Creating a Culture of Deep Kindness | EP 223: Houston Kraft, CharacterStrong

There’s a lot of talk about what kindness really looks like these days. Don’t get me wrong, I am someone who is deeply passionate about kindness. True kindness. One of my most important goals as a parent is to raise kind and compassionate kids because it matters. Kindness can also be fleeting. When we take it for granted, the kindness that we think we are spreading around is just very surface-level or even in some cases, harmful. What does real, true, deep kindness really look like? My guest today is on a mission to call all of us to action to exhibit deep kindness. Houston Kraft is a speaker, author, and kindness advocate who has spoken at over 600 schools or events internationally. In 2016, he co-founded Character Strong, curriculum and trainings that help teach social and emotional skills. To date, they’ve worked with over 2500 schools globally, serving over 2 million students. In 2019, his face was actually featured of Lays BBQ chip bags as someone who helps spread smiles. This year, his first book, Deep Kindess was released. Deep Kindness is a call to action beckoning us to a deeper understanding of kindness. It calls readers to move past that surface-level “confetti” kindness marked by cutsie phrases and empty gestures. Instead, Kraft reveals that deep kindness is an ever-growing skillset, rooted in empathy, perspective, courage, and forgiveness. Featuring a 30-act starter plan, journal prompts, and practical exercises, Deep Kindness dives into the types of kindness the world needs most today, taking an honest look at the gap between our belief in kindness and our ability to practice it well. Houston’s hero is his mom, and his best life lesson is to “hug like you mean it” (adjusted safely for Covid-19 of course)! I had the best conversation with Houston. He is really funny and has incredible insights about what kindness looks like today.

6:02 - The Houston 101 Houston is blessed with having parents who have always supported any idea he’s wanted to pursue. He was really passionate about soccer growing up but broke his ankle his freshman year of high school. In lieu of playing soccer, he was invited to participate in his high school’s production of the musical “Once Upon A Mattress.” While honored, Houston has to inform his theatre teacher that he couldn’t sing! They found place for Houston in the musical as the character of a mute king. He fell in love with the story-telling and collaborative process of theatre. Houston continued with theatre all the way through college and took a year off to determine whether he wanted to pursue acting or some form of leadership. He got connected with a speaker who spoke about leadership, compassion, and kindness in schools. He realized it was what he wanted to do too and started speaking at events after college. He absolutely loved being on stage and sharing stories. So much of his own personal story was shaped by stories shared with him in high school around leadership, paradigm shifts, and what it meant to show up for the world in meaningful ways. Houston spoke for 7 years at 600 schools or organizations all over the country. In 2016, he met with a hero of his named John Narlen. Houston wanted to see what John thought about replicating their speaking services for administrators and educational systems to teach empathy, compassion, and social and emotional skills that indicate success and fulfilment in life. The program now works with over 2500 schools and reaches about 25 million kids! Houston also just published his first book that came on in September of 2020 called Deep Kindness. It includes all Houston has learned about kindness and compassion over the past decade. 11:11 – Impacting the Next Generation with Deep Kindness Houston founded Character Strong and works to equip kids with the skills to think of others before themselves, and it’s an important skill to start teaching early to instill people with lifelong empathy and compassion that inspires others around them as well. Houston has found that kids are really impacted by what they think their leaders and culture think about them. We are too focused on achievement over kindness and happiness, and our kids are aware of it. We are missing the mark. What we measure matters. What we ask young people to show us proof of matters. We are not allocating enough time toward selflessness and compassion. Anxiety and narcissism have increased, and the biggest barriers to empathy are fear, anxiety, and narcissism. Dr. Ross Green tells us that kids do well when they can. Kids want to please the adults in the world around them. The only reason they wouldn’t is lagging skills and unsolved problems. We need to recognize that they need tools to handle the issues in front of them. There may also be things in their life out of their control that they don’t know how to deal with that cause big feelings to be taken out in other areas of their life. It’s been a tough year, and the...