#04: The Kindness Revolution: Why Compassion Is Today’s Most Disruptive Leadership Tool

Steve Gasser (00:02.25)
What if kindness was the most disruptive leadership tool of our time? Welcome to the Remarkable Podcast. I’m Steve Gasser and today’s episode invites you to rethink everything you thought you knew about strength, leadership, and impact. My guest, Bo Young, is affectionately known as the ambassador of kindness. In a world that’s moving fast and, quite frankly, growing louder, he’s leading a quiet revolution.

So whether you’re a CEO, a coach, or someone trying to lead your family through hard times, this conversation will stir something deep in you. And we’re not just talking about kindness. We’re actually talking about courage. So I’m really excited to get into this conversation. Let’s begin. Bo, so good to have you here.

Bo Young (00:52.534)
Mr. Steve Gasser my friend, how are you?

Steve Gasser (00:54.97)
Yeah, I’m very well. Another beautiful day here in Minnesota.

Bo Young (00:56.707)
Good.

Yes it is, shining, the wind’s not howling, it’s glorious.

Steve Gasser (01:04.058)
I love that word. You know, I know many people know you as the CEO of kindness, the ambassador of kindness, but before we get into that title, tell us a little bit more about you. About you.

Bo Young (01:15.778)
me. Let’s see. I think there’s a lot we can talk about but we’ll condense that because I get a little wordy sometimes Steve.

proud husband to Colleen Young for 23 years and proud father of three incredible daughters. I got one graduating college here in December, another one who’s a couple years behind and another one just wrapping up freshman year high school. I think me first and foremost, I think of as I’m a family guy and.

Steve Gasser (01:34.882)
A girl dad.

Bo Young (01:50.338)
dedicated to my little team at home. That’s why my feet hit the ground in the morning. And then a proud business owner. I’ve been an entrepreneur or self-employed business person for many, years. I’ve just celebrated 20 years in my current role as an agent with American Family Insurance. So thank you. Thank you. It’s been quite a journey.

Steve Gasser (02:08.954)
Congratulations. 20 years. And being a girl dad, I’m a girl dad too, three girls, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Bo Young (02:17.228)
No, I wouldn’t know how to handle the boys. But I think I’ve done reasonably well with the girls and it’s an honor, yeah.

Steve Gasser (02:25.69)
So tell me about this. So I guess I heard it a couple of ways, ambassador of kindness, CEO of kindness. Where did this come from?

Bo Young (02:33.358)
Yeah, I even had the CKO, Chief Kindness Officer, which was, it has a nice little ring to it, Yeah, interesting enough, that came out, it’s been multiple years now, but I had joined a group.

Steve Gasser (02:37.834)
Ooh, I like that. Yeah.

Bo Young (02:51.21)
a national nonprofit called the Kindness Revolution. I saw some value in that and it’s an organization that finds ways to catch people doing things right. And it starts with the bracelet and if you catch somebody doing something nice for somebody else, take physically take the bracelet off your wrist and you give it to the other person. And then it’s a pay it forward kind of concept. And so that organization allowed business owners in different communities to kind of become the hub for kindness. And you signed up with them, they provided

the wristbands and some of marketing support. And that was the whole goal, is just recognizing people. And so it became quite a hit in here in Hutchinson. We were recognized in the schools and we had hundreds, if not maybe thousands of wristbands circulating throughout our community. So that’s where my alignment with kindness was really noticed.

Steve Gasser (03:47.162)
And that kind of goes along with my next question. So you may have just answered it. What is the moment or experience that first made you realize kindness had power? And was that really it?

Bo Young (03:54.466)
You know, I can think back long before that of a time when I saw kindness really resonate. And I mean, it’s the fact that it still sticks with me today. Actually, back in 2008,

We were living in a community in Iowa. We were about less than 20 miles from the town of Parkersburg, Iowa. And Parkersburg had in May had, I believe it was originally an EF5 tornado or EF4 at the very minimum.

tornado so it was 20 miles away from my home it completely leveled a majority of that town and so that happens eight people were killed hundreds of homes were damaged it was a big deal okay and it’s a tight community fast forward to there was flooding there’s other problems and ultimately what happened is the coach of the football team in that tight-knit community was killed he was shot killed

by one of his prior students. And the community really rallied around that family and all that. But here’s the key thing, and it was a long way to get to this. The sons of Ed that was killed, when they first were interviewed or asked about their father having been murdered, their response was, we need to pray for the family, right?

But really highlighted, need to lean into the young man that did this and his family. And it was not real customary. The first reaction is to find forgiveness for somebody and to see if we can find support for them. And it was profound. was like, whoa. They ended up, believe, on ESPN and nominated for and or won an SB for that compassionate response.

Bo Young (05:53.736)
and the way they handled the situation. And then ultimately the community came together. The football field is known as the Sacred Acre. Really, really, it’s just an amazing community story. So I saw kindness being a way to heal and to get people together.

Steve Gasser (06:12.546)
I’ve often heard you say that it’s kind of your superpower.

Bo Young (06:16.494)
Yeah, it can be. It really can be. And I think some people will probably talk about it at some point, but you can see it as a weakness, right? As a vulnerability. And I disagree. I disagree wholeheartedly. think Father Greg Boyle, if you’ve never heard of him, he’s out in California, Homeboy Industries. I have my wife has a mug from, or a water bottle from there. And it says, in the end, you realize that kindness is the only strength there is.

And another person that I follow kind of from a distance, Gary Vee, right? Kind of a loud, outspoken guy, but kindness is something he preaches over and over and over and is a strength in business, is a strength as a human. it’s, I don’t know, I’ve really, it really resonates with me. I think it’s the only way to be.

Steve Gasser (07:09.53)
think, you know, most people think of Gary Vee, a strong, loud guy, but yeah, he really does have a heart for kindness and giving back.

Bo Young (07:16.174)
Yeah, he just, he kinda hides it behind some F words here and there, but he’s got some colorful language, right? But at the same time, I believe he runs his organizations with kindness, so.

Steve Gasser (07:20.058)
Yes, he does.

Steve Gasser (07:28.58)
So, you know, in these moments where leadership calls for tough decisions, how do you stay rooted in kindness without becoming, you know, passive or permissive?

Bo Young (07:39.01)
Yeah, so I think whether it be in business or just as a human, right, as a parent, you can be firm, you can be fair, you can have consequences, can request or desire results, but your overall communication strategy and the way that you handle either things that fell short or, you know, somebody not necessarily doing what was asked of them, how you respond to that with just compassion.

instead of an accusatory tone, instead of all the other ways that that could go, right? And we see this in leadership leadership across the world. We see some leaders that you just can’t fathom working for, right? Because they’re just they’re harsh. And others that I could work with and for are ones that lead with compassion and they seem to get better results. Right? When you

When you see that kind of starts with the fact that in recognizing that literally all of us have challenges, we all struggle. Some of us daily, some of us every other day, some of us not that often, but there’s struggles in life for all of us. And if you just accept that and see that in humans, I think you can bring the best out of people as a leader when you can lead with some empathy. It doesn’t make you weak.

Steve Gasser (09:02.912)
You don’t see all the struggles that people are going through. They’re all going through their individual struggles. think leaders really define culture and leading with kindness is a great approach.

Bo Young (09:08.739)
Yeah.

Bo Young (09:15.65)
Yeah, and I think it’s just a, it’s a model for life. Steve, you and I, by the time we get home today, we’ll likely cross paths with somebody that may have had a tough time getting out of bed today, that may have cried over their lunch hour, that may have just, they’re dealing with something. And so if you can, you know, walk through your life recognizing that and be that breath of fresh air for somebody or that reason for them to just keep that foot going in front of them. You know, I…

I think that’s a really powerful thing.

Steve Gasser (09:48.602)
So how do you start, how do you weave kindness or even that value into your culture?

Bo Young (09:56.406)
You know, I think that a lot of things on any values or any way you want to have part of your culture is good communication. Right. I see that with your organization. see that things are very clearly defined about what your goals are. And so as a team, know, even just the idea of, we’re going to I want to sign up for this. I want to be a part this. We’re going to spend money to be a part of this organization so that we could do this, never knowing the consequences that that was going to have. So I think

Weaving it requires buy-in. It requires conversations with your teams and coworkers and say, here’s what I’m thinking. And if it would have been, no, I don’t think that’s a good idea at all, I probably would have said, okay, I guess we won’t do it. But when I have a team that was, yeah, I think this is a really good idea. Let’s try it. Let’s be willing to take that risk. And then we just see it.

throughout all the things that we do, whether we have tough customer interactions or we, some challenging conversations, we know that we just have got to stay grounded in kindness and realize that, you know, a lot of times people are coming at us with some tension for either the rates or the claim or there’s things in my world, right? But if we understand that that might be their smallest problem in life and that we’re just kind of taking the brunt of a lot of different things behind the scenes.

then we can just have a conversation and try to sit down and walk through things. It’s just so much better than getting defensive and walking people out the door. We’d rather them sit down and let’s have a good conversation. So I think weaving it in is just, it’s intentional and it has to be, it’s a daily thing.

Steve Gasser (11:39.418)
So have any other examples where maybe a time when kindness completely changed the direction of a situation? Maybe one that looked like it was going to head towards conflict or failure?

Bo Young (11:48.526)
I could probably point to a few, Steve, in many, many years in business. I can think back to a really, really challenging claim that I had in my business, right? Where tensions were high. One party wants one thing, another party wants another thing, and it’s going to end one of two ways. It’s going to end in a client that’s no longer a client.

or it’s going to end up with a client that maybe has even greater trust and respect for the team that they work with. And I had an example of one where it was, you know, voices are getting little louder and there’s energy in the room and it ended with a hug. And that’s powerful because it could have easily changed the trajectory of that relationship by not being able to just settle down, see each other’s side, listen to understand, you know.

not respond. And yeah, that was, I could give lots of those claim stories, I think, but that’s one that really stands out in the last couple of years.

Steve Gasser (12:59.62)
sneeze.

Bo Young (13:01.133)
You

Steve Gasser (13:02.298)
edit that piece out. So what is one action, one act of kindness you’d challenge everybody to take today?

Bo Young (13:13.932)
You know, I think I would start with being kind to yourself.

Steve Gasser (13:17.998)
Ooh.

Bo Young (13:19.052)
Just start with you. Just give yourself a little bit of grace, right? For wherever you’re at in today’s world. Maybe you’ve been real hard on yourself for failing to meet this goal or for the last time you raised your voice or something you said. Just start with you. Give yourself a little bit of grace. Because we are often hardest on ourselves. And if you’re constantly judging yourself, it means you’re probably on the outward side. You’re judging others. But if you’re…

seeing yourself with a little compassion, it’s easier to see others with compassion. So I would say start with you and just find a moment to say, you know, I’m pretty good. And then from there, it might be as simple as send a quick text, make a quick call, do something in gratitude for somebody else and remind them how important they are to you. And if you did that to one person a day, it’d be amazing what it would change for you and the other parties.

Steve Gasser (14:16.57)
text message, a phone call.

Bo Young (14:17.964)
Right? Yeah. Simple. It doesn’t have to write a letter that surprises them in a week. know, I mean, anything that is about somebody else, it can lift you up to there. There is science behind the biochemical reaction to being nice, right? It produces oxytocin. It helps hearts and cardiovascular systems. It slows aging. It’s truly contagious. There’s science behind this. And so start with you and spread it.

Steve Gasser (14:48.474)
I love it.

Bo Young (14:49.283)
Yeah.

Steve Gasser (14:51.066)
So what’s next for you, Bo? And how can we support your mission of spreading kindness?

Bo Young (14:56.972)
You know, it’s interesting. So we’ve, we, we no longer a part of that nonprofit, right? And it was just something we just took them, kind of kept the energy behind it and, and it kept doing things. So I don’t see the, the, the William Young agency or Bo Young changing and being a kind organization, finding ways to give. I would say what’s next is finding more ways to give, finding more ways to volunteer. There’s that does so many things for.

person and for a community. I had taken a back seat to a few things. I was a little overexposed, overexpended, you will, overextended and involved too many things. I pulled back a little bit and now it’s time for me to find a way to get back into giving. just had two volunteer sessions this morning. It fuels your soul, you know, and so that’s what’s next for me is doing that. I think if you

Steve Gasser (15:36.666)
So easy to do.

Bo Young (15:55.062)
It’s been proven over and over in my life that if you give not to get, you get far more than you could ever give. And so not seeking any kind of reward, but giving of your time, energy, resources, whatever you can do is really, really a powerful thing. So more of that.

Steve Gasser (16:17.402)
What I’ve enjoyed about getting to know you is, I love talking to business owners that really care, they’re passionate about what they do. And you’ve been with American Family for 20 years now. Yeah. And your team, they’re like family to you. And you’re so engaged in the community. mean, those are three things I love about you. And then being the ambassador of kindness, just leading, providing a good role model for your team and for the community.

Bo Young (16:26.926)
20 years, yeah.

Bo Young (16:31.818)
Mm-hmm. That’s…

Bo Young (16:38.286)
Thank you.

Steve Gasser (16:47.45)
I just really appreciate you and being on this podcast today.

Bo Young (16:51.682)
Thank you and I appreciate the opportunity to visit with you. Always love our conversations as often as we can see each other and chat and yeah, I’m honored to be on it and hopefully the message is valuable.

Steve Gasser (17:04.666)
So one final piece of advice you would want to leave. There’s one thing that we’re going to remember at the end of this podcast. What should that be?

Bo Young (17:14.358)
You know, think, just the final piece is that kindness starts with you. It really does, it starts with you, and it starts with you being kind to yourself. But I think that’s the key takeaway for anybody, I think, is find a way to get out of your own way and focus on others and the rewards will be plentiful.

Steve Gasser (17:39.77)
Thank you so much for being part of the podcast.

Bo Young (17:41.88)
Thank you, you are remarkable. Thanks Steve. You too.

Steve Gasser (17:44.246)
You are too. Have a great day.