 Hello and welcome to my career in data, a podcast where we discuss with industry leaders and experts how they have built their careers. I'm your host Shannon Kemp and today we're talking to Helen Silverstone from Universal Mindful. With a robust catalog of courses offered on demand and industry leading live online sessions throughout the year, the Dataversity Training Center is your launchpad for career success. Browse the complete catalog at training.dataversity.net and use code DVTOX for 20% off your purchase. Hello and welcome my name is Shannon Kemp and I'm the Chief Digital Officer at Dataversity and this is my career in data. A Dataversity Talks podcast dedicated to learning from those who have careers in data management to understand how they got there and to be talking with people who help make those careers a little bit easier. To keep up to date in the latest in data management education, go to dataversity.net forward slash subscribe. Today we are joined by Len Silverstone, a consultant with Universal Mindful and normally this is where a podcast host would read a short bio of the guest, but in this podcast your bio is what we're here to talk about. Len, hello and welcome. Hello. Oh, really nice to be here. I'm really glad to share with all of you. I'm so glad that you're here. I've known you for a while. You've come to and speak at a lot of our conferences. And we were just talking about it a little bit and appreciate your famous and well known for your Zen with Len sessions at our data governance conferences. What are those? You know, I love doing it. The title is usually what the heck does Zen have to do with data? And what I normally say is everything because data is really just stuff that we're given. It's all the stuff that we're given and that's what Zen is. You look at everything that we're given and you're with it. You're with all of these gifts. So, and then the other reason I do these then with Len sessions and I do it at conferences. I also do it through my companies and with Len is to share ways of being mindful in a fun way. I love it. Yeah. And they are so fun. Well, but let's talk about your consulting side of the world. So you're a consultant at Universal Mindful. It's your company. Tell me about Universal Mindful. Yeah, so we're an organization that's mainly myself providing human behavior and corporate culture mindfulness specifically in the data arena. So my clients realize that their success is based upon their culture, collaboration, negotiations, how people handle themselves. And I have focused the last 20 years on how I can help organizations and people be effective at the very foundational level. Now, I've also had decades of experience in the technical sides of data management and data governance. And as you know, I wrote several books on it. And after, after decades, what I realized is that the technical aspects of data, in my opinion, are much less important than the foundational aspect of how we get along together, how we collaborate, how we handle conflict, how we communicate, how we build trust, how we understand our core motivations and our core purposes, how we are aware in the data space. So I have a framework that includes all of those things with tons of tools and techniques that I teach in webinars and seminars and in consulting. We actually practice developing these skills. Oh, that's so great. You know, we've heard from so many people I've interviewed so far for this podcast about how communication is so important. Those people skills are so important. It's not in the data world, in the data management jobs, just like you're talking about, it's not just being able to manage the data. It's because you can't do that without those, that communication, right? Right. And I think a lot of people are unaware of the idea that there's all of these tools, like in all the areas that I mentioned, but like communication. I use Burlow's model of communication and mirroring, labeling, and delivering questions. And there's all of these tools about body language that are so important in communicating that very often we just don't know. Yeah, it's so very true. Oh, that's exciting. Well, so Lynn, tell me what is your typical work week look like then? How are you working with your customers, your clients to build these skills? Yeah, so traditionally, I'll set up a initial, ideally in-person session. So I usually fly out to them and we usually do a half-day session to start. And I share this framework of six areas that I've already shared with you. It's awareness, purpose, motivation, trust, conflict, and overall skills in collaborating and negotiating. And what we'll do is do training, working session on these skills so people know the techniques and they know the tools. And then, generally, I meet with clients every couple of weeks to practice those skills ongoing. It's usually only like 50 minutes every two weeks. So it's an incremental skill and on each one of those sessions, we'll focus on one of those areas and reinforce the tools and see what they've done the last couple of weeks. Very often on the off weeks, I'll meet with the team that's trying to be the champion of the culture and we'll strategize about how to best develop culture in organizations. And by the way, after 40 years in data management, what I've found is that the most successful organizations have one thing in common. They understand and are able to implement these cultural skills. It's the number one factor. As a matter of fact, all the keynotes I've ever seen agree on that. And yet, it's really interesting. It's actually rare for companies to do this to actually invest and say, hey, we really want to learn this culture for the data profession. And it's inevitable things that happen in the data profession. We go try to implement enterprise-wide standards on the project. When we leave us alone, we're doing agile. There's all of these inevitable things that happen. So I focus on, hey, let's take the inevitable things that happen and share very important ways to effectively deal with this and be successful. Oh, very cool. Well, let's back it up a bit a little bit here, Len. So tell me, like, when you were very young, say, like, six years old. Was this a dream? Did you say, I'm going to grow up and be a consultant in collaboration? Okay. So I grew up in a New York Jewish family. And when I was six years old, people asked me, what did I want to be when I grew up? And I remember, I used to say, I want to be a millionaire. And I was like, I want to be successful. And I think that lasted through my 20s. I worked very, very hard, studying hard, went to really good schools, companies. And I think in my late 20s, a light bulb went on. Oh, my gosh, the life is so much more than just achievement and success. It's not the core of what life is about. The core of life is life. How do we live well? How do we live well? Yeah, redefining success. Yeah, redefining success. And that's what I teach in both my Zen Berlin business and my universal mindfulness. How do we live well? Which, by the way, was Aristotle's purpose, he said. So I figure I'm a good company. Indeed. So tell me about that. So you're, you know, as you're getting older and your teens, so like, what a passion. And is you getting into high school and onwards? You know, what did you start studying? What were you studying? Yeah, so let's see. I really liked math when I was younger. So in high school, like Southern math, I, and that idea of being successful led to after I got an accounting degree. And of course, you know, I had to graduate with honors and be successful and all this stuff. And, and I thought I could be a CPA, but you know what? People in sales, they make a lot of money. Honestly, I was like, okay, let's follow my dream. So I went to the cell and I sold insurance and I sold calculators and I sold computers. Wow. And I actually did well in sales and it's a really good background because when you really study sales, you realize it's not about pushing. It's about understanding and it's about building rapport and it's about fulfilling the needs and wants of people. And then when I really got that message and I said, you know what, I want to do that a different way. And I actually switched careers. It was actually a major shift in my, in my career because I was making extremely good money in my last sales or job selling computers back in the 80s, 1980s. Oh, yeah, sure. I was making six figure income and I was like, I am the horse. And I thought, I want to do something more than sell. I want to build. I want to create and I want to build computer applications. And so I decided to go back to school and leave my cush job. And so I just quit and I said, you know what, I'm going back to school full time for a master's in computer science. Wow. And that was pretty tough to let go of that. I'm sure. And then I, and then I got out of my master's degree and I thought, I want to get a, the best job. So I took a job at that time was the big eight. Now it's the big four, you know, one is big consulting firms. And I worked on a hundred hour weeks and I made a quarter of what I used to make a few years ago. I learned a lot. I learned a lot. Yeah. So what were you doing in that in that first job? Yeah, I was focused on data still. I got my master's degree focused on database. And I was inspired by one of my teachers who was the dean of the, of the school at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. And I was inspired by my teacher, Dr. Tim Martin, still always inspired by him. And he was this, it was this guy with a big handle bar mustache. And he'd written several books and databases and fun guy for fun. He'd go out and, and sell hot dogs and a hot dog stand. What he wasn't doing is database work. And I, by the way, I'm a big advocate of fun. All my courses, I say, Hey, I want to be of service. We want to accomplish so much, but let's also have fun. Yeah. That's a doctor. Dr. Tim was like that. And as a matter of fact, after I'd written some books and done articles, he called me back to the school and I did a presentation for the school. Oh, nice. He was so proud. He's like, Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. So, well, tell me, so you're, you're coding now for a consulting company out of college after you get your masters in databases. Yeah. Well, I started, they, they have your, actually, you're right. They set you up coding in Copal. Yeah. Again, it was in the 80s. Yeah. And so I was busy coding and then I gradually moved myself into the area that I studied into database design and focused on database design and then switched to a this startup company. That was the end of the 80s. It was a very small startup company. Six people in a rented office and I happened to be in Australia at that time and I was exploring it. Actually, they were a little bit known in the United States, but completely unknown in Australia. Little six people in a rented office. A little company called Oracle. Wow. They're coming in on the ground level. Yeah, the Oracle Australia and Pacific region consulting and training practice for, for this company that just skyrocketed. That's amazing. Yeah. Yes. So, so, so what were you doing for them and then what was next. So what I did for them is I let their consulting and training. So I hired consultants and I managed them and I sent them all over the Pacific region, the Solomon Islands and I've been all over the place. All over Australia and I would do high level consulting myself, but very little mostly I was managing and sending out consulting clients and So it was rewarding to be to see this real high success, but I I really wanted to do the work myself. And I said, you know, I want to be hands on. I just want to be hands on. I left there. I actually looked around at different opportunities. I had another opportunity to be head of worldwide consulting for another company that was well known at the time, and they're not, they're not now, but they gave me this really cushy job to be head of consulting and training of a worldwide operations all over the world. And I said, you know what, I want to do hands on. I took a job instead of that. People thought I was nuts. But I took a job instead of that being a DBA at a local insurance company. As a contract consultant. Wow, yeah. Because I wanted to do the work hands on. Yeah. And I said, I want to be a really solid technician in data. So I worked on mainframes and all sorts of environments troubleshooted and did all this work on on databases. Wow. That's, that's very cool. So did you start expanding your data skills from there? I did. I did. I kept on studying very hard. My whole career, I worked, I worked a lot of hours. So I worked very, very hard there and study and work and As a matter of fact, while I was working, I started writing and I started writing books. What was your first book? So the first book is called the data model resource book. And, you know, I had this idea. This was actually in the 90s. So in the early 90s, I was looking out and I had a friend that lived near me, who's also well known in the industry, Bill Inman. Yeah, we were friends and I knew he wrote books and I talked to him for about five years. And I said, Bill, you've got to write a book on template models. There's no template models available. Like we really need these template database designs. And he said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we'd go along with it. And after about five years of telling him that, I get a call from his editor over a Wiley publishing. Yeah. And the call was Bill Inman says you want to write a book. I actually never thought about that. I got the call and I said, yeah, okay. Yeah, I want to write a book. So I worked on that book very, very hard. And Bill was a co-author on that. So it gave it a little bit of crud. Nice. And I worked on it and we published it and it got a lot of acknowledgment. And then I worked on the new edition of the book, twice the size and twice as many models. So they were all template models. It's still its first edition was published in 1997. It's still being sold. Yeah. And it got on the seller's list and it's done quite well. And then I published two additional volumes of that for industry models and also for the underlying patterns and data volumes one, two and three. And so very rewarding, but an amazing, amazing amount of work. I put tens of thousands of hours into these books. Yeah, it's no easy feat. So congrats. And I'm sure they're being consumed even more now. We're seeing a lot of new data modelers out there looking for help. Yeah. And the CDs that give you the sequel for the book also those are other products that are being sold still. So it's, the publisher says, you know what, that's unbelievable. It's almost 30 years to have books in publication for that long. Yeah. And so I've been blessed. I've been blessed. And it's also a great gift. Like I hear of companies, like one company that I did consulting for. So for decades what I was doing is helping people jumpstart the database designs and doing modeling and also helping the data governance and common glossaries and all of this work. And I had all these tools and templates. And I remember one of my clients said their whole family knew me they had all read the books and use the books. And by the way, they use the books that build the software product that they sold their whole company based upon the models that I published. After all sorts of stories like that. So it's really nice to have influenced people's lives like that. More and more companies are considering investing in data literacy education, but still have questions about its value purpose and how to get the ball rolling. Introducing the newest monthly webinar series from Dataversity, elevating enterprise data literacy, where we discuss the landscape of data literacy and answer your burning questions. Learn more about this new series and register for free at dataversity.net. That is very nice. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's got to be feel rewarding. You know, very, very rewarding. But but about 20 years ago, I met another major major switch. Yeah. So from the 80s and 90s and 2000s, and even in the 2000 teams, I was focused on on databases. But then in 2004, when I was asked to do a keynote, I thought long and hard about it and they said you could do a keynote about anything you want. And I said, okay, let me see what's most important. And I started talking about human behavior. Because what I was noticing in my clients is yeah, you could jumpstart your database design, you could jumpstart your data governance effort. That's fine. And I have methodologies for it and and all these technical tools available to me. But what I noticed is that the ones that were successful at the core, it's because of the human behavior. It's because of the people. That was the number one factor. So I gradually shifted my career from universe. It used to be called universal data models. And I gradually over time shifted to the point that I'm at now where I really don't. I'll answer questions on data models or things like that. But but but really my engagements are not about that anymore because the human behavior is, in my opinion, so much more important. It's also not very many people to focus on human behavior in the data space. Yeah, it's true. It's very true. But it is again, people I'm with you. I hear so many people mentioned how important it is. And you're right. The most successful are to focus on that. Right. I look at the, you know, I've worked in a lot of many, many data governance and data management efforts all over the world in every continent. Except Antarctica. I haven't done one yet. But all these efforts and quite frankly, a lot of them were values. A lot of them did not succeed. They canceled the program or they didn't create the value that they wanted. And then there's a handful that I'm so proud of that were so successful. And when I look back at them like one distribution company, it was all about trust. It was all about trust and the trust transcends into their systems where the systems are connected and integrated. Another one, it was all about purpose. A medical organization. They're all focused on purpose about saving people's lives. And that got brought into the system. Another one was student information. It was all about collaboration and working together and these people that were on their way out of the system created one of the most successful teams I've ever seen. But it was all through the human dynamics involved. So I love just helping organizations do that. So that's what I study now all different frameworks and techniques. Oh, that's so cool. Well, I do want to back it up just a little bit because you mentioned, you know, how did you go from being a DVA to getting into, you know, stretching out into data governance. So, you know, there is a natural progression to data modeling, right? Right. But, you know, how did you get into the different aspects of data management there? Because so many DVAs don't, right? It's not the path for them. But yeah, that's actually also a very difficult transition. Yeah. So I thought I cut my teeth on the real technical stuff. So I knew how to tune and I knew how to look at issues and and I knew the databases, you know, work on IBM databases. And of course, I got Oracle training so I knew Oracle databases really well. Right. And then, and from there, I expanded out into architecture and modeling and looking at more of the big picture. And what I did is started out and a lot of people asked me this I started out not really as a consultant. More as a contractor. I was a consultant too because I'm doing six month engagements and one year engagement. So I did things like that for several years. And but what I really wanted to do is get in and be a specialist and say, okay, I want to do, you know, 10 days at this company and 10 days at that company. And I made a big leap. So first I made the leap from technical to architecture because you could see what's happening technical and then I worked with many great data models and great data architects and I learned those skills. So that was one transition. And then another transition was from contractor a six month to being a consultant where my jobs through my company universal data models. It's the same company, but with a different name. So we're all 10 day engagements or five day engagements or three day engagements. And I would have many clients at a time and pop around and I did it all over the world. Middle East and Europe and all over. That's very cool. But but in order to make that transition was actually a very difficult transition. I had to write books to show I had to have a lot of material that I could bring. So there was a lot of value there in the three days or 10 days and really hone in on learning one particular skill in my case it was data modeling. Oh, and then from there I expanded out to data governance because a lot of my clients would ask me to do data governance work from data modeling. Very interesting. Yeah. I developed a whole methodology and techniques on that and also brought value to the table. So there was a need that a demand for you to learn these skills as you progressed. There was. Yeah, there was. And then I saw there was a need for the culture. Even though, ironically, not as much demand. Yeah. But more of a need. More of a need. Yes. And the other way I look at it too is, is, you know, we have this life. And there's limited time in this life, you know, do what you love do what is most important. And what I think is most important is a skill of learning out of the best life and that includes in corporations. When people draw this artificial line between corporations and personal. Say, oh, I can't express emotions or again, no, no, no, you have to bring yourself in slowly. And, and, and learn how to live. Taking the marrow off the bone, you know, in, in corporate culture, how do we do that? How do we make the most out of it? And by the way, if we do that. We can create amazing successes and data and data management, data governance and strategies and data architecture. I feel like there's a lot more conversation around creating that kind of culture since the pandemic, especially. You know, it gave people a new perspective. Really searching for what's important. Right. Yeah. And I also do that on my Zen with Lent practice where I coach people personally. Actually, actually every Monday, I run a session at 430 every Monday where I'll give a talk on some life subject online. So these are online sessions. So that is your second business and with one. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about that as well. Yeah, that's where I do lead retreats. So I've studied Eastern philosophies and actually all different philosophies Eastern and Western philosophies for, for decades as well. So while I was doing the data work, I got ordained as Zen priest and spent actually hundreds of days in silent meditation. Yeah, sometimes attending, sometimes leading. And so, so that's another way that I get back. Like, for instance, is Monday sessions. There's no cost to it. People just come and listen and meditate. Nice. And share. And so, and then conferences, as you know, I, I lead meditation retreats that not my decision treats but small Zen with Lent sessions. And thank you so much data. By the way, thank you to adversity for sponsoring a lot of the Zen with Len talks that I give. Oh my gosh. Yeah. People love them. It's an easy decision. Right. It's full all the time. You know, I've had people that have come to the session. So when I share as a challenge, I show multiple meditation techniques. And there's a lot of my website on Zen with Len.com, a video showing how to meditate. And I say just one minute a day, one minute a day. And people have come to me saying it's really meta difference in their life. One guy said, you know, I've done this for two years. I even encourage people to ping me on my cell phone. Hey, if you meditated, he did it for two years. I feel so bad. I'm pinging you on the cell phone. Like, no, no, no, it's great. And he said it changes life one minute a day. Just one day. Because people don't stop. And, and just to stop for a minute. You know, you re wire your brain in 45 seconds. Yeah, stop for one minute makes a difference. Yes, indeed. Very much so. Yeah, I certainly have experienced that to myself. So it's very lovely to pause throughout the day. And I want to come back to that a little bit as well. But let's just getting back a little bit into your into your data career. You know, having worked with data for so long. What is your definition of data? You know, I've asked many different industry experts their definitions of data too. Because I really believe in having a good business glossary and really understanding. And the way I see data is data is actually derived from the word data. The Latin word data. By the way, some people say, Oh, data is information. Data is facts. There's a real big difference between data and facts. Facts are something factual data from the word data singular means something that is given. That's all it means something that is given to us. So you're giving me all this data visually auditorially. Whatever we touch and feel is data. Everything that is given to us in any of our senses is data and data just is the plural of data. So what it means is something given to us. It doesn't. It could be a figure. It could be a number. It could be text. It could be a smell. It could be a feeling. It could be a thought. It could be anything that we sense. And things that we don't sense. Indeed. That's a great definition. And certainly when I have learned something every, every interview. Yeah, that's why I say Zen data are are so intertwined because Zen Zen Zen is a Japanese word that means awareness. What are we aware of? We're aware of the data. Everything. Right. Everything that we come in contact with is data. That is so very true. That's a great definition. Except we're generally not aware of 99% of the data. So there's so much happening. So if we could increase our awareness from, from like 1% to 1.1% Yeah, we're doing well. Well, I think that's why you qualify, right? So data. So things that we perceived and unperceived that we're receiving. It's still still data. It's just unperceived. So do you see the number of jobs working with data increasing or decreasing over the next 10 years and why? Yeah, I see it increasing dramatically that data is growing exponentially. The last time I looked on the internet, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of information every day. Most people don't know what a quintillion is is 1 with 18 zeros after it. Like if you took a quintillion and you took a quintillion pennies. You could cover the earth's surface with a quintillion penny 5 times. Wow. Yeah. You took pennies and laid it out over the entire. It's we're creating tremendous, tremendous amounts of data. As a matter of fact, I think that's one of the biggest issues that I talked about that were overloaded. Yeah. So much data coming in. Right. Yeah. It's it's very true. So what advice would you give to people looking to get into a career and data management? You know, my human behavior classes, I often will say be grounded in your purpose be grounded in your motivations. In my coaching practice, I have a methodology called values determination and say what are the greatest values and I love the acronym. So I created an acronym for this that's called live presently. And for every letter, there is an exploration. So like, for instance, for L, what do I love to learn about? What inspires me? V, what do I visualize? E, what energizes them presently? P, what do I purchase and so on? And I go through a process with people are saying, Hey, what is their real passion? What is their gifts? What do they love? And what I would say is follow your passion, follow what you love and look at the opportunity. I found an opportunity. One of the other reasons I follow data modeling is because data modeling is all about a puzzle. And I love figuring out puzzles. And it's just how I'm wired. So, so follow do exploration. So I would say in data management, there's a lot of different careers. Follow and do some exploration to say what might fit you. More appropriately. And it'll change over time. Like I said, with you, my career has changed. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. At different points in time. Oh, such great advice. And yeah, you know, it's so true. And like you say, it's in data. There's so many different job types working with data. You can end there. You can work in any industry. With when you're working with data. Absolutely. I've worked in so many different industries. Yeah. Yeah. So, Len, so I would be remiss if I didn't ask. You mentioned your Zen with Len URL already. If you want to mention it again, like we'll make sure. Check out your Monday sessions. Yeah. If anybody's at all interested, just go to Zen with Len. Go to the event session. There's a weekly meditation. That you could just get a link to and join us. We, we start off with a meditation and we do sharing. And then we, and then I give a talk on some life topic. Thanks. It might be on trust. It might be on letting go of identity. It might be on equity. It might even be on career path. Or it could be on any topic. And I teach from a Zen perspective. There's usually a story involved and some practical tip. And often this discussion after that. Okay. What, what did you. What, what are your insights from this? What are your questions from this? So if you, if you like, you can email me at Len at Zen with Len. And ask me questions if I can, if I can help you. And or join our Monday session or look at the videos that are on the site. And I don't charge for any of that. And then I do personal coaching for people if they want. And the first session is, you know, complimentary. So if I can help any way, I'm glad to do it. And, and if somebody wants to solicit your services from universal mindful to help in understanding and building a collaborative culture. How do they reach you there? Yeah, just go to universal mindful.com. And my email there is L Silverston at you know, universal, you know, data dot com. So you and I be universal and data like information, you know, data dot com. And they can reach me that way also. Silverston. And we'll grab those links from you and make sure and get that posted on the podcast page for everybody. So let, and this has been so fun. I really enjoyed this conversation. It's been my pleasure. My pleasure. And thank you to everybody listening. So, oh, Len again, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today. Really appreciate it. My pleasure to all of our listeners out there. If you want to keep up to date and the latest in podcasts and the latest in data management education, you may go to data or city.net forward slash subscribe. Until next time. Stay curious everyone. Thank you for listening to DataVersity Talks, a podcast brought to you by DataVersity. Subscribe to our newsletter for podcast updates and information about our free educational webinars at dataversity.net forward slash subscribe.