they love then that's a successful day. It's fine. And so just kind of gratitude humanness yeah um and I do think I mean talking about a value that I care about I really I worry that people are not giving people grace in the way that they deserve like you know that we just need um everyone's doing the best they can and then if someone makes a mistake it's like the world jumps and and there's definitely mistakes that you make that there's like no excuse for but I'm talking about the little daily stuff right um and so I just want to give myself that grace too I guess. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So I'm wondering when you or if if you find yourself I mean I think most people when they're dealing with stress or anxiety you know there's levels of it right you know but like when you are at a point where like becomes almost you know un almost unmanageable do you have anything that you just go to to do to calm yourself if get yourself back into a centered space if that could even be like taking day off or whatever.
SPEAKER_01:Like what what do you have anything you do or that you've really bad at that point even if it's weird even if it's like you know kind of like you should do yoga and I'm like oh god again but just like if the moment like as like a way to like get get through it.
SPEAKER_03:You compartmentalize you like you know what I mean like what is your like if it gets to that peak that peak moment.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I mean as any small business owner would say you wake up in the middle of the night worrying about things all the time right um it's because you take your job home with you right it's different than just having a job and like leaving it and going home. It's like you take it home. And so there's a lot of sleepless nights and I what I do for that is I listen to an audio book. Yeah. Um because I'm in my head and I'm swirling and I'm solving and I'm making lists and whatever. And the only way to get myself out of that is to like listen to some other story that takes my imagination, my brain power and puts it into that story.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So I've really I've gotten through a lot of audiobooks in the middle of the night uh which helps with my job. But um but I think that's the way that I kind of de-stress on that level um I think for a lot of it is just like taking a moment with my kids, you know, at the end of the day and remembering what's important. I think the ocean here is Yeah we're so lucky. I don't I don't do it enough but every time I go down to the water and just look at it, hear it and watch it, uh it totally changes my stress level.
SPEAKER_03:Oh man. Um I love that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And then the other thing is you know I love like if I have a hobby it's I love traveling.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Which you can only do so much with with kids and stuff. But we've prioritized it because it's the one place I feel like I don't have my to-do list. There's nothing I can do about my to-do list when I'm traveling. Yeah and there's nothing I can do about the store when I'm traveling. It it has to people here have to run it and it has to be and I can be uh fine with every decision they're making and so I've used trips as a way to have a moment where the life of it is not like just weighing on me. And I've found that that's been really important for me.
SPEAKER_03:It's such a it's such a good thing.
SPEAKER_01:It's a privilege you know like to have that opportunity to get away to do that but that's how I've used it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:That makes complete sense. Yeah and I and I I yeah I love that uh and so um if you had any advice to for um like you know people emerging leaders or anything like that based on now who where you are and what you've dealt with and your history like what what what kind of parting wisdom would you give with these for people coming up uh into leadership roles uh a couple things I I mean the first thing I would say is leadership is a people driven enterprise yeah and when I went to business school for one of my degrees and there's we had to take classes on um on kind of like uh motivation and leadership various things like that and a lot of the kind of like finance bros were like that's the that's the easy classes that's the classes you don't pay attention to that's like the soft skills you know and I'm like actually I bet 20 years from now when you come back and you're whatever finance bro in Wall Street you're gonna find out that those soft things are what drives the most part of your day and the most success in your organization.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But I think everyone thinks about the skill, the real skill set for the particular job they want and the you know the whatever it's it's all about people. It's about um whether it's be about who you work with and the relationships you build and then the kind of avenues that are open to you that networking that I think young people are not understanding these days. Like they don't understand how to network in a way the same way that we kind of grew up with to building relationships and and making things work as a company not just because you're meeting your targets but also because the whole system is working towards those you know totally so it's just very people based and I think I I hope that people pay attention to that um mainly uh a little bit. And I don't I I don't know I think you just have to figure out what motivates you about leadership and then dig into that part of it. It doesn't have to look the same. There's different as I said at the beginning there's different styles there's different avenues.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So don't let anybody ever, you know, if you grew up in a household where you had a leader and everyone's like well the Johnny's the leader and you're the the the nice person. Like that might you know like I know people that have grown up and they've been told a story their whole life about who they should be. Right. And I just like hope people kind of realize there's lots of different avenues and they can they just need to kind of find those moments to kind of discover that about themselves. That's awesome. Because it's yeah yeah yeah those are a couple things.
SPEAKER_03:I mean there's so many there's so many levels of stuff but uh no I love that um so we have a few more here uh you know on top of like that you know I've I guess I've talked a lot about courage and I've seen like the idea of courage like facing fears and uh discomfort and I'm wondering wondering if you've had experiences in doing this work that you would consider courageous for yourself.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah I mean I think a lot of times um you have to make decisions where there's no right or wrong answer but you there needs to be a brave answer and you need to go with it. So you know one of the hardest things about the store is you're talking about like what's on our shelves is, you know, there are authors who have done bad things in their personal life who've written great pieces of art.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:There are people where the books themselves are problematic and can hurt people. And we need to make a decision about what to do with all of those situations.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And there's it's there's there's not a right or wrong answer because you have to remember that we're profiting off of this. You know it's one thing if you're like a library or like a university system stuff, but we're we're profiting off of what's selling, right? Yeah. Um so even if we make the right decision, keep it on the shelf but don't promote it and have one spin and but don't you know all the things we can do to be like we're not gonna ban this but we also don't want to promote it but we're also gonna treat it this way and we also realize it hurts people and also ultimately we're gonna make money off of that book which is weird. And so all you can do and every decision is so specific to the book and the content and the author and what happened and what was proven. Yeah it's just it's endless. All you can do is say I'm gonna take in all the information I can yeah and make the best decision I can and then sit with that bravely and be like we are standing here in a very messy democracy being messy ourselves. Please bear with us as we try to figure this out. Yeah. And it's scary because you because you're hurting people you know we have books that are anti-trans or something and we have trans, well not just trans employees but anybody who's you know like having to sell that book but we also don't know why someone's buying that book. Are they a trans advocate who's trying to figure out what the other side is saying exactly so they can counter you can't you don't know why that's happening. Yeah. You know there's definitely books that we're like we're not gonna carry that because our custom like you know we're a private business so we get to make those choices but it's it's hard to sit in that space and be like I know that this is hurting some people but I don't know if the act of this person purchasing it is actually hurting or helping and I have to just make the best decision I can. Yeah. And know that the consequences are from my decision making. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:No pressure.
SPEAKER_01:No pressure you know uh it's it's hard. So those are the kinds of brave decisions that um right we try to make you know yeah we made mistakes and we've hopefully get more thoughtful with every single one of them.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah of course yeah I love that um okay so this is kind of a specific question for you. Okay. Um top three books that you recommend for leaders oh my goodness you know this is the one question I should have prepared for I know I know but this is just on top of your head like like what what what if you could if you can kind of like think about it you know just right now and like if you had any books that kind of come to mind that you're like you know what actually this seems like a good book or this seems like a good book or this has helped me or something.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Wow um this is definitely the whole catalog of bookstores I may do yeah I have a whole catalog but of course I'm just like okay what did I read 20 years ago that like made a difference in my life um uh I mean to go back to the human connection of things um this has nothing to do with leadership uh but it's a book called Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams and it's actually the um the author's mother is is dying of cancer and she's a naturalist at the Great Salt Lakes and she goes and kind of charts the process of her mother's kind of slow demise with the lakes receding and the environmental kind of stuff damaging and stuff. Yeah. But what it does is it just really makes you think about like the ebb and flow of the universe and and our humanity and what's important. And I do think that has grounded me as a person to kind of be like okay what's the most like at the end of the day with all these decisions all these things like what's the most important and what's actually life about and all that kind of stuff. And I think that comes out of that place of gratitude that I think really helps kind of be a leader. Funny my staff would say Harry Potter right and and again problematic author but um there's so many examples of different ways that people approach that situation right and so like like in as in leadership. As in leadership like Dumbledore's leadership versus you know Harry's courage versus Hermione's brain like there's like it's it's a really fascinating that's been like such a saga in the world with with JK Rowling's perspective on things and then like just like the love of Harry Potter definitely around that community specifically you know it is so heartbreaking and but on that note of leadership I I do ask myself some days what would Dumbledore do?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah you know like in this situation.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah you know and it actually has fruit very good decision making yes you know it's true I mean although he wasn't very transparent that's one of the things that drives me crazy about him was like just tell Harry what's going on here.
SPEAKER_02:Why are we you knew he was gonna die this whole time what the what are you what are you doing man?
SPEAKER_01:Exactly exactly yeah no we have a really hard time because of JK rolling and not wanting to support her but the books themselves one they're a gateway for reading for kids. Totally and they a whole generation of people have read because of it and the story itself is just very It's amazing in terms of imagination and life and what it cul the culture it's created and people being super nerds about it. It's just so cool to see.
SPEAKER_03:Alright, I'm gonna be a nerd for a little bit, just as on a little bunny trail here. This is my problem. Um one, do you what what kind of leadership would you look at when you're looking at the Harry Potter characters? Like what what what's something that kind of like sticks out to you?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_03:And then two, what house are you in?
SPEAKER_01:You know, it's so funny. I I I've done I've done the online quizzes, of course. Um and I was Hufflepuff, and I was just like, you know, does anyone really want to be Hufflepuff? Anyways, I everyone says But at the same time, I'm not Slytherin, obviously. I'm hopefully I'm not Griffinder because I'm actually very risk-averse. I'm not that courageous. Yeah. Um, you know, I'd hope it would be Ravenclaw, but I do like I am a feeler, not a you know, like I definitely take the feeling. So I think it does make sense that I'm a Hufflepuff.
SPEAKER_03:Um but just look at a lot of shit, but they're like, they're like good people. They're good people, right? They're good people, they're good people, and service-oriented, and very like, yeah, it seems like a like a that's seems like a thing.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, if I was gonna study one leader from the series, it would be Snape. Ooh. Just because what he had to do. Selfless. Yeah, on both sides, and like manage that through all of that thing.
SPEAKER_03:There's so much complications there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, that I think that's the most interesting of the of the leaders. Um, you know, and then you have someone like Neville who comes out of nowhere, and you know, like, anyways, there's all kinds of yeah, there's all kinds of I don't know. There's all kinds of fun things to think about. Think about that. You can go down in the world.
SPEAKER_03:Cool. All right. So what's this third book?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, a third book.
SPEAKER_03:Um Yeah, you can't Harry Potter doesn't count. You can't be like all three Harry, all the Harry Potters, all they're all seven Harry, yeah, yeah. You actually did more than enough.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:See now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna think about this question for like a week and a half, and then I'm gonna send you an email with every book that I've ever read that has something to do with leadership.
SPEAKER_03:You can still do that. I'll throw it into the description and link and link bookshop Santa Cruz to it.
SPEAKER_01:Um I mean, uh so more recently, just one that like helped me in the last year is um Charles Dewig's Super Communicators. Okay, yeah. Um, and he's you know, lives in Santa Cruz. He's a friend of the store. Does he live in Santa Cruz? He does, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I had no idea.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. He's the power of habit and yeah, I I've read his books.
SPEAKER_03:I I haven't read this one.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, he lives in Santa Cruz. And um this has really helped me. Um, you know, there's a lot of division right now, and there's a lot of yeah, the communication isn't thoughtful and you know, the way the what's going on in the world right now. And one of the things he really talks about is you have to understand what kind of conversation you're having, yeah, to have that conversation work.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And so um his book, Super Communicators, is like, are you having a fix-it conversation? Are you having a, you know, like there's lots of different ways to approach that? But if you don't go in with the right understanding to begin with, you're doomed to fail. Um, and I think that's been really helpful for meeting people where they are, for overcoming divisions.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, and for moments where he like there was a moment where I was like struggling, struggling, struggling. And I reached out to him and he's like, Let me ask you this question. Do you even do you want this to be a conversation or do you just want to make a decision on this? And I was like, Oh, that's true too. There's moments where I have to just make the decision and move on.
SPEAKER_03:That's right. That's right.
SPEAKER_01:And it's and I was treating everything as a conversation, which just slowed it and just brought more and more angst. And sometimes people just like want the direction and then enough. Um, and so I think that book has really helped me recently think through approaches to communicating and to, you know, being a leader.
SPEAKER_03:I think, yeah, even on that note, I mean that's a great, those are all great examples. But you know, I don't know. I don't know if this was the case and whatever decision that was making. Sometimes I think when you get too entrenched in like making everything a conversation, which is great, but like, you know, sometimes it there is a sense of like, I don't know, I've I've felt it in myself where I'm like almost putting off my own responsibility onto the like like, oh, let's have a communicate, let's talk about this. You know, because I like I don't want to make the hard call, you know? And sometimes like it's finding that balance, right? Between like, and it's never like super clear. It's like always you have to be checking in with yourself and and with like what's needed. So it's never like this is the way you were gonna do this, right? It's not like a clean thing, you know. And um I just resonated with that a lot because I think there's it's like it's not as intuitive as you would think, right? Because uh on paper, it like make everything in a conversation sounds good, right? But it's also leaning into like that black and white thinking, yeah, it's leaning into that kind of all these different problematic things where sometimes someone just needs to make you need it as a leader to make this decision, even though it's gonna piss off a lot of people.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. Um and but it's it's for the good of the of the the collective, of to like make that decision and know someone's in charge and someone's taking responsibility for it and moving on with it.
SPEAKER_03:Versus like, let's like talk about this for days. And then you know, I think it's a tricky balance because then you if you go on too much on the full responsibility kick, right? Then you're just like the tyrant of this, you know.
SPEAKER_01:And that's and you have to you have to really look inside yourself and say, you know, am do I really do I need want feedback to make this decision better, right? Because engaging for days on a topic works if you're like, I don't know what to do, and I want all these different perspectives and I want to make this happen. If you know what decision you're gonna make, yeah, and then you engage in this whole long talking process and you make people invested, and then you just come out and make that decision anyways, then you've just lost trust with everybody.
SPEAKER_03:That's that's it. So it's almost feels like a symbolic. Like you're just like, you're just like, yeah, yeah. You know, you see politicians do it a lot, right? You know, as a strategy, you know what I mean? Like, let's hear from the community. They already know what their decisions are. Yeah, they want to be on record saying they they heard from the community in the community.
SPEAKER_01:People can see through that and now definitely now. They don't, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Totally.
SPEAKER_00:They're just like totally I know.
SPEAKER_03:You're gonna take from us, we're gonna take from you.
unknown:Totally.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So yeah, it I think it makes it worse to talk about it for days.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:If you if they can tell that you already knew what you were gonna do, yeah. Um, than not going through the not doing the process and just making this it's just so I really think you it's a really an it's an internal look at what you're trying to need out of the situation, what you're trying to get out. Yeah. Whether you think the decision will be better with more input, you know. Well, um, anyways, it's a very it's just like a such an interesting perspective.
SPEAKER_03:It's just like, oh my gosh, that I've I've been there.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. And I'm like, oh yeah. Just talk about it a few more times. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe the decision will go away, which everything will be fine.
SPEAKER_03:Um, okay. So here's the last part. You know, where can people find you or like or A, where can people find you? Or is there just anything you want to say, you know, to the people?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
unknown:To the people.
SPEAKER_01:Uh well, you can find me at Bookshop. Um, I well, especially during the holiday season, I'm working on the sales floor. I love seeing people um on the sales floor and stuff like that. I I really do, you know, Bookshop exists because the community saved us over and over and over and over again. So we're there for the community. So when you hopefully when you come in the store, you you feel that and we want to we want to have those conversations, give back, have create a community of like-minded people that um you know love some of the same values that we talked about earlier and stuff like that. So I'll be in the I'll be in the middle of that, um, is where I will be living. Um I uh I think that I don't know. I mean maybe this is it's a little self-serving, but I think we need books right now. Um I think we need empathy that comes from reading fiction. I think we need to take a step back and not decide that we have all the answers in the first three seconds of hearing about an issue and yell at the other side. I think we need to reflect through thoughtfulness of nonfiction. I think we need to grapple with the messiness. I think we need to have a bunch of ideas that might not pan out, but like, you know, they all help figure stuff out. Um, and then I'll say it again. I think we need the fiction for the empathy because I really think that we're lagging.
SPEAKER_00:We're lacking.
SPEAKER_01:Uh I think people who read fiction just are more empathetic people because you're living in other people's stories and other people's realities. So that's my final, like that's my thing. I think uh to be a good leader, it I I hope that you're a good reader.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Oh, I love that. Oh my god. Should I make t-shirts? That should be a t-shirt. I would have that t-shirt. Damn, that's a good one. I'm gonna have to remember that one for this. Yeah. Um, yeah. And like, what's uh so okay, just like this is in the shop, Bookshop Santa Cruz. They have a uh when you're in the Reader's Club, they have this thing with the receipts. Yes, and you get like a reward or something.
SPEAKER_01:So it's a free program. Yeah, um, it's our way of saying thank you. Um after every 20 items you buy, you get the average price back, so 5% back. And um, so after and there's no timeline, there's no what it's almost everything in the store. And so you just you read and read and read, and then you get a free book. And every 20 items you get a free something and uh basically a credit worth to buy something for yourself.
SPEAKER_03:It's kind of crazy. I'm like, I've had so many of those sheets, and I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing for my finances, but for my head, it's great. But it's called book math, which is like but I like the so someone recently because I you know, because you get the receipt and you have to use the receipt to pay for the book.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um, and I had like so like sometimes I'll like like lose track or whatever. Someone gave they're like, hey, like we just usually put it in a gift certificate sleeve, yes, and put it in the wall. Yes. I don't know how many of these I've had. And like now that it makes complete sense. And now I'm like, man, I can't wait for the next one. But I know how to I know how to keep it.
SPEAKER_01:It's like the little tips tips that you get, and you're like, wait, what? I've been doing that my whole life. Yeah, it's the small things, yeah. It is true. People lose them all the time. But um, I I always say it's it's like me handing you$20. Don't lose that$20. So but yeah, putting it in a sleeve is is the best way to do it. But yeah, that are we have I think 40,000 Readers Club members or something, and that's our those are our people, yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I just love that program. Um well, Casey, it's been so much fun chatting with you. Thanks for having me. This has been a treat. Uh thank you so much for coming on.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and just to say that you help us figure out how to be better leaders because you train us in in all these issues that come up and really help us work through it. So your your work is central to us figuring out how to do what we do better.
SPEAKER_03:Well, we're in a community together, right? You know, and we're I think service is a big part of that, right? And like whatever, however, we can show up, you know, in a way that's in alignment and like help help this place be better, you know what I mean? And and ex and thrive, you know what I mean? Like I just I'm I'm just uh honored to be be here.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, me too. Thanks for having me. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So this has been Speak for Change Podcast. I'm your host, Thomas H. Petterson. Thank you so much for listening and have a wonderful day.