EAP 202: The Ripple Effect - Small Acts of Courage That Derate Hate with Wilk Wilkinson

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Kimi Walker here and welcome back to the next episode of the

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Early Accountability Podcast.

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I am excited to be here today.

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I'm a little bit under the weather, so you have to excuse my voice.

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But nonetheless, I am so excited to have our guest here today.

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We have Wilk here from Derate The Hate, so he's gonna start off by telling us

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one, a little bit about himself, his mission, and then we're gonna get into

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to the good stuff and, the podcast.

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So look, first off, thank you so much for being here.

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We are very excited to have you as a guest on the show.

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I'm excited to be here, Kimi.

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Thank you so much.

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It's an honor.

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First off, why don't you just tell us a little bit about you, tell us

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about how Derate the Hate started your mission your background.

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You have a very interesting background.

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So why don't you go ahead and start with that.

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Yeah.

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Thank you.

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Derate the Hate podcast started back in 2020.

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I just, I saw the world.

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I saw the world experiencing a lot of things that, were far too ugly,

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obviously for my liking and many others.

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And my story was pretty ugly too.

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And I had over the course, of many years tried to, work through a

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lot of the problems that I had and

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figured I might have something that, in way of experience that

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might be able to help others.

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So what I did is I started the Derate the Hate podcast, with the idea that we would

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better the world, one attitude at a time.

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That is, the catchphrase, the mission statement of the Derate

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The Hate podcast bettering the World, one attitude at a time.

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And that stems for me in my personal story, that the genesis of that is

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gratitude and personal accountability.

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That's why when you invited me on the early Accountability

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podcast, I'm like, there we go.

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It's another way to put out that beautiful message, and the

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importance of accountability.

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Yeah, 2020, the Derate the Hate podcast started primarily with me talking, about

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different things that I had experienced.

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And then gradually I started doing conversations with just some incredible

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thought leaders, from around the world.

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Kimi people, whether they be authors or life coaches or mediators or

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other podcasts, hosts and different things like that.

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And just using the using the techniques that I've learned and the things that I've

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learned in my journey away from toxicity and anger and animosity, to build upon.

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This thing and build upon all the ways that we can, again, better the world,

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one attitude at a time, and it starts with each of us as an individual.

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So that's where we're at, that's what I've been doing for several years now.

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And, actually it's, led into a whole another realm of

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depolarization work that I do with an organization called Braver Angels.

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For several years now, I've been a. Volunteer with that organization.

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It's America's largest cross partisan grassroots organization work,

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working towards bridging divides.

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And, just recently I became their director of media systems and operations.

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It's been a very wild ride, but I continue to find opportunities help

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people, help the world in which we live.

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And, it's been incredible.

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It's been incredible.

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Awesome.

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First off, congratulations on that and that new endeavor for you.

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So you stand on a lot of things that we talk about and are our morals here too

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on the Early Accountability Podcast.

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So big ones are that you look into, you do a lot with perseverance,

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positive changes, self-improvement, and this is a self-improvement podcast.

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Early accountability.

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We talk a lot about people in the kind of early stages of a new endeavor or

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a shift or a mindset shift, whether that be personally or professionally.

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Given that you talked about your early experiences a lot on your

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website and a lot of the things that you have about from the age of 10,

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overcoming challenges like bullying,

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Yeah.

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and I wanted to know if you could talk about how.

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You feel like these years shaped you and your understanding and

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how it instilled accountability in your own life going forward.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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And bullying is, it should go without saying, but bullying is such a horrific

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thing for those who have experienced it.

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But for me, one of the things that I kept on going back to, in all the years

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that I allowed, the memories of that.

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Just the ugliness that, that built up inside of me over

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the years that was happening.

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One of the things for me, Kimi, that, that just kept on coming back was, these are

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things that were outside of my control.

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I can't do anything about the past.

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I can't do anything about, those other youngsters that were picking on me

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and doing the things that they were doing at the time they were doing it.

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But did I want to continue as a person to continue to allow those things that were

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outside of my control then those things that are not happening now, those things

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that I just could not do anything about?

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Did I wanna allow those things from my past to continue ruin my today

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and continue to ruin my future?

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And Kimi, I finally got to a point where I said, look, I've gotta

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stand up while there's, that stuff is painful, that stuff is ugly.

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All of those things that happened were things that I did not deserve,

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but what I had control of, ' cause I didn't have control over that.

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What I did have control over was how I was going to allow that to affect

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my today and how I was going to allow that to affect my tomorrow, the next

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day and every day going forward.

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And I decided I didn't wanna allow that stuff.

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That was not the only thing, but I didn't wanna allow that to continue

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to destroy my today, tomorrow, and every day there forward.

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So I quit.

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I said, I'm not doing it anymore.

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And that's great.

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Even at such a young age, to be have that, that just cultivating, that

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moving forwardness and perseverance and that transformation power

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even like at such a young age.

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So you talk a lot about how we react to life's challenges and, you feel

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that how we react to challenges.

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Defines us more than the challenges.

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I know I've seen that a lot.

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In your in your kind of thought leadership can you talk about how

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one's reactions can lead them on like a personal transformation?

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And can you give us some kind of examples from your journey of how you've

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reacted to some of the hardships and turbulences and trials that you've faced

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and how that's, how you help to apply that principle of how you react to it.

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And some things like that are just super difficult, like losing your job

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and you are the soul, or they're the prime, the prime financial person in

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your family or things of that nature.

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Or losing a loved one, things of that.

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How would you talk through that?

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Sure.

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And that's a good question and it's a million dollar question, in fact, because.

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That is one of the hardest things, Kimi, that any of us

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are ever going to deal with.

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Whether it be, like you said, the loss of a loved one or the loss of our job

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when we're the primary breadwinner for our family and we have to take

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care of our family and now we have to figure out what's happening.

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Or you break it down to simpler things, right?

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Every day.

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Small things like we're driving to work and somebody cuts us off and now,

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we take offense to that person that cut us off, even though they might

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not have even know they cut us off.

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They might not have been paying attention or, just little things like that.

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So whether it be small things, Kimi or very big things, one thing that I have

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learned from my life experience, again, even going back to the bullying thing or

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any of the other things, that raised a lot of the animus and anger that I was feeling

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as a teenager and then a young adult.

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Was, I go back to the book, A Man's Search For Meaning and Viktor Frankl and

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the way that he described the events of his life when he was in, a concentration

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camp held captive by Nazis, and they were doing experiments on him and doing

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horrible things to his body, and he said, the absolute freedom, the only absolute

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freedom that we have as human beings

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is to choose our reaction to those things that are outside of our control.

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That's the ultimate freedom that we have.

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So when I think of the things that are outside of my control, and then I think

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of, do I want to allow that which is outside of my control to control me?

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I say, absolutely not.

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I cannot do it.

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I am a person who absolutely loves freedom, and the only absolute

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freedom that we have is our ability to choose our response.

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Stephen Covey also talked about it in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

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Responsibility is our ability to choose our response.

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So when I'm doing coaching and I spent a lot of my life in

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the transportation industry.

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And both as a driver and then as a manager of drivers and a manager of

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operations and I've managed teams small and big, and, I've managed teams

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through some of the craziest situations that, that you might encounter.

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When it comes to traffic and things like that, right?

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And one of the things that always happens is people allow their emotions

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to dictate their actions in situations that are outside of their control.

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And it almost hurts me to see it when I see it Kimi, because I look at this

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and I say, here is a grown individual.

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that's now allowed a situation outside of their control to dictate their

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actions based on a lack of emotional regulation, emotional intelligence,

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whatever you want to call it.

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So we have that conversation, right?

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And when I break it down into those pieces of do you want to allow somebody who,

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for all intents and purposes, probably doesn't even know who you are, know that

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you were there, they may or they may not have, but regardless of whether they do.

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They certainly, you certainly don't have any control over what they're doing, and

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by you losing your temper and you starting to drive erratically or you starting to

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do this, that, or the other thing, you are giving that person the power over you.

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Do you want that to happen?

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And this can be applied to anything, right?

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I just use that example because it's very familiar to me.

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But you and I could have this conversation, about any number

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of different things, but we just, in my opinion, do we want

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freedom or do we not want freedom?

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And if we want freedom, we have to know that the ultimate freedom is

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our ability to choose our response to things outside of our control.

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That is where it's at.

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It's not what happens to you in life, but how you react to those

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things that makes the difference.

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That's good.

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That is definitely good.

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So your life story, when you talk about Derate the Hate, it exemplifies

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perseverance and self-improvement.

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So a lot of what comes with those are like routines and mindset.

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So that's a lot of it.

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And how do you stay consistent or how do you coach others to stay consistent?

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In personal growth.

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Personal growth, the first thing that comes down to me, for me Kimi is every day

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that I learn something new is a good day.

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That's personal growth to me.

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one of the things that I talk about quite often when I'm doing coaching sessions or

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having conversations, is I use the, it's just a simple set of letters, but every

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mistake is an opportunity for learning.

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I write it on the front of notebooks and things like that, right?

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E-M-I-O-F-L, every mistake is an opportunity for learning.

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And so when we look at how we are going to grow as a human being from

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day to day, we all make mistakes.

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We're all fallible human beings.

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Things are going to happen.

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But again, what are we going to do with that?

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What are we going to do with that?

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Do we want to continue to say, make the same mistake over and over again,

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or do we wanna learn from that mistake and come out better on the other side?

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So that's what I think of when I think about personal growth is trying to learn

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something new every day and trying to experience something new every day.

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And if I make a mistake, I'm not gonna beat myself up over it.

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I might temporarily, but I'm not going to dwell on the mistake itself.

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I'm going to thrive based on the lesson that I've learned from the mistake.

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Okay, so for someone who's looking into initiate positive changes in their life.

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What's one practice, practical, or tangible step you could say

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they could take today to start as far as like early accountability.

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Hey, I want to improve this.

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I wanna see an improvement in myself in this.

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What are some things that you might highlight and offer and what do you do

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as far as telling people, how to measure this , when it's something that . I know,

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like I come from like a weight loss.

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If it's a weight loss goal, like I know, 'cause I can say, Hey,

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I want see this on the scale.

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Like a nutritionist, somebody may me get me on a body scan and say, Hey,

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there's more than just this number.

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So this one number on the scale.

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There's other things that go into this right, too.

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What kind of metrics do you help people do to gauge that, I am making

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improvement in this, or maybe I am not?

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And that's another good question because a lot of times when we think about

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metrics, and different key performance indicators mentality and mindset, it's

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a very hard thing to gauge, right?

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It is a very hard thing to gauge.

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We can't, like in business just narrow down and nail down.

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Different KPIs that are associated with mindset and mentality.

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But I will tell you this, Kimi, and you can, I'm certainly, I'm

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certain you can relate to this and your listeners can as well.

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But when we start to think about things in a more positive way if

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we start to reflect each morning on things that we are grateful for.

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Instead of focusing on those things that in our life that maybe we

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don't have or we wish that we had done better or, things like that.

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If we start to focus on the positive and focus on what we are grateful

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for, we naturally, because of a thing called the reticular activating

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system, we naturally start to find more things that we are grateful for.

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We naturally start to gravitate to things that are meaningful in our

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lives as opposed to gravitating to those things that drive us crazy or

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make us angry or things like that.

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So if people will start to take a little bit of time each morning and

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start to reflect on that which they are grateful for, they will start to

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naturally see more things in their life.

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We talk about tangible results, you're going to see those tangible results

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because those things that we don't like and those things that bother us

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will naturally start to drift away.

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We all got human brains and we all have a. Particular

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activating system, it will happen.

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The other thing that people can do, is start to, make better choices in how

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they interact with other people, right?

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Smiles and bad moods are contagious.

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Kimi, you and I both know it.

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You got a beautiful smile.

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You're smiling people around, you are going to gravitate to

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that and smile more, right?

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So if we go through life walking up and as we greet somebody, greet 'em with a

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smile, greet 'em with their first name.

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Say, hi, how you doing today?

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How is your day going?

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Things like that.

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We are going to attract more of that.

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It's a process.

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It's natural, it's human nature.

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So smiles and bad moods are contagious.

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You want to see tangible results.

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Start smiling at people, even if they're not smiling back,

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smile at them, say hello.

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Greet them with a smile, and they are going to eventually

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come back with a smile for you.

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Open doors.

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Say please and thank you.

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All of those things keep coming back.

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So we might not have KPIs, we might not have the standard metrics that people

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look at when they're looking for results, but you can find tangible results in

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the way that you interact with people.

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Yeah, I think that's true.

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And you say that All right.

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'cause I was thinking, I was like, that's true.

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I know.

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I look at some things now and people are like, oh.

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They did this, what are you gonna say?

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Or what did you do?

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I was like, I didn't do anything.

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And I know, and that's probably because in the past they, I had history

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and said, oh, I know you probably said something or did something.

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And I was like I didn't, I did not, and and it comes back.

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I was like I was like, I've gotten to, I know that's my

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answer to a lot of stuff now.

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I'm like I'm just too old for all that I was like.

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Can't change them.

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That's who they are.

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And I'm just like, and I'm not gonna let it disturb my peace, and you start

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to think about you value peace and just tranquility as you get older.

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You're like, Ooh, why would I, no, I'm,

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That's right.

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they're like you said, no.

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I absolutely said nothing.

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I was like, I did nothing.

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I said nothing.

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I was like, okay.

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And now, and that just maybe me coming from me being a psychologist, but

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sometimes I just try not to even ask.

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Down certain rabbit holes I think may take me, to a certain place, like you say.

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So some of it, I think it is, you can see those metrics of, Hey, how

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would I used to respond to this?

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Or a year ago, or five years ago, or 10 years ago, how would I responded?

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And you're like, oh yeah, there, there has been some growth.

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Or would I have said something or did I have to have the last word?

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Or did I, those kind of things.

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Or how would I said this in a text, text message is a big one.

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How would this text thread have went?

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I'm like, oh yeah, this is, this has evolved.

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So

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That's absolutely

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I think those are great ways to look into it.

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You're a podcast host and you're a volunteer, you're a volunteer leader.

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Your platform brings a lot of visibility and I talk a lot about visibility

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when it comes to accountability.

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Whether it's accountability, visibility within a small group or a large group.

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So how do you navigate that and.

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Their responsibility and the challenges that come with sharing your personal

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experience and just advocating for people to be civil, publicly.

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Yeah, that's another good question and as far as the visibility of it

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and, the vulnerability of it that comes along with it as well is I knew

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that my story and what I was doing and what I had done was going to be.

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What really separated, the Derate the Hate podcast from a lot of other podcasts

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and how I could use my own experiences, whether, rehashing them in a public,

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in the public eye, was going to be

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painful and probably sometimes embarrassing and things like that.

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But the reality is, every story matters.

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And sometimes it takes putting your story out there to sometimes it takes,

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saying your story out loud to come to grips with some of the things

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that we have experienced in life.

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And like I talked about, every mistake is an opportunity for learning.

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I can look at almost all things that have happened in my life and

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whether the circumstances were.

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My fault or not my fault.

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I can certainly find things once I start to really look at those things

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that have happened in my life and in my story, I can look at those things and

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learn something both from the things that were outside of my control and

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then the things that I personally did.

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I knew that and started to recognize that and started to recognize that.

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Every story matters, and my story was gonna be something

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that could help other people.

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So that's why I started volunteering with the organization, braver

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Angels, which has ultimately led to now me being on staff at Braver

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Angels, and again, sharing my story.

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The, sharing our stories with genuine vulnerability and listening to other

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people's stories with genuine curiosity.

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We can learn from each other and we can build upon what we learn and

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just do incredible things together.

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'cause ultimately, Kimi, we are all much better together than trying

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to fall victim to all the things that are trying to drive us apart.

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And there's plenty of those.

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So well, thank you so much.

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How would that's a great answer.

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Awesome.

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You all your answers would be great, but

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Thank you.

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very, I'm very grateful we've had your thought leadership here on the show.

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How would the audience find out more about you?

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How can they stay connected?

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What are some things that they can do to listen to your podcast?

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Yeah, so the podcast can be found anywhere where people find podcasts,

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it's on all major podcast platforms.

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And then of course the website, deratethehate.com.

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So Derate is D-E-R-A-T-E, the hate.com.

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There's no spaces in there that is a great place to find out all

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about what I've got going on.

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And then more importantly, for the sake of our country, for the sake of all of us.

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The organization that, that I now work for is called Braver Angels.

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Braver Angels is America's largest cross partisan grassroots

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organization working towards bridging divides primarily political

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divides, but other divides as well.

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And that organization is something that everybody should at least take a few

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minutes to look into because when we think about all of the ugliness that surrounds

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us each day Kimi we see way too many.

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I call them outrage entrepreneurs, but there's outrage, entrepreneurs,

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grievance, scripters.

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There's people out there trying to spread us apart.

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We at Braver Angels are trying to bring us all back together.

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We are trying to show people that we are better together, we are stronger

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together, and we can do a lot better for not only us here right now, but

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for the future of our country, for the future of all of us as Americans.

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We've got a lot more to benefit from being together and bridging

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those divides is gonna be important.

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So there we can find all that you need to find out about

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Braver angels@braverangels.org.

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And, so you can find that there's a link to braver angels.org on

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the Derate the Hate website, but deratethehate.com, braverangels.org.

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And, other than that, Google, Wilk Wilkinson, you're gonna find

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all kinds of stuff there too.

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That's great.

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Yeah.

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And we'll definitely have Derate the hate and braver angels.

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That's both of them will be linked to the show notes.

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We'll have all of that linked in the show notes for people who

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wanna definitely stay connected.

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So look, tell us, what are some words that you live by?

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What's a mantra that you use in guiding yourself daily?

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We talked a lot about it earlier in the show here Kimi.

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But, again, I'll go back to the idea that it's not what happens to

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us in life, but how we react to it that really makes the difference.

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Do we wanna live a better life?

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Do we wanna live, in a better way?

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It's all about, get it out, get out there.

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Be kind to one another.

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Be grateful for everything that you've got.

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And remember, it's up to each one of us to decide how we wanna live our lives.

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It's not about what happens, it's about how we react to it.

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I think that's awesome.

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One, I like that.

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I'm definitely gonna make sure we, highlight that here on the show.

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Beautiful.

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Thank you so much Wilk for being a guest on the show and to the audience.

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Definitely make sure to go to deratethehate.com and until next

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time, thank you for tuning in.