#438: Coach George Raveling on This Unique Moment in Time, How to Practice Self-Leadership, Navigating Difficult Conversations, and Much More

Most of us aren't ready and aren't good at having real conversations. We're not good at having difficult conversations because real conversations challenge us. Real and difficult conversations make us stand in our own truth; they teach us that we have to be truth-tellers. We've got to listen to learn.

I think some of the most important conversations we can have each day are the conversations we have with ourselves.

What gives one human being the audacity to think that they have the right to take someone else's life? What is it that would make one human being totally devalue and disrespect the life of another human being, regardless of what color they are? It's human arrogance that one could be so disrespectful of the greatest gift of all—the gift of a life.

If you pick up our paper currency, it says 'United States of America.' If you flip it over, it says, 'We the People.' But, in many ways, we're living a lie because we're not who we say—we're not united, and it's not about the people.

Each of us tends to see the world through our own lens. Maybe it'd be helpful if we attempted to see the world through the lens of others? I know one thing for sure: It would give us a balanced perspective.

A hard cold reality is this: Many days, we spend more time talking to the screen than we do face to face with a human being.

If you can't lead yourself, how in the world are you going to lead anybody else?

I would like to ask each of those who are listening to this interview to take a pledge ... The pledge is: 'I will fully commit to being a positive change agent and difference-maker in as many lives as possible.'

As a black person growing up, there's always someone telling you, 'We know what's best for you.' If I don't know what's best for me, then how the hell can somebody else think they know what's best for me?

Over the last few months, I've asked numerous friends to tell me who they think are the five greatest leaders on the globe right now, and none of them can be a corporate executive. I've not had one single person who could get past three names. That's overt evidence that we're in the midst of a leadership crisis.

Ultimately, when it's all said and done, our words must be manifested in our behavior. Anything short of that and we're living a lie.

There are so many undiscovered young folks out there. They need somebody to say a simple phrase to them: 'I believe in you.' Do you know how many kids have never had a human being say that to them?

If a man or woman hasn't found something in life they're willing to die for, then maybe they're not fit to live.

I'm a product of an educational system that was based on telling me what to do and what to think instead of teaching me how to think. So much of my time now is spent trying to teach myself how to think.

The first sign of intelligence is to admit that you don't know something.

In my lifetime, most people have never really tried to know me—they only have a surface impression. Maybe one of our challenges is to try and better understand each other.