Kiyoshi Tomono
Episode 98

Narrator: Welcome friends to another episode of The Story & Experience Podcast. Join your host, Japhet De Oliveira with his guest today and discover the moments that shape us, our families and communities.

Japhet De Oliveira: Hey, welcome friends to another episode of The Story & Experience Podcast. I'm here at Adventist Health Bakersfield, sitting across the desk from a phenomenal guest that I'm going to really enjoy this conversation with. And so the way it works, if you're brand new to the podcast, we have a hundred questions. They progress, it'll become more complex and more vulnerable closer you get to a hundred. They're about stories and experience that shape this person across the desk here into a leader that they are today. So I'm going to begin with the first 10, and then I'm going to hand it over to them and they get to pick. And they're smiling, so that's a good sign. Let's begin with the first one. Could you tell us your name and does anybody ever mispronounce it?

Kiyoshi Tomono: Ooh, that's an easy one. That is the easiest question. If this is as hard as they get, I think we're good, Japhet.

Japhet De Oliveira: There is one.

Kiyoshi Tomono: Kiyoshi Tomono, and a hundred percent, a thousand times, yes, my name has been mispronounced.

Japhet De Oliveira: Kiyoshi Tomono.

Kiyoshi Tomono: Tomono. Yep.

Japhet De Oliveira: Tomono.

Kiyoshi Tomono: Uh-huh.

Japhet De Oliveira: All right. And which one do they mispronounce more often? Both?

Kiyoshi Tomono: Pick one.

Japhet De Oliveira: Pick one. Any day. So do you correct people when they mispronounce it?

Kiyoshi Tomono: I generally don't. I mean, I remember way back in the day when I was really young, Nintendo was a big thing, so Yoshi. People were like, okay, Kiyoshi Noya, as in Yoshinoya, the Japanese food restaurant. Oh, I'm telling you.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's an extension. That's imagination.

Kiyoshi Tomono: Oh man. Kids get very imaginative.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah. All right, Kiyoshi. That's fantastic man. What do you do for work?

Kiyoshi Tomono: So I have the privilege of leading the partnership work here in Kern County and I mean, every day is different. And that's probably the beautiful part of the work I get to lead is some days I'm in food service and we're working on how do we improve that experience for both the patients and for visitors as they're buying food in the cafeteria. Next day I'm working with our children's mobile immunization team and trying to get immunizations into communities where families don't have the time, money, resources, or everything else in order to get a vaccine. So no one day is alike.

Japhet De Oliveira: So how do you work out, this just unpacking your job a little bit more, but do partners just come and approach you? Do you go find partners? Is it a 50/50? Do other people say, "Hey, could you work with this partner?"

Kiyoshi Tomono: It's a beautiful thing, it's a bit of a dance. And this may be getting into some of your other questions too. In my prior life, I always joke around and tell people I'm a recovering journalist, so I was in TV news in this market for 12 years.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's right.

Kiyoshi Tomono: And so it provides you an opportunity. People have already kind of know you and they're already... You were in their home through their TV and visiting them every morning. And so people feel familiar with you already. And so there's a neat part of that is people will come up and approach you and be like, "Hey, remember you came to my community when we were doing this," or, "My daughter had the soccer," and that connectivity is already there. So sometimes because of that, partnerships already start by either just people in the community coming up saying, "Hey, here's a need," Or folks that I'd worked with in that prior life and news who I interviewed, the director of public health or some department says, "Hey Kiyoshi, we really need your help in this. We would love if Adventist Health comes alongside us."

Japhet De Oliveira: You remind me of that, I now remember. Because I've seen films with you in it, I'm like, "Oh, this guy's really good. He knows what he's doing." You tell wonderful stories and you lifted up Adventist Health in many places and so it's great to see. Yeah, it's good, it's good. How long have you been in your current role right now?

Kiyoshi Tomono: Since roughly 2016, 2017.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's fantastic. Where were you born?

Kiyoshi Tomono: Born in Panorama City, California. So down the San Fernando Valley.

Japhet De Oliveira: Okay. And when you were a child there, what did you imagine you were going to grow up to be?

Kiyoshi Tomono: If you asked my mom-

Japhet De Oliveira: That's good, I like-

Kiyoshi Tomono: ... because apparently I told her the story when I was a kid. Visiting Disneyland, I wanted to be the guy that queued up the cars at the Autopia ride at Disneyland because back in the day there was a guy that stood on the side of your car, undid your seatbelt, and queued the cars, and I thought I would get to drive these cars all day long.

Japhet De Oliveira: That could be kind of fun. It could be kind of fun for a while. That could be kind of fun. That's good.

Kiyoshi Tomono: Through child's eyes, that's what I thought.

Japhet De Oliveira: I know, I know. It's so good, so good. All right, personality. If people were to describe you, would they say you're an extrovert, an introvert? Would you agree?

Kiyoshi Tomono: I would agree-

Japhet De Oliveira: I've got to ask.

Kiyoshi Tomono: ... extrovert.

Japhet De Oliveira: Really?

Kiyoshi Tomono: Really, right? No way. No way. I think that certain roles, like the role I'm in now and obviously in TV news, it draws certain people because that work kind of demands it of you. It was interesting though though, Japhet, I'll tell you, I went to the Poynter Institute, which is like a think tank in Florida for journalists. And there's a bunch of group of TV news anchors and we did the Myers-Briggs and it was shocking the number of percentage of us that were actually introverts. And I thought that's a really interesting job to choose if you're somebody who does not like being in front of people, but TV news is kind of interesting beast because you're in front of the camera but you're not necessarily always in front of a big room talking. But I enjoy it. My wife and I talk about this all the time. I will go into a room and I enjoy meeting people and talking to people. It's my thing.

Japhet De Oliveira: So we shouldn't find you a quiet cave. Okay. Hey, that's good. Habits? Early riser, late night owl?

Kiyoshi Tomono: A little bit of both, but I do get up pretty early. I try and get into workout early in the morning around 4:30 or so.

Japhet De Oliveira: Okay, so let me unpack that a little bit. It's taking me a second. You get up into workout around 4:00, so you're getting up at 3:30, 3:45?

Kiyoshi Tomono: So the alarm goes off at, this morning, it went off at 3:30, but it takes me a while to get up, so I'll snooze once or twice.

Japhet De Oliveira: Really? I wonder why at 3:30. Whatever.

Kiyoshi Tomono: It's just the routine and it sets the tone for the day. I get up at 3:30, get out of the house usually by 4:00 and we start working, a group of guys I work out with in the morning. We just run the neighborhood and then we'll lift some weights and it is cathartic, right?

Japhet De Oliveira: I have this image of you and some guys just running around the neighborhood, 4:00 in the morning, hidden trash cans. Sounds really good.

Kiyoshi Tomono: You see all kinds of stuff really in the morning. Cats, possums, skunks. We've almost got sprayed by skunks, so yeah.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's all right. So then if you're getting up at 3:30, what time are you going to bed?

Kiyoshi Tomono: It depends. It's hard. I've got two boys and so homework is usually a late night affair after soccer practice at night. So 9:00, 10:00 sometimes.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's good.

Kiyoshi Tomono: Not too bad.

Japhet De Oliveira: No, that's not too bad. That's actually pretty good. That's fantastic. What's the first thing at 3:30 this morning were you thinking about?

Kiyoshi Tomono: Why am I getting up at 3:30 in the morning? The nice thing, the beautiful thing about getting up that early, I know a lot of people who talk about this who get up early is the house is silent and the room is silent and you have a moment to kind of meditate and think about what your day is like. And for me it's part of, okay, where do I have to be today? Where am I supposed to be? Today I had to be in Delano in the morning at our facility there, our hospital there. But also, and I've told other people this too, it's also a moment of being able to be thankful and for another day, you get up and it's not guaranteed. And you do have a chance to kind of meditate on that a little bit.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, that's really good. I love that. All right, this is a leadership question. It's the last one and then I'm going to hand over to you. So are you a backseat driver?

Kiyoshi Tomono: I try not to be. The tendency for the things that you've done before is to try to drive, even though you're not in the driver's seat anymore. And I was talking to some of our other folks, we've had executive coaches come through and stuff and one thing that stuck with me through that coaching was this idea that if you tell people how to do things, you'll get it done exactly the way you would have done it and wanted it done. But if you empower people to do it, they might pleasantly surprise you. And that was an eye-opening moment for me, right? Because if you prescribe it in a certain way, you're always going to get the same output, but it's possible that somebody might do it better than you.

Japhet De Oliveira: What a miracle.

Kiyoshi Tomono: What a miracle.

Japhet De Oliveira: Imagine. Hey, that's fantastic. Thank you. That's a good clarifier as well. All right, the floor is open and so anywhere between 11 and 100, where would you like to go?

Kiyoshi Tomono: Okay, so let's start easy and then we'll see how we do here. Let's go to 20 then.

Japhet De Oliveira: 20, all right. Tell us about something you would rate, this is good for you, 10 out of 10. Anything?

Kiyoshi Tomono: 10 out of 10. Something I really enjoy. Could be food, could be... All right, I'm thinking through this one.

Japhet De Oliveira: You're not going to give it a 10 out of 10 to anything. It's got to be... Yeah.

Kiyoshi Tomono: My wife and I just got a chance to go for our 12th anniversary-

Japhet De Oliveira: Congratulations.

Kiyoshi Tomono: ... to a really nice hotel. And this hotel was just fantastic. I mean, even when you go to a hotel and sometimes you're like, "It's okay." Really nice comfortable bed, great food, I mean just all of it. And it's down in Southern California on this land. And the funny part is they have an homage to it and different pictures throughout this hotel. It used to be a place called Marine Land. And I remember going there as a kid when I was six years old and it was very similar to SeaWorld. But they had this thing called Baja reef shark or something like Baja experience. And you could snorkel in this pool with sharks and everything like that. And I vividly remember being six years old and there's a huge window and you could see the people swimming and snorkeling. I remember telling my parents when I, I think it'd be 12, 13, when I'm 13, I want to do this. And then the place closed before I could.

Japhet De Oliveira: So close.

Kiyoshi Tomono: But I would say 10 out of 10, I mean just the experience to me being by the ocean and it's just calming and the cool marine influence and hence why I decided to live in Bakersfield, which is-

Japhet De Oliveira: A very similar. Very similar.

Kiyoshi Tomono: The thread is just so common between the two of those.

Japhet De Oliveira: Practically can't even imagine anything else. All right, so that was 20. Where next?

Kiyoshi Tomono: Okay, let's go 24.

Japhet De Oliveira: 24, all right. Tell us about a time you were over or underdressed for an occasion?

Kiyoshi Tomono: I am known for wearing a suit all the time. All the time. And it goes back to my TV news days, it's just the uniform. And I do that because now I've continued to adopt it because I feel like it's just easier. You go in and the pants, you just wear a pair of black pants. I mean you could wear khakis, same thing. And a shirt and it's mindless. And I've read these things about Mark Zuckerberg and all these other folks like Tim Cook, because the CEO mindset, you don't have to make as many decisions. I think it's just I'm lazy and it just makes it easier when you don't have to think through, I just pick that.

And when I was in college, when I was an undergraduate in college and I was really interested in going to medical school, that was my path. And this doctor that I worked with, I remember distinctly, a brilliant, brilliant physician. A brilliant lady. She went on to become the chief of surgery at Johns Hopkins University and now leads a system I think in South Carolina. But she became the dean of the medical school at UC Davis. I mean, just brilliant. She was great at mentoring. I remember her saying, she's like, "I'm older, I'm in my fifties and sixties." She's like, "I could walk in as a surgeon now and I could be in T-shirts and shorts." And people would just be like, "Oh, here's the surgeon," right? She's like, "But you guys, when you're young and you're 20 years old, you have something to prove," and she's like, "You have to dress for the part. When you get older, you don't have to." And that always stuck with me.

Japhet De Oliveira: Let me know when that happens for us. Hey, that's great. All right, that was 24.

Kiyoshi Tomono: Let's go to 30.

Japhet De Oliveira: 30, all right. Tell us about something that you're really looking forward to.

Kiyoshi Tomono: Really looking forward to. I mean, there's so many things. It goes back to that moment I told you when either at the end of the day or early in the morning, thinking back of gratitude. And I try and do this too with my kids at night, either at night or right when I get home, they get home from school, but usually around the dinner table evening. And you see these in the memes and the podcast and everything else too. The moment of gratitude where you ask your kids three things that you're grateful for.

To me it's that chance to sit, and all of us as we go around on the table to think about the things big and small. And sometimes the small things are the blessings that you're really grateful for. Professionally, every day I get to wake up, like I said, and do something new. And the work that we get to do is impactful and meaningful. And the work that I'm doing with the Blue Zones project here in Bakersfield is especially impactful. We're working on policies that could have lifelong changes for the wellbeing in Kern County, which we have consistently not been on the top of the list for wellbeing. To me, that gets you up in the morning. And it speaks to that whole Blue Zone ideal, the ikigai, the plan de vida, the idea that when you wake up you have a purpose in the morning.

So for me, having that purpose, hey, I get to have the privilege of potentially taking part in something that could have generational impact is big to me. And then just on the personal side, watching these two boys grow up, it is amazing, the things that they pick up from you. And it's amazing, the personalities that have already been imprinted there.

Japhet De Oliveira: I've got to ask this as question 30 A. For people who are not quite sure how to find their purpose, what do they do? What would you say to them?

Kiyoshi Tomono: Okay, the Blue Zones answer?

Japhet De Oliveira: No, your answer.

Kiyoshi Tomono: I mean, we've got purpose workshops, so we got to encourage people to go to... To me, I guess maybe I've been blessed and it's always, when I started in journalism too, I never wanted to feel like I was doing something where it didn't have a purpose. And we talked about that in journalism too. Journalism, the ministry and medicine are kind of those three big things where, and I would say probably education too, teaching, where it's a calling. You do it because it calls to you, it speaks to you, and you want to have an impact. And I had the blessing of doing that, right? I always felt that journalism was a calling. You had the opportunity to be at peace.

That forth the state of playing a role in democracy, which is such a huge, beautiful thing. It's a privilege. It's written into our constitution and is protected. And it's a privilege to be that person that gets to ask tough questions and to also empower those and give voice to those that don't have a voice. And so to me, I've always searched for those things that felt fulfilling to me. And then when I left and departed from journalism to something else, there was a kind of existential moment of, okay, what am I doing here? But going into healthcare didn't feel like a huge departure. It felt like, "Oh, this is home." I get a chance to-

Japhet De Oliveira: And present another purpose that you can sink your teeth into.

Kiyoshi Tomono: We get the chance to impact people's lives every single day. And that to me, how do you find purpose? I think you have to go out and search for it. It doesn't always come for you, you have to go find it.

Japhet De Oliveira: Good advice. Thank you for taking 30 A. That's great. All right, so the floor's yours again.

Kiyoshi Tomono: Okay, let's go to 35.

Japhet De Oliveira: 35, all right.

Kiyoshi Tomono: 35.

Japhet De Oliveira: Share a special interest or unique talent that you have.

Kiyoshi Tomono: I do enjoy writing. I do have kind of a weird memory for some useless facts and useless information. And this probably goes back to my journalism career and life. I really like listening to people and I pick up on things that people say. It just stays with me. Things that people say stick with me. And I think it's unique because it's hard a lot of times through attention spans these days and looking at Instagram and things, everything's done in quick spurts, but actually sitting with people and listening to them and picking up on little nuances. Maybe I missed my calling's a therapist or something.

Japhet De Oliveira: Maybe you could still do that as well in addition to the other things so you could get up 1:30. All right, that was 35. Thanks for sharing that. Where next?

Kiyoshi Tomono: 38.

Japhet De Oliveira: 38, all right. If you needed encouragement, who would you call?

Kiyoshi Tomono: Who would I call for encouragement? A pep talk. Family's always a big one. I think my wife will always be there to set me straight, which is good. And I think that that's the epitome of a good marriage is someone who will tell to you, not sugarcoat it, but will tell you it is, look what you need to hear. And sometimes, I know it sounds crazy, but your kids will tell you the craziest things. They'll be like, "Dad, your hair looks terrible today." And there is that unvarnished truth that sometimes kids will give to you that other adults will not.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, it is very true. Especially when they're very young. Someday I have to tell you a story. That's good, that's good. All right, where next after 38?

Kiyoshi Tomono: Oh, let's go to 42.

Japhet De Oliveira: 42, all right. Tell us a story behind the background photo on your phone.

Kiyoshi Tomono: Oh, okay. I'm looking at it right now.

Japhet De Oliveira: All right, so what's the photo?

Kiyoshi Tomono: I'll describe it. It's my sons. I'm guessing Josh, my older one's probably around eight and the younger one is six. And I think we took this, it looks like it's outside our house. It was for Spirit Day at their school.

Japhet De Oliveira: Nice.

Kiyoshi Tomono: And so they're both wearing UCLA uniforms and they're hugging there. It is my alma mater, I feel a great affinity to that school. And so it's fun because their best friends, which is kind of wild. My older son, Josh, one of his best friends, Carson, was born the same night at the same hospital, with the same physician and we're really good friends with their parents. One of their parents happens to be a local orthopedic surgeon, and so we all went to Lamaze class together. This is getting really wild. And then the second son, my son Christian, was born one night after their second son, Preston, and they're in the same classes altogether and hang out with one other.

Japhet De Oliveira: What tremendous coordination.

Kiyoshi Tomono: It's kind of weird, I'm not going to lie. It's kind of weird. But I bring this up because Todd went to USC and so we always shoot texts back and forth. I sent him a picture of some stuff, some UCLA gear they were selling at Costco and he said, "If you put that in your kids, I'm going to report you for child abuse."

Japhet De Oliveira: It's good to have great friends, right? I mean, oh, that's great for your kids as well, that's super. That's good. All right, that was 42, so where next?

Kiyoshi Tomono: Oh, let's go to 45.

Japhet De Oliveira: 45, all right. When people come to you for help, what are they usually asking for?

Kiyoshi Tomono: It's funny. Because I'm thinking back to some times just recently, I think I am one of these people who deep thinks a lot, and it goes back to getting up early in the morning. I probably overthink too much on a lot of things, but I will stew in things and think about them from multiple different angles, which I've been accused of being Switzerland sometimes of not picking a side. But I think that also goes back again to the whole journalism thing is being able to see things from different people's point of view and saying, "Okay, I've really thought deeply about this and here's what I think." So people don't come to me for a knee-jerk reaction, most things I will not just have an immediate opinion on, I'm going to say, help walk somebody through something with some deep thought a little bit.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's good. That's good. Where did you learn that?

Kiyoshi Tomono: I don't know. I guess it's been since-

Japhet De Oliveira: That's not everybody's skillset, sorry. It's just kind of interesting.

Kiyoshi Tomono: Now I sound real humble here. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. That probably comes innately from just that sense of wanting to be just, and not just be right all the time. Because when you have a career in journalism, you wind up realizing that there are many different viewpoints and there's always that saying, there's your viewpoint, your opinion, my opinion, and then the truth. I think that that's kind of the nuance of life is that a lot of it's gray. It's all of our perception. And it is something that you grow over time I guess maybe to answer your question. I think you just start to see things over time as, yeah, I grew up with this way, I grew up with this background and all of my experiences color my opinion this way, but somebody who grew up entirely under different circumstances might see it a different way and it may not necessarily be wrong.

And you don't have to go too far back over the last five, six, seven years, right? And you look at Covid and the Covid vaccine controversies. And you can look at that and say, you know what? Both people were right. Could it have been a little bit of government overreach? Yeah, probably could have been. Could a mandate of vaccination be necessary in order to keep public health? Yeah. The funny thing is how do you balance those two things? How do you keep those two things in balance of making sure that people have personal freedom, but also ensuring public health?

Japhet De Oliveira: You mentioned the word just.

Kiyoshi Tomono: Yes.

Japhet De Oliveira: So I've got to pick up on that and I'm kind of curious, is justice an important part of your purpose?

Kiyoshi Tomono: Okay, so here's another deep-

Japhet De Oliveira: I'm just curious.

Kiyoshi Tomono: My wife and I, she was going through some coaching too, some executive coaching just recently, and they gave her a stack of these cards, for the life of me, I couldn't remember the brand or the name of it. But essentially, it's a stack of a hundred different cards and their core values. And they've got little neat pictures on the front of them, right? You may have already done this before. And one of them is integrity, one of them is trust, one of them is fun. And the eye-opening thing for me, because first my wife did it, and then I did it afterwards, and it wasn't even my exercise, but I was like, "I'm going to do this too." Was that not all of our core, actually very few of our core values overlapped and matched a hundred percent, but trust and integrity were two of them that were in mine that I felt like it speaks to that again, going back to journalism and everything, that to me is an important thing.

That fundamentally, human relations back to time immemorium, whether you go a reader of the Bible, of the Quran, of the Torah, there's the commandments, there's this idea of morality and ethics. To me it's important because it's at the core of how we as human beings get along and treat each other well. That we have to have an inherent level of trust in one another because it's fundamental core to our ability to interact with another. Because if I can't trust you about small things, how do I trust you about the big things?

Japhet De Oliveira: That was early for you, wasn't it?

Kiyoshi Tomono: Yeah.

Japhet De Oliveira: You got that when you were young though.

Kiyoshi Tomono: And this goes back to another-

Japhet De Oliveira: I sense that about you.

Kiyoshi Tomono: It is a core value, so I think it had to be there from the beginning. I think from a young age, you're shaped by your experiences, but I think for me, trust has to be fundamental. It has to be the first thing you have with people because when you don't have that, it's hard to move on to different things.

Japhet De Oliveira: So did you have an environment that actually as a young child that actually fostered that, that it became natural to you, or were you working against that?

Kiyoshi Tomono: I had a great childhood.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah.

Kiyoshi Tomono: Yeah. I think it's just-

Japhet De Oliveira: It just pruned and grew that.

Kiyoshi Tomono: Yeah, it became something that felt important to me over time.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's great. That's really good. I can see it playing into your relationships that you have right now with work, partner development, the care for it, and so yeah.

Kiyoshi Tomono: It is. I mean, Shelly Trumbo, who I work with over on the Blue Zones side and was our wellbeing executive at our Roseville office with Adventist Health, she talks a lot about the speed of trust and this idea that, and this applies to everything in my mind. Things don't move forward, from a business perspective, from a personal, interpersonal relations perspective when you don't have the ability to trust that other person. Because it's like, well, I'm not going to give you my full self. I'm not going to show you my full self until I feel like when I give that to you that I can trust you with it.

Japhet De Oliveira: I can trust you with it. Absolutely.

Kiyoshi Tomono: Right.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's good. Shocking to say this, but we have time for two more numbers.

Kiyoshi Tomono: Okay.

Japhet De Oliveira: Where would you like to go, sir?

Kiyoshi Tomono: Well, we were at the 50s. Let's go into the 72, let's go in the 70s.

Japhet De Oliveira: 72. Tell us about what you want to do when you retire, and then we'd like to know why you're waiting.

Kiyoshi Tomono: These are the Blue Zone questions. I love it. I love it. So my wife and I always joke about this, I don't know if I will retire. I feel like the day I retire will be that day where that purpose is kind of taken away, and so will I be doing the same thing? None of us can tell that, right? But will I be doing something equally, hopefully as meaningful when I'm 80, 90 years old, whether it's volunteering with a nonprofit or doing something like that? A hundred percent.

I can't imagine a world where I wouldn't be doing that because my brain just needs that kind of constant engagement. I do, God willing, will have grandkids, great-grandkids around that time and spending time with them, and that to me is a whole another, right? Every part of your life is a season, and I could see that season being another interesting one. And I can't imagine, obviously grandkids, can't do that now, hopefully don't do that now. My kids are really young. I don't want to be a grandfather when they're 16, 17, but I already get to do that dream work of being engaged every day and I can't imagine stopping that in retirement to answer your question.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's good, that's good. All right, last number.

Kiyoshi Tomono: Do I go all the way to 100? Let's go to 99.

Japhet De Oliveira: 99, all right. What is the most difficult truth you've ever told?

Kiyoshi Tomono: Ooh, that's a good one. That is a hard one. I think telling people direct truths about the way you felt about them is probably, and I'm trying to think of a direct instance. It goes beyond your, "Hey, you didn't do a great job at work." It's when someone has hurt you in a way that feels personal or deep, having to tell somebody that is probably the hardest thing because it involves your own personal hurt and also something that could potentially hurt somebody else. I'm trying to think of a specific instance, and I can't think of one off the top of my head that was the most. But in general, I'm trying to think of some secret that somebody told me that was hard to keep from somebody. I would just say something that is directly truthful about the way you felt that changed your relationship with that person.

Japhet De Oliveira: It is interesting though when you said that sometimes we get hurt and we have to explain what it is and then to find out sometimes that it was an entire accident and it's actually not about even that person, but actually all about you that's going through this. So the truth becomes a message for yourself rather than for anyone else.

Kiyoshi Tomono: It does, and I have these conversations with my kids too, is sometimes your intent could be good, but how it lands to other people also matters. And having to tell your kids that sometimes like, "Hey, that was not kind, that was unfair." That our decisions have consequences, good and bad, when we say things and that even if we don't intend to, intentions can be one thing, but you don't get to tell people how they feel, right?

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, it's true. Kiyoshi, it's been brilliant to be able to talk to you.

Kiyoshi Tomono: This is fun.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, no, thank you so much for your time. I would encourage people to do the same, listening. Sit down with a friend, ask good questions, listen, you learn, everybody's changed for it. And the change for the better for it. So encourage you to do the same until we connect again. God bless everyone. Again, thank you so much.

Kiyoshi Tomono: Thank you.

Narrator: Thank you for joining us for The Story & Experience Podcast. We invite you to read, watch, and submit your story and experience at adventisthealth.org/story. The Story & Experience Podcast was brought to you by Adventist Health through the office of culture.