Our WellSpring

Uva: [00:00:00] [00:01:00] I'll just ask to begin, how are you? How are you today? How are you feeling? How are you coming into our time together?

Jessica: Feeling a little anxious and a little bit tired. That's mostly how I'm feeling today.

Joanna: I would ditto that. A little anxious, a little tired, but also excited just to see where the conversation goes. I think it's just an opportunity to reflect on what we've built and that is, it's always a good thing to do because we surprise ourselves sometimes, I think.

Jessica: hope we will. Yeah.

Uva: Well, my goal then will be to make sure that by the end of this conversation, we can [00:02:00] maybe turn down the knob on the anxiety just a little bit. And hopefully we get we land in a, in an even better place. But I get the anxiety. I have a little bit of jitters as well. I think a good place to start would be to just hear a little bit about who you are.

Tell us for those who don't know you Jessica and Joanna, tell us a little bit about who you are.

Joanna: Well, I'm Joanna Berwind youngest member of four, four siblings, the fifth generation in a family business that was started in the late 1800s, co founder of SpringPoint Partners with my siblings and founder of The Hive whose mission is to amplify voice choice and opportunity for all young people.

And mother of Suri.

Uva: I love that you smiled even more at that last part. Thank you for that. And Jessica.

Jessica: And I am Jessica Berwind, second of four in my family. [00:03:00] Mother of one. I'm going to start there. Mother of one and stepmother of, others. And co founder of SpringPoint Partners, which I cannot believe is, you know, has had quite the runway that it's had already. Not the runway though. Can't believe it's been around for as long as it has now. I'm an artist, I'm a metalsmith, I'm also a painter occasionally, and I live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Uva: That Philadelphia. You both touched on, I think, one of the main reasons we're here, which is to talk about SpringPoint partners. I think there's, there's this formal language we all use when we talk about SpringPoint, right? How we work with those individuals, networks solutions, leaders. Who are really powering change, change we care deeply [00:04:00] about.

But I would, I would ask if you were talking to friends, if you were talking to family, right? And they ask about this thing called Spring Point. How would you respond to that in a way that really told them the heart of the work, told them about the heart of why this thing exists. So if you were, if you were at that social event and someone said, I heard about this spring point thing.

What is it? How would you describe it then?

Jessica: that is a great question. And it's a, it's a question I've actually been thinking about myself. I have actually had to go back to the website because I don't have an elevator pitch for what is SpringPoint. I generally call it a just an organization that works around issues of social justice that [00:05:00] has iterated over time into that form but it's also animal justice and all kinds of other justice besides just human justice

i, I need to bone up on my elevator speak about what SpringPoint Partners and Ember is. I see it as a growing and evolving organization even as young as it is.

Uva: Mmm-hmm.

Jessica: exactly what it is,

Uva: and that's a perfect place to go and, and exactly why I said the, the formal language is one thing, But I think it's the it

Jessica: It's important. I mean, I do send, I send people to the website. I really do, because it's, it's multi layered, it's multi dimensional, it's not one thing. It's many different things which is, I think, part of the problem with elevator speak, you know, your elevator speech.

Joanna: I heard the question differently and I'm glad because I don't have elevator speak either and I'm horrible at it. What I heard you ask, you know, network [00:06:00] solutions leaders is, is more what we've, where we've gotten. But the heart of why it exists. goes way back to the, to the origin story.

And so to me, those were, those were my notes as Jessica was talking. Just, I mean, I, I think we looked at dad. legacy and looked at each other and said, why? For what? For what purpose? And, and really looked at it as an opportunity to do something, to learn something, to experiment, to make change.

But, but the notion of like, let's use this opportunity and Jessica I think is more articulate about the True origin story of years ago, but I also really felt personally like I had three, three offspring that, that I, I feel very responsible for [00:07:00] the whole Berwyn enterprise slash organization and always viewed doing something like spring point as what I always called an another atom on the molecule of this thing so that future generations could attach.

To a source of the wealth, not just by working at the business, that there was, there was a lot more that could, you could, different ways to connect and handles to, to grab onto. So that would be my answer about like what was in my heart at the, at the beginning of all this.

Uva: So one thing that, that comes up for me is how much easier I think it would have been to simply say, here's the enterprise and we can just assume expected positions and run with it. Right. And instead I'm curious about what happened. That caused you, your siblings, to kind of think about a different [00:08:00] expression of the work, like how you might be able to put your personal touch on it, how you might be able to maybe scaffold, right?

Build on what was there but also shift gears a little bit or a lot and, and land in a completely different place. I imagine those were There were quite a few conversations Catherine, of course, talks about this kitchen table conversation. But even before that, I wonder what was happening, Jessica, I know you tend to be so in tune with your body.

We, we know that we always talk about the body, your body keeps the score. And as a person who leans on her intuition as well, can you take us back to what was going on in your body, in your heart, in your mind that made you say, you know what? We need to do something different.

Jessica: Well, I mean, I'll, I'll try and make this, summarize it, but for, as I think you know, for about 10 years I had an art gallery in Philly. And when I decided to close it for a really lack of revenues and lack of [00:09:00] sustainability I was in my mid thirties and had really never engaged with the enterprise, a Berwind Corporation.

I didn't ever feel there was a place for me there, so I didn't try. But when I closed the gallery, I, I decided I really needed to dip my toe into the, the Berworld universe and see how it felt. You know, was it hot? Was it cold? Was it, you know? body temperature. And I worked at ColorCon for about a year, mostly in marketing.

And then I, when I was pretty much kicked out of there by the, the CEO of ColorCon. Because he said he needed the office, but I think, I think he just didn't

Uva: might be a little story there.

Jessica: But it was a really good experience and you know, I consulted with a whole bunch of people, some of whom were in dad's orbit, Jim Hamling, Lawrence Carlson, and they kind of helped guide me along this, this Journey of sort of [00:10:00] looking and experimentation to see if there was a place for me within the family enterprise, which I just didn't feel there was.

I remember sitting on a bench in the, in Rittenhouse square. Exactly. So I came in and I didn't really have a lot of skills for, you know, corporate corporate enterprise to contribute. I sort of found my place in marketing and communications. There was a lot of work to do in that arena at Berwind at that point.

We had zero collateral materials. There was no website. So I kind of latched on to that as my purpose. But I had also been over the, you know, 15 or almost 20 years of my career in the arts involved in a lot of nonprofit organizations, on some boards and contributing in various different ways and other arts organizations, not just arts organizations, but a number of different ones.

And, I saw a lot of need in the world and in Philly and so [00:11:00] another sort of thing I took on for myself was the corporate philanthropy and it all didn't feel right to me. So we, you know, we tweaked, we tried to tweak it, we tried to adjust it a little bit. The whole concept of corporate social responsibility came into being.

I didn't really like that phrase. As I think is known by many now, I had a lot of arguments with my father about the utilization of resources from the enterprise to actually have a more meaningful impact in the world and in our community. And kind of with or without his sort of permission, which I, we all still needed at that point in time, which was tough, you know, in your late thirties. started, I was reading a lot. I was reading Muhammad Yunus. I was reading about the Republic of Tea in Patagonia and all these other sort of triple [00:12:00] bottom line businesses. I was really intrigued because they were authentic, really authentic efforts to make the world a better place, not just to reflect on their organizations well and give them sort of a halo effect.

But these felt like real things, especially Muhammad Yunus. And the work that he was doing for which he later won a Nobel Prize, but so I don't know I was introduced to Catherine Murphy, who's been, you know, creating and running the organization for over 15 years. As after I was speaking with another, a mutual friend of ours about sort of what my dream was And uh, she introduced me to Katherine because she knew Katherine was ready to make a change.

And then about a year later, when we finally had some kind of a plan and a budget and a job [00:13:00] description we brought Katherine and others back in to interview as the director of this thing that was going to become something but we didn't know what yet. So that's kind of a shortish version of of what went on.

There were a lot of fights, a lot of arguments, especially between me and my dad. There were a lot of mistakes, there were a lot of missteps, there were, I think when we started out sort of trying to improve the philanthropy that we did, it's a word I don't like and never did like. It's sort of like charity to me it feels unempowering, both of those words do, I can't remember where I was going with that I just, I had this great sense of confidence, especially once Catherine was on board and my other three siblings were also on board and dad eventually was on board [00:14:00] too before he died.

He, he got it, he saw it. Didn't know what was going to happen, but it felt like, it felt like the right thing.

Uva: I'm curious about what made you fight on, because it sounds like it certainly took some time to get to buy in and the ability to move forward,

so.

Jessica: in was hard, and, and there was no buy in on the 30th floor, as we referred to, you know, Berwind back then, because it was on the 30th floor of the building around the corner.

I just knew in my heart, that's kind of how I work I just knew in my gut and my heart that, you know, if my name was going to be associated with this thing, it had to be more than just beating the averages and making money, that I didn't value money enough to work towards that goal. You know, and leaving wealth for the next generation just [00:15:00] wasn't something that felt to me like something I wanted to give my time to so, and because I was doing all this reading and it was a new frontier, really was, the kind of work Eunice was doing, the kind of work Paul Newman was doing, Republic of Tea, Patagonia, I think Starbucks used to be that way, way back in the day.

I thought, okay, this, this is a possibility. It's worth it. It's worth giving it a shot. We also needed a family office Because there was a lot going on That was I think that was actually the entry point and I got the buy in for that initially But I knew it was a bit sneaky that truth that it was a little Trojan Wars thing you know that the the entry was gonna be The Trojan horse was going to be the, the family office because I did have buy in for that.

I mean, time and resources and not money, [00:16:00] but time and resources and things like that, that I felt very, very, we, I think all felt very strongly needed to be separated out of corp and managed by another body, you know, that, that might be called the family office. And through that. You know, staffing that, all of this other work could begin to be talked about, could begin to be explored, could begin to be co created

Uva: Thank you for that. And that's why elevator, elevator pitches just don't work, right? Right? You actually pounded on your chest. You talked about possibility. You talked about your heart. And that's, I think, the way those of us who now have an opportunity to work with you, to work with SpringPoint, that's, that's, that's what it feels like, right?

It's there are the words that we use I think in more formal places, but at the end of the day, your, your heart. Your heart has [00:17:00] to be in it

Jessica: We don't always have the opportunity to speak from the heart, and it's not always appropriate, I think. I think the other side of it, the elevator speak, you know, is, is important. Sometimes you only have 60 seconds. And if you're kind of like, blah, blah, blah, then you've lost an opportunity right there, you know, so you need them both.

I think you need them both and lots of stuff in between.

Uva: Joanna, as Jessica was talking, one of the things that you hopped in and just kind of touched and I'm curious about it was a conversation on the bench. Tell me more about that.

Joanna: Yeah, I mean, for all the things I don't remember in my life, there are some, obviously we all have these, some really clear, crystal clear moments, and that, that conversation, I mean, I can remember the bench, not just a bench. I know exactly what bench. Well, I'll weave it in. It's, [00:18:00] it's funny because Jessica says from, you know, she always had that sort of feeling, you know, in, or you always had that feeling in your heart, you know, and we're doing kind of your own learning and own, own investigation of things outside of Burwind, of, of organizations like Patagonia, et cetera, that were doing these things.

I was so trapped in my head. That I couldn't feel, I didn't know what was in my heart. I just knew that I had to get a job done. There was a job I had to do, and that was to be, you know, to work for dad and make sure this thing got carried on. And, and the disconnect between my heart and my head was vast.

Let's just put it that way, . But when Jessica, I just remember, and you know, she said, I'm thinking about. I'm having conversations with people, and I'm thinking about [00:19:00] just exploring, dipping my toe in, as she said, and, and seeing, you know, what Berwind might kind of have to offer, or if, if I can see myself there, or et cetera, and she, she was looking for my guidance, and I, I think I said, God knows what I said, but what I believe I said was, why not?

And just give it a try and, and although I did probably didn't have the language for this and we are so different. I think what I was trying to say was trust the process a little bit and just give it a chance and see what happens. And the hard thing about being at Burwind, as you were for quite a while before that. Yes. And I had not. Yes, since like 16, because I started working in the pharmaceutical, in the medical company with all the typers and the smoke.

Uva: Well, I don't know. Is [00:20:00] that? I'll take that.

Joanna: know, and, and then, you know, the next summer it was somewhere else.

Seriously.

it was their nails and, and cigarette smoke everywhere. That's, that's all I remember. No, but the, the difficult thing and also maybe the brilliant thing. So we, we, you know, talk about paradoxes a lot at Berwyn, but dad was like, Oh, we. You're coming here, and I was such a follower there was no debate But you have to figure out what you're gonna do here.

There's no role for you. You're not taking any job from it You're not gonna be the Though this role you will not be taking somebody else's job and I'm like, okay Well, what the then like what am I I was an English major at Wesleyan. I'm like, okay So but that was also brilliant because then you kind of found your way So, I don't know and it and that's I think I [00:21:00] probably should that was just as well it's kind of like comment figure some find some the notebooks that I have that talk about trying to start an HR department and Strategic human resources.

I mean, I have pages of trying to get that done. Didn't go anywhere. Now look, like, now look at us, right? It's fascinating. But it really was like, you will be coming here, and I'm like, okay, okay, huh, yep, yep, tell me, you know. But, find your role. And I, in a way, I can't tell whether that was the worst. Or brilliant, or some combination of both.

Because what it did is it allowed you to be there without, I, I wasn't gonna be an accountant, I wasn't gonna be an ex, I wasn't gonna, you know, so, or legal, or whatever, so, but it, but it allowed you to find, or allowed me to find a way, although I, I will also say, it took a long time, and it took a lot of pain.

And, and a lot of just subjugation of who I was as a person.

Uva: subjugation of who you were as a [00:22:00] person, and a little earlier you talked about being trapped in your head, right? Being so trapped in your head that you couldn't even hear, I think, the sound of your heart. What was that grappling about? What was that like? And how did you, how did you break free of that?

Joanna: Well, I mean, I'm going to share this, and I think you know some of the answer, and you can decide whether to cut it or not, I don't know, but I have only one answer. Starting around the age of ten, I remember I went to my mom, and I said to her, I have no idea whether I am hungry, Or absolutely stuffed. If a child said that to any one of us today, we'd be like, Yo, we, you need some help. Because the disconnect between mind and body, to have no idea what's here, or to have to push it so far underground, that to just go on the mental, you know, etc. So, I think that's, [00:23:00] that's the way, my coping was to turn to focusing on food.

I mean, everybody says an eating disorder is about control. And of course it is to some degree, so many things are. But I really think it was, How can I, spend time thinking about something else so that I don't have to spend so much time thinking about what a mess it all is over here?

You know? And so, that, you know, and it was a good You know, and she was like, Oh, that makes no sense. That's 76, you know, nobody was talking about that stuff.

All I know is, you know, I can go back through math textbooks and they're just lists of calories. I had to spend time doing something else because I couldn't handle the other stuff. And so that disconnect became actually even greater. It didn't, you know, [00:24:00] not, didn't help the situation. So, so that I think it was the split.

It was the split between the mind and the body, you know, and it was the mind I could do like straight A's. Great. You know, figure this out. Sure. being one person at mom's house, another person at my dad's house, got that to, you know, there was like a whole, there was a lot going on to the point where I truly had no idea who I was.

I had no idea who I was, or what I believed, or what I wanted, or, you know, all of those things. So, finally, I was working for an organization called A Chance to Heal, and they wanted me to be I was on the board and they wanted, and it's an organization that helps, we were working to help prevent the instance of eating disorders in young boys and women and older women and you know, knew all the statistics and, the woman who founded it Ivy Silver, and it [00:25:00] did a lot of great work.

She asked me to become the Chairman of the board and the dissonance, the cognitive dissonance of being extremely thin and really something caught my attention. I was like, I cannot be the leader of this organization. And then people like Catherine and the, the man that I was dating at that time were like, this is, it's an unsustainable lifestyle.

Thank God. And then there was a lot of convincing and support from Jessica and my mom to then tell my dad, to tell my dad that I was going away. I remember that conversation. He gave me permission because I had given so much time to Berwind. He thought it was, it was okay if I took this time to go take care of myself.

And I spent a lot of time at, in, in treatment thinking about why do people turn to coping [00:26:00] mechanisms? And I think a lot of times it's that lack of agency, it's that disconnect between heart and head, not knowing. You know, not being, not having that kind of alignment and hence the birth of the hive

Uva: Mm hmm.

Joanna: When I back.

Uva: Mm hmm.

Joanna: I don't know if that the answer were for, that's the

Uva: It's an even, it's an even better answer. It's an even better answer. And I've heard the stories before, but not not in, in depth in this way. So I, one, just thank you just for your, your candor.

And one of the things that's coming up for me is the moment of inflection, right? There was a bit of an inflection point for both of you over time, right? But, but Spring Point wasn't just about a departure from this. This entity, this company, or doing your own thing, having your thumbprint on something new, it was, this was life for you, right in, in so many ways and so it, it's, it makes sense that you described this from the heart, that you described this as such a [00:27:00] bigger thing, it's, it's so much bigger than I think any website, and our website is kind of cool,

Jessica: yeah, very.

Uva: but it's so much bigger than I think words can capture for what it meant for you in those moments and the fights that you had to kind of push through to get here.

Joanna: have to say though, I have to add because I think it's so important. This was a time dad was dying and or, you know, had just passed or was dying and, and I was really following Jessica's following of her heart. Because I didn't really know, I mean, I knew I cared deeply about people, about all the people that, like, I had the same thing in me, I just didn't, hadn't articulated it, hadn't been more curious about it, et cetera, and I was very much following Jessica's I'd say passion and leadership, thinking leadership.

And I was like sitting around the table, you know, in that year, we spent a year after dad passed, like, are we going to do this? Guys, with my [00:28:00] siblings and our advisors, let's not just do this, let's re choose it or not choose it. But, and it was very much Jessica and I just looking at each other like, yeah, but we don't wake up in the morning to go, well, I'm gonna beat the averages, that's why we're gonna do this.

You know, and so, and several days before Dad passed, he said, sort of very quietly, because he, we couldn't hear him very well, make this what you want it to be for you. I made it what I needed it to be for me. And to me, that was a big inflection point. And then Again, sort of watching Jessica take the lead on the thinking, I was very much like, yes, let's go. I remember that meeting too, at the Ritz, the big table, and you were sitting at the head, at the right. Anyway.

Uva: What comes up for you

Jessica: Well, I didn't know that? that you were sort of, taking my lead on this. I wasn't really thinking about that either, [00:29:00] you know, right? It just felt like something that had to be done. It didn't feel optional. I think for me, I mean, and it was, it was so clear in my head that there was an opportunity and that I think, you know, I've, I've said before, Joanna alluded to it earlier you know, we don't have any obligation to do more.

We pay our taxes. We pay. Our employees, well, we have very little turnover. Nobody, nobody leaves here. We have no obligation to invest any more than we do, you know, in our communities. And I said, you know, well, we, we might not have an obligation, but we certainly have an opportunity. And, you know, the opportunity is what the four of us grabbed onto.

There was an opportunity to do something, something important, you know, not just like have [00:30:00] days off from work where you all put on the same t shirt and go out, and, you know, pick up trash or whatever, you know, I mean, that's not meaningful, you know, it's fun. It can be fun, but you're not even sure you're.

Contributing in the right way to the people you're supposed to be helping, you know, it's your choice, not their choice, you know and I think as you were talking about this I was reflecting on kind of the power that dad had every, you know, he had it, he had it universally.

I remember joanna walking into my office we had, her office was here, my office was here, and then there was a secretary in the middle. And she came in, you came into my office, and you sat down across the desk from me, and you said, I don't know what the I'm doing here and it was painful. You know, because it's your time. It's your life.

It's your, anyway, that's all in the past. [00:31:00] But I think what I was going to say is it's mostly in the past. It'll never be 100 percent the past.

What I was going to say is, I think it was incredibly gratifying before our dad died. To actually have even that little bit of support, sort of go forward with this, you know, see what you can make of it, it was, there was some, I think for me it might have meant, you know, aside from what it meant personally, I'd given up on that possibility or even the hope of that possibility, I didn't care anymore.

I really didn't. I understood who he was, where he came from, what happened to him. And I had long ago given up the hope that, you know,

Joanna: there's gonna be this flowering. You

Jessica: you know, this flowering or, of support. I knew what I was gonna

Jessica: do. I just decided to

Jessica: do it, no matter how much time it took. I just had given up on, on all of that.

But, in [00:32:00] retrospect, and even then, it really was a gift. Really, it was a gift to, before he died, that on some level he wanted to see this go forward, whatever this was, you know, and that there was a lot of passion around it and that even some of his advisors were supporting, you know, even in what we were talking about in very vague ways, you know.

I didn't feel I needed it, but I wanted it. And in retrospect, I think he would be really proud of what, is being done at SpringPoint Partners. You know, and the influence that it's had beyond our organization it seems to be becoming a model for other. Like minded organizations who don't quite know how to do it, you know, and didn't have [00:33:00] the guts to do it without knowing and make mistakes and kind of iterate and learn as, as we, you all went along you know, the, the sort of halo effect, which is, I think, just an early consequence, of SpringPoint Partners on the rest of the enterprise.

Berwind has, has come sooner than I ever thought that it would. I knew that it would eventually, but I thought it was going to take, you know, 20 years. Well, it is kind of almost 20 years, you know all those things are things that I do think about when I think about what would dad think, which I don't think about it that often.

I think he would be really proud.

Uva: I love watching you get to that point. You mentioned welcoming uncertainty. You mentioned [00:34:00] mistake making, you mentioned Iterating along the way, right, as some of the things that you just had to do in order to grow this thing called Spring Point. It sounds like the work became an outgrowth of your own personal learning and And, you know, becoming more sure footed in the world, there are founders or future founders, who might be at that place where you were many years ago, grappling with, you know, that cognitive dissonance between heart and mind and expectations and all the things you went through.

To them. What would you say to keep in mind? What would your advice be now that you have the benefit of hindsight and of, of, of engaging in that mistake making and iterating and, and welcoming uncertainty? What would you say to someone who's sitting there having that moment, probably in that office, typing away and feeling like this isn't it?

Maybe there's no smoke anymore, but you know. All the other conditions might be there. What would you say to them?

Jessica: know, [00:35:00] there's probably lots of different answers to this, so I'll give you a minute to think about it, but as I'm reflecting, No, your question is a really important one, I think. of all, I think, I feel like I want to say, and I feel like I need to say, we had a lot of privilege.

We didn't. Have access to a lot in terms of resources and finances and stuff,

Uva: Let's pause there for a second because I think the average person would be curious about what that means, right? So, you had a lot, but you didn't necessarily have access to it. What does that

Joanna: Yeah. I mean, I.

Jessica: go

Joanna: I literally just had this conversation with my son because raising children with wealth is not an easy thing. and I told him that I wanted to spend some time with him sharing the stories of my own upbringing, my sort of, and I was joking with him that like it's this end of the year [00:36:00] Feedback time, right?

Like, everybody gets, like, reviews and duh, so I've spent, you know, Jim today, Adam, you know, Thelma, da da da da da da da, and I'm in the shower and I'm like, Nobody gives me feedback. And, and, and I, and I said to him, you know, and this does relate, and I said, You know, he, I don't know, I could be doing a ass job, but here I am, the owner, and so here we go, like, keep going.

Which I don't really believe, but I thought it was an important message to him, and he said, Mom, you're the only person that I can think of that would, that one, would ever think you were doing a ass job, and two, Would would have that mindset. And then I said, I said in, you know, as the conversation went on and we're still trying to navigate, you know, what the next generation in terms of access to resources, because we literally did not have access to research.

I mean, I couldn't, I couldn't buy a dishwasher, but I'm flying on a private plane. [00:37:00] And I what I used that example with my son, because I wanted to show him that the cognitive dissonance, no matter how ma is going to be there. And it's how you navigate that cog cognitive dissonance and the decisions you make in that moment where you're addressing one thing or the other.

So, it, it, but, I mean, the point is, it's not, it's, it's just uncharted territory for me, you know, for everybody, for But no, we did not, I mean, Jessica can probably speak to it more because that's a whole other story. I was like, part of the A different family. So there was lots of resources. I mean, not always, again, you, you were growing up more at the time when dad was really building.

I, what had, he, it was kind of well built by the time I got, you know, so, it's a different story.

Jessica: They are different

Uva: And yet, in both cases, although [00:38:00] the wealth at some point was kind of in the background, there were limitations around

your access. Oh,

yeah,

very much

so.

Jessica: Yeah.

Uva: Okay, sorry, I interrupted you a little bit earlier, but

Jessica: a, it's, it's confusing and I think you could probably see we're still both a

little confused about it

Joanna: exactly, and by it.

Jessica: And, you know, might not have the best tools to sort of integrate all of that with our own children and the other people in our orbits, but,

Joanna: But you were, but you were going, you were talking about privilege.

Jessica: yeah, so, you know, it's true, we did grow up with a lot of privilege. Access is different than privilege, I think, yeah, I mean, it is, and it is confusing. But what was the question?

Uva: for those who might be in

Jessica: Oh, advice. So I've been thinking about this a lot in the last couple of days, maybe triggered by one of your prompts about things that are resonating with me [00:39:00] right now. And I'm not sure if you asked the question in your email, you know, what advice would you give to somebody trying to do something similar, completely different, but build something? I have such admiration for people. Who do stuff against the odds because that is the world we're living in right now, you know, and in many ways you know, so my privilege comes into play here because I had access to a lot of resources when I did, you know, and, and, and now that we do, we've access to a lot of resources. Most people don't have that kind of access. So, and I think that's where I was going with the privilege thing. Many people, probably the majority of people, who want to build something or have a dream, have to go outside, way outside of their orbit and way outside of their comfort zone, to find access to the resources that they [00:40:00] need to build something. It's worth it. You know, I would think I didn't have to go outside, you know, of my orbit. I had to fight for it, you know, more than I do now. And it was uncomfortable. So it was even uncomfortable for us, I think, at a time when we were fighting for access to resources. It was our own family network, you know.

But it didn't, it wasn't just handed over, you know. You had to write a paper and, you know, give a speech and, you know. So those didn't ever result in anything other than shame. That was even before this. But you know, all I, all I can say is surround yourself with people who, who believe in you or who, who believe in the vision, even if it's not a hundred percent clear.

And again, that's the privilege comes in there too, because it's not always the case where you can build something without [00:41:00] a clear vision. You know, we started building something with a little bit of a Trojan horse. Sometimes that works. I would always recommend a Trojan Horse.

I definitely recommend Trojan horses.

They work. Cause it's a, it's a work around, you know, until your vision gets clearer. To be around other people. Joanna, James, and Graham Catherine, you know, some of the other people who really helped RG Jim Hamling, but, you know, surround yourself with people that you trust who can help you clarify your vision for one, you know, take it out of the heart and put it into the universe as an operating entity, you know, that, that that has some, some form, you know, in substance where people can come in and work on concrete [00:42:00] things, you know, and, and iterate because you have to iterate, you have to be willing.

To make mistakes, you have to know what your strengths and weaknesses are. That's boring, right? Who wants to do that every day? Keep going from A to B, you know? But I have a box in my studio and it's a beautiful wooden box that I taped blue tape, which every metalsmith and every artist needs in their possession at all times. And it says mistakes.

And inside that box are some things that nobody else would recognize as opportunities, but they, these things that I melted because I applied too much heat or I did this step before that step and I needed to do these other three steps. into a, just a ball of nothing. But those are the things that always led to the next piece.

You know, they always led to [00:43:00] the next opportunity, the next idea, that might've gone off in a different direction. But I treasure this little box of mistakes because those are the mistakes that. It kept me from just doing A to B, A to B, A to B, A to B, A to B, you know, over and over again, and expecting a different result, you know?

So I think you have to be vulnerable you have to be willing to accept that not only you are going to make mistakes, but people around you are going to make mistakes and that they need to be forgiven if, if they are that, and that they are learning opportunities. Keep, keep your mistakes. Hold on to your mistakes. Hold on to your accidents, you know. I, I should have a box called accidents too, you know. Maybe that's what it is called. I think, I don't, sure, maybe I do, maybe I do have two boxes. But mistakes, accidents missteps are [00:44:00] all part, they're all going to be part of it.

Uva: When we talk to Simran, who's our EVP of impact, she tells quite frequently the story of. her beginning on the other side of the table when she was a grantee and was working with you early on and received some funding and it did not go well. Whatever the thing was, she was supposed to deliver.

It just did not manifest in the way that she envisioned. And she came back to you and she, she always, she paints such a vivid picture of just being really nervous and. At that point was convinced that the relationship was over and she would be moving on. So she was very resolute in, in, in her position, right, that this was over because that is what happens with more traditional funders, right?

You say you're going to do a thing, you don't do a thing, and the relationship sometimes suffers. But instead you asked her what she learned. What she learned and that for her [00:45:00] was a pivotal moment. I think in the work she does and probably the beginning of her, I think, transitioning into working more directly with you and into her role.

But I've always been curious about that question, right? And how, based on your background, you had the audacity isn't the right word, but maybe the I don't even know what the right word is, but what made you become such avid stewards of learning as a leadership competency, as a thing that as human beings, we ought to carry forward.

We see learning sprinkled throughout everything we do at Spring Point. And whenever we engage in that mistake making and have a lot that we can put in that box. Jessica, I think Catherine reminds us, Simran reminds us, you remind us, and you've done it for me personally, right? What did you learn? It's such a big question and I'm wondering if you could talk to [00:46:00] how that was seeded in you because you're seeding it in the rest of us and in this thing we call Spring Point.

Jessica: I call it neglect more than anything else.

Ignorance.

Joanna: In my No.

Jessica: book, so we're 10 years apart

Joanna: just so, you know, everybody's

clear

Jessica: on that. We did grow up in slightly different families. So

Uva: interesting.

Jessica: We really did? Um,

Uva: That'll be our next episode, by

Jessica: yeah, exactly. Uh, You know, in my case.

You know, and this is not all good, but you know, there are some benefits to it.

I think it, I think I would have to call it neglect. So it, it was survival. You know, in my case, I think you know, I was one of those kids who, you know, my generation you got on a bike and you didn't come back until the streetlights came on and nobody knew where you were and they really didn't care and it was okay, right?

And it was fun and you got into trouble, you know, and but nobody was like checking, you know, their messages [00:47:00] to see you left and you came back five hours later, you know, I did many things I shouldn't have done in those five hour time periods. But you know, I think you also learn, I mean, I, I, if I needed to go somewhere, I walked from my house 30 minutes to the train station.

And I got on a train and I went wherever I was going to go, and then I went wherever I got to, and then I got back on the train and I got back, you know, and I walked back home. I mean, I walked everywhere. I rode a bike, you know, so I think that neglect, I don't know if everybody would call it neglect, but I think there are other factors that might contribute to the concept of neglect in that scenario. I think you just learn to be self sufficient. You know, you also learn to have trouble trusting other people at times and so in my case, and I, I don't really don't think I can speak for anybody else and not my sister sitting next to me, but [00:48:00] I, I think I, I just learned some survival skills early on, you know, that and I also didn't frankly feel like I fit in anywhere.

So. You know, my strategy coming into a really uncomfortable situation was finding the holes, or at least what I perceived. To be the holes and then filling them, figuring out a way to fill them. Otherwise, where was I going to go? You know, where did I belong? So if I, if I could find the holes and then plug the holes, you know, but I had to find the holes first.

So that's, you know, I think that's my own makeup. You know, that's kind of my own, that was my own need and my own makeup and a way for me to kind of feel whole without a lot of external support.

Uva: you said it's survival, right?

Jessica: is. It's kind of survival.

Joanna: I thank you for that [00:49:00] time to, to think about where I would, how I would answer this question. And I think the question is How did the question of what did you learn get so deep seated in your kind of psyche and your regular, vocabulary and way of being in the world? And I go back to parenting and the books that I read, which I'm now starting to pull out, because they've really had such a huge influence on how I parent and the hive.

So I think it would be interesting to go back, and I have them all. There's a book called Not Under My Roof, which is spectacular. And it's about the Danish way of looking at relationships between young boys and girls in your home and stuff like that. I have another by Ron Tafel. I mean, these are books that I used parenting by heart.

And I really And I, when I was parenting with somebody that didn't have the [00:50:00] same, approach to parenting, I kind of got firmer in my approach to parenting, which was really You may have made, made that mistake you may have done, but what did you learn from it? And that was, that was really an orientation that I had was like, okay, but there's, there's more to this is wrong and this is right.

It's,

Jessica: That's not how we were parented.

Definitely how not at Oh, not at all. It wasn't

as if it came out

Joanna: of

No, which is why I think I have a stack of books this big

Jessica: had to

reinvent that.

Joanna: No, for sure. And then I think with Jessica's particular, interest in and leadership at Ember on, on, on the whole learning front, that, has kind of re emphasized for the culture of Swingpoint Partners what did we learn and what can be learned from that experience and that we don't all learn the same way.

And so I think, I think it's multiple things

Uva: Speaking of learning, and as we [00:51:00] are wrapping up. I am curious about what you are into in this moment. What are you reading? What are you listening to? Yeah, what, what, what song have you heard? What quote are you holding on to? That you might want to share with others that you believe that, the thing that anchors you in this moment.

Joanna: I have, because you gave us those prompts that we weren't supposed to think about, I did a lot of

Uva: You know? Of course, of course.

Joanna: There are, there are a few and, and I'll start with the quote that is, is, has sort of anchored me in the lately, and that is the Viktor Frankl quote of between stimulus and response there is a space and in that space is your choice. It's, or the great, the greater the degree of space. The more freedom you have.

Because you're responding. You're not reacting. You're not [00:52:00] hooked. You're So, I love that quote. And he was a Holocaust survivor. And he Invented a theory called I can't remember, but it was by watching how people behaved and it was fascinating But it's such it's such a good quote And then I just say the other two people that I that have grounded me lately are Mary Oliver the poet and an interview by an interview of her by Krista Tippett and just how Language and nature have grounded her and basically saved her life.

And then most recently, but also this is a woman that I go back to and I don't know how to pronounce her name, Jhumpa Lahiri or Humpa Lahiri. But this book, in other words, is a book on writing. And she grew up between America and India, and so she was speaking Bengali and English. But they spent a lot of, she fell in love with Rome.

[00:53:00] And this is her first book written in Italian. Because it's Italian on the left, it's English on the right. No, but, no, but, but what it is, is, and I think you would find it interesting, is She wanted to write in a different language to understand better who she was between these split cultures. And it's, I love, it's absolutely, and I have more, I've read it twice and I've marked it up and I've done all these things and I just, she's a, I just think she's spectacular and the notion of discovering yourself and Being brave enough to keep a box of mistakes, to use your metaphor, you know, in, in writing, it's editing and crossing out and doing all that.

Never throw that stuff away, just put it in a drawer. So, those are, those are the three that have been really grounding me and [00:54:00] resonating with me right now.

Jessica: Wow yeah, so I'm not reading anything that's really stimulating me right now. The book I have, I have I guess 10, 15 books going, but none of them are holding my attention. But I don't think that's the books. I think that's my psyche right now. And one of them is Braiding Sweetgrass, which is a, just a treasure of a book.

And I came very, I feel like I'm getting closer and closer and closer to actually meeting this woman. But based on your prompt, which I didn't give a lot of thought to because I didn't want to overthink it.

Uva: like some people, and

Jessica: Me too sometimes no, but so just by coincidence, I, I have been trying to not by coincidence, this is intentional. I'm someone who has, who always keeps background something on, and I have stopped doing that. I, I have decided [00:55:00] there's a lot of noise, and it's not good for me to have that noise in my ears all the time and in my head all the time.

It's just too much content, too much to think about. And it's overwhelming, and it's, I'm not being quiet. So, quiet is, is what I'm gravitating to, if possible, in the woods, or in nature somewhere. It's harder for me inside than it is outside. My, safe place right now is, is outdoors under any circumstances.

I walk a lot. I don't use earphones. I don't use headphones. I don't listen to podcasts. I'm not listening to the news. So yesterday I was scrolling through Instagram, I and I came across, [00:56:00] I just started following Yo Yo Ma, have you ever heard of him?

Joanna: He's

amazing.

Uva: a little bit here and there.

Jessica: Right, so, I mean, of course everybody knows who Yo Yo Ma is, and I really haven't paid that much attention to him. But I came upon this post of Yo Yo Ma's, and if I could only navigate my, there we go. Nope. He's doing a five year project around the world. I know I can do this. I can do this.

Here it is. And I read the caption, and it really moved me deeply. The image is Red Hook or Red Rocks theater, which I've actually seen because it's in Denver. It's just outside of Denver, a beautiful, beautiful venue for music. And so, My friend Ma, Yo Yo Ma writes, On August 1st, [00:57:00] 2018, I walked on stage at Red Rocks in Colorado and played the opening notes of Bach's Cello Suites, music that's been with me my entire life.

It was now the start of a new journey. 36 communities on six continents over five years. The Bach Project was my response to anxiety and division in the world unlike any I had felt before. Bach's music, with its extraordinary empathy and soaring into imagination, is one way that I can invite people to sit together, listen, and share an experience.

So in each place, I played these suites as an offering and asked a simple question, how else is culture helping us imagine and build a better world? And I almost, so I went like straight to Spotify and I, I listened to, and then last night, and it's like two and a half hours. And I then last night I listened to it again as I was falling asleep and I was sobbing listening to this [00:58:00] music.

I mean, the man is a, he's a genius. I don't know anything about playing the cello. I don't, I listen to all kinds of music. I don't listen to classical music that often. I was so moved by this body of work and the way that he was, I feel like I learned so much I couldn't articulate to you what I learned.

But I was literally listening to this as I was falling asleep and sobbing. That resonated with me somehow. I don't know how. It's, it's not a thing you can necessarily put words to but it's the cello suite number two in D minor. Bach, and listen to it. I mean, it's, it's extraordinary. A book that I'm also reading you were actually asking about creativity too, which there's a book someone gave me over the summer by Rick Rubin called The Creative Act.

Joanna: So good.

Jessica: I

mean,

Joanna: so good. Rick [00:59:00] Rubin, too.

Jessica: you know, creativity, there, lots and lots of people use, they, they reserve the word creativity for artists. It is not reserved for artists. You're creating every minute, you're creating, we're all creating right now, creativity is not a word that should be reserved for people who produce artwork of any kind, whether it's music, metal work, painting, drawing, writing, you know, creativity is what we employ all day, every day to grow and to make the world a better place

Joanna: I'm smiling so broadly over here because before I came up with my answers to your question, I was reflecting and I was like, too much. There's too much input. Just too much. Too many inputs. So [01:00:00] that's why I go into the woods.

Yeah. With no nothing. Yeah. For an hour and a half, two hours, and just, no, I don't want inputs. But, a very cool input is the interview that the 10 percent Happier, who I love, Dan Lewis, Which is, yeah, I know the name. So he interviews Rick Rubin about the process of that book and how that came about and it's just brilliant.

I read about how it came about. And I sent it to the boys on the West coast.

Jessica: Yeah. No, I mean,

Joanna: So good.

Jessica: I think it's a word that should be part of it. Everybody's, and I think that's, I'm not a hundred percent sure why he wrote the book. I think I know how he wrote the book, but I think, I think he was trying to. Well, you probably know better than I do,

Joanna: I think it took him like, he just wrote bits down on pieces of paper and collected them. And anyway, it's such a great, it's such a great book and it's a great it's a great interview.

Jessica: you read

Joanna: have you read it?

I

Uva: am reading [01:01:00] it. I actually have, I think I have it on audiobook because I kept listening to podcasts where he spoke.

Yeah. And I think he did a really good job of reminding us that creativity is just part of the human condition. And to Jessica's point, we keep thinking about

this thing as a skill, right, some

Jessica: Yeah, he says this creativity has a place in everyone's life and everyone can make that place larger In fact, there are a few more important responsibilities

Joanna: You know, and just to circle back, which. You're all probably like, Oh my God, but they both shut up. But I remember coming back from Babson learning, you know, thinking, spending the day thinking about entrepreneurship and stuff and coming back and the Spring Point Partners was an act of creativity on our part in some ways.

And I came back and I said to Jessica, we're actually entrepreneurs.

Jessica: you did. I remember that. Yeah, like

Joanna: I

would never describe myself,

Jessica: But

Joanna: it's just to link

Jessica: at all. It's like,

Joanna: Creativity, [01:02:00] space, trust,

Jessica: yeah, and if you know exactly where you're going There's some creativity in that, but. You know, I think everyone needs to embrace that concept of creativity as part of anything worth doing, you know?

Uva: you touched on this and I'll close out after this, but through our conversation, these words have been coming up, I've been writing down kind of the, the, the salient themes. And it's interesting to me that they speak to spring points values, right? In many ways, you talked about putting people first.

You talked a lot about humility and vulnerability. You talked about collaboration. Trust has been, I think, at the center of this conversation and all of that, I think, is also undergirded by, by learning, and, and we talked about access, right, and, and there's equity in, I think, the way you were thinking and talking about it, and I was going to do a rapid round with the values, but I think [01:03:00] you have already kind of spelled out how all of those values live in the work that you do and in SpringPoint, so I'm thankful that that came up organically, and I'm not at all surprised.

Thanks. Bye. I'll end with this, which is really a question that I think you've answered, but I'd love to hear you more explicitly respond to it in this moment. What gives you joy,

Joanna: gratitude for all really that, that we have been given, but more importantly created together, gratitude

for my children and what they teach me every day. And, and that just, I'm a, I'm very, very lucky. I feel very, very lucky in, in, in the best sense of the word. So that's what brings me joy. Joy.

Jessica: Nature. Honestly, my faith is in nature. I think this planet is going to [01:04:00] squirt us out of the universe like a watermelon seed, never to be seen again, as I would do if I was this planet. I just think Humans right now are just not the best. We're not at our best time, you know, in the Anthropocene, I think.

Growth gives me joy. I think when I'm not growing, and the people around me aren't growing, and I don't have Things growing in my, in my home, I've been propagating, I don't know what's happening with me, but watching things grow, including myself, and I don't necessarily see that I'm growing but growth gives me joy, really.

Yeah. And that includes all the things that Joanna said. And my own daughter, who's in a huge growth period right now, and I think I am too, I'm in a little bit of a stagnation, and I'm not sure where the growth is happening and where the stagnation is happening, but it's, [01:05:00] it doesn't always It happens, some of it happens simultaneously, you know, but stagnation doesn't give me joy.

Uva: but growth does growth. Wonderful. You have grown an incredible organization out of your creativity, out of your restlessness, out of that grappling and that cognitive dissonance between heart and mind and. I'm so happy you fought for it and

Joanna: Me too.

Uva: grateful, right? So I lied. I said how we started. I had my last question, but here's my last, last, last question.

And that is, you came in a little bit anxious. One word, how are you feeling now?

Jessica: Anxious. It has nothing to do with this. It has to do with the state of the world that we're in. I do, I feel very just concerned about just the state of the world that we're in. You know, it terrifies me that. You know who, I'm not going to record that name [01:06:00] is leaning in the polls. Just I, that's my, where my anxiety is.

I just don't have a sense of what's going to happen next, you know, and there's only so much you can control, you know, not much really you can influence, you know. And you can get your little Trojan horses in there, write that down, put that down for those people, take, take your Trojan horse with you. But there's, you know, how much can you really control?

I just think the state of the world is, is difficult right now.

Joanna: I don't feel as anxious because being a type A perfectionist, I did my homework and I think I did okay. How stupid is that?

Jessica: Authentic as .

very stupid

Very different in that regard.

Very, very different.

Joanna: But really just grateful to be reminded with my sister who I love dearly that that [01:07:00] There's still so much to learn about each other and our journey and that is pretty incredible, you know, and so lucky that we get to do that.

So that's how I'm feeling. do too, no, thank you saying that, and I do yeah.

Uva: I am deeply grateful to you both. I wish we had video so people could see you holding hands in that moment. That gives me incredible joy. I'm grateful for our time together, Jessica and Joanna. Thank you both so much

Jessica: Oh, wow, we are very grateful for you.

Joanna: It's been a pleasure [01:08:00]