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Zach welcomes Dr. Janice Gassam, Ph.D. back to the podcast to talk about the concept of centering Black experiences. She and Zach discuss the tremendous impact of enduring continuous emotional labor and implore any and all aspiring allies and/or white executives to compensate Black people when they're asked to speak about their feelings, and Dr. Gassam also shares a bit about both her podcast and new book, both titled "Dirty Diversity" - check the show notes if you'd like to find out more!Learn more about (and buy!) Dr. Gassam's book "Dirty Diversity" on Amazon or Audible.Interested in the Dirty Diversity podcast? Check it out on her website.Read Dr. Gassam's "Dear Companies: Your BLM Posts Are Cute But We Want To See Policy Change" piece on Forbes.Connect with Dr. Gassam on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and look, you know, you know what we do. We have real talk in a corporate world, and we do that by centering marginalized voices so that we can actually amplify and center marginalized experiences at work, right? And so we're having these conversations with thought leaders, with educators, with writers, with executives, with entrepreneurs and social influencers and activists and elected officials - anybody, really - all around, again, centering and amplifying the most marginalized voices in the workplace, and so today we have a returning guest - frankly, a friend of the show, you know what I mean? Dr. Janice Gassam. Dr. Janice Gassam is an educator, public speaker, a consultant, and a senior contributor with Forbes. Dr. Gassam, how's it going?Dr. Gassam: It is going well. Thank you so much, Zach. I really appreciate you amplifying my voice and consistently amplifying my work. I love that we, like, you know, have built this support system, and I think that's so important, that we are, as quote-unquote marginalized people, we're supporting each other.Zach: Well, I mean, it's not--you make it very easy. You do great work, and your work really is what needs to be centered and focused on right now. I'm really curious, you know, as white folks are apparently learning what racism is for the first time, how have your--what does it look like in your field? Like, are you getting more requests right now? I know last time you were on the podcast we talked about the fact that a lot of folks would ask you not to talk about race. You know, what does it look like when you have clients reach out to you with requests?Dr. Gassam: Wow, that's a great question, and things have blown up and have exploded as far as I've been getting so many requests for racial equity workshops, and that's--you know, I'm partial to those workshops. Those are my favorite, but it's just so ironic because even, you know, less than a year or so ago I would have these discovery calls with clients, you know, who want me to come in and do a workshop or a training, and they have specifically said, "Do not talk about white privilege. Do not talk about race." They preferred me talking about the safe subjects like emotional intelligence, which I'm fine with talking about that, but I think that it's limiting in that if you're not willing to engage in the conversation nothing is going to change. So I'm very--I'm cautiously optimistic, and I hope that the momentum is still here after the summer is over. And I try to impress upon these leaders that, like, one workshop is not gonna change anything. Whether it's me or somebody else, you need to be bringing people in to facilitate to these continuous conversations. I think that that is really important, and people seem like they're starting to get it, so, you know, I'm just excited about this moment in time right now. I've never been busy like this before since my career started. So I think it's an exciting moment, and I'm trying to take advantage of it.Zach: And so let's talk about that. So, like, you know, again, in the past people would say, "Don't talk about white privilege, don't talk about Black experiences, Black female experiences. Talk about gender, but don't intersect that at all with ethnicity (or) race." What does it look like now when people hit you up? Like, what are they actually saying?Dr. Gassam: So, you know, I get emails primarily, and they're like, "Hey, my company wants to--" And what's funny, Zach, is that, like, there's such a sense of urgency now, you know? These same companies that--I'm gonna be [?]. I'm gonna keep it 100,000% real. Some of the same companies that didn't have money once COVID hit magically found the budget. You know, I had things lined up. And I get it, you know? They came back to me in March and April and said, "We don't have the budget." Cool. So now in June y'all found the budget, I guess. You know? Which I'm like, "Obviously you're realizing diversity, equity and inclusion is a priority." So it's usually--you know, the requests come in the form of an email. I appreciate that people have really been sharing my content on social media. So people often find me either through LinkedIn or through Instagram and they say, "Hey, I saw you talk about race, and we need this at our company. So when can you find a time to speak? How much do you charge for a workshop? What do your workshops entail?" So that's pretty much what it seems like, but with some of these requests it seems like there's such a sense of urgency, and that worries me a little bit because I think that it's not, like, a quick Band-Aid. You know, I'm happy to do the workshop. I've been doing these workshops. I've done many workshops, and I already know the structure and everything. However, I think that you have to have long-term objectives, and I don't know if a lot of these organizations have long-term objectives. It just seems like they want to do something so it looks like they're not doing nothing.Zach: Right, right. What is concerning about that, anxiety-inducing for me transparently, right, is it's very reactionary, and it reminds me of Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Like, that portion where he talks about the white moderate and, like, how they're more concerned about false peace [than] with an absence of justice. And so even now in this moment I'm like, "Okay, are y'all just trying to mobilize something really quick just to say that y'all did something so that you don't have uprisings within your companies, or are you really looking to create equitable and inclusive working environments, not just for the next couple of days but for, like, the foreseeable future as your company moves forward in this new normal?" Like, that to me continues to be, like, my ongoing question. I mean, I've had people reach out talking about, "Can you come in and do some unconscious bias?" No.Dr. Gassam: And that is the worst. I don't think unconscious bias trainings are trash by any means. I think that most companies are not doing them effectively. That's, like, a nice way to say it, 'cause I think unconscious bias training doesn't do a lot. "Hey, I go through this training and I find out I have a bias against Black people." You might take an [?] association test and see, "Hey, I have a bias toward or against women, so what do I do now?" It's like, "Cool, now I recognize my biases," but if there's systems in the organization that allow bias to persist, it doesn't matter that now I know how to not say micro-aggressive statements, because there's, like, bias entrenched and baked into the fabric of the company. Like, in the way that they hire employees, that they're using a referral--many of these consulting companies, it's all referrals, it's all Jim knows Bob who knows John, and that's how you get jobs. It's primarily who you know and not what you know, and I think that there is benefits to referral hiring programs and systems, but I think that the way they're currently being done is just, like, creating this echo chamber of the same types of people. So I always encourage organizations to look at their systems and say, like, "Are Black people being promoted at the same rates as other people?" Because it's cool for you to say, "Look, no, no, no, we have a lot of Black people," but they're all in lower-level positions in the organization, but are they in senior-level positions, and if they are, how long are they staying? Because a lot of these tech companies, I love that they're being transparent and putting out these diversity reports, but they're not telling us how many of those Black people or those Latinx people or those women are staying in those roles, 'cause they're like, "Look, 13% of our population is Black [?]. Yay! That went up 1% from last year. Yay!" Like, but it's like, are those the same Black people, or did you just hire a bunch of new ones, and then those same ones with quit next--you know? So I think, like, looking at why there's this revolving door, particularly of Black people, you know, like, in the tech industry and all of these industries. The fact of the matter is that, like, Black people, a lot of us are not staying in companies, and part of the reason--a large part I would say--is because of the hostile work environments that we're working in. Zach: 100%. I mean, so Living Corporate, we've put out a couple of whitepapers, but, like, there's a few different reports, but they're, like, very rare, that talk about, like, turnover percentages. So I've yet to see anything that explicitly says "The turnover for this group is this." I've seen, and we've cited, sources that'll talk about the fact that Black and brown turnover is, like, two or three times higher than their white counterparts, but you're right. Like, there's no annual reporting that shows, "Hey, you know, our Black employees are four times more likely to leave within their first two years than their white counterparts." Like, that's not anything--those rates are never discussed. But you're absolutely right.Dr. Gassam: I think it's important, I mean, because these companies tout that they're so diverse, and I think that that's something important, that not just--we focus so much on the diversity piece. That is important to say, "Hey, look, we actually have diverse representation," but also, like, are they staying? Because if you're using stock images with Black people that look diverse that make your company look diverse but then I get there and I'm like, "Hm." I'm, like, the only Black person. That's, like, false advertising, and there's a lot of that going around, you know? I know the new buzzword is, like, performative allyship, and there's a lot of that going around with a lot of different companies that shall rename nameless, but yeah, I'm glad to see people are really calling them out, these companies out, and saying, "You posted Black Lives Matter, but you asked us not to wear Black Lives Matter stuff." Or "You have no Black people in senior positions," or "You have a hostile work environment where Black people don't feel comfortable." So, like, it's cute to--I wrote an article, like, "It's cute to post Black Lives Matter, but we want to see, like, policy changes." That's nice and fine and dandy, and I appreciate your statement because, you know, that's better than your silence, but I want to see more, and I'm glad that people are demanding more of their company.Zach: I wonder... I still don't think that organizations--and your piece was incredible, and we're gonna make sure that we link it in the show notes for those who didn't see it, but what I don't think organizations understand is that, like, if they come out here really loud externally about all these things they're gonna do to combat racism and inequity and things of that nature, but then, like, internally their policies and their cultures, their practices, their behaviors don't change, like, that's going to create more resistance, higher turnover, higher disengagement, than they had in the first place.Dr. Gassam: Mm-hmm, and as an employee, if I worked in that company, I would just be looking like, "Okay, y'all are, like, not really about that life." And I'm not about, like, exposing the company that I work for unless I feel like I've been completely mistreated--and I've definitely felt like that in workplaces, but my industry is very small, so I just silently exit a company, and I might speak of it but not give specifics and names and things like that. But I think that you're opening your company up to that type of negative publicity from employees if you're not, like, authentic in the things that you do, and I mentioned this before in a few speaking engagements I've done, but I have a friend that works at a very well-known consulting firm. She's been there for four years, and she said that--she belongs to a marginalized group. She's considered brown, and she said that since--her company has a diverse referral program, but she said since she's been working at the company for the last four years, they've never hired anyone from that diverse referral program. But it's just, like--I call it cosmetic diversity, where you have something in place just to look like you're doing something, look like you're actually about that life that a lot of these companies are not about [that life]. So I think that that's just not a good look. If you're gonna like the talk, you have to also be doing things that show that you're actually putting your words and your intentions into action.Zach: I agree. And to your point around, like, negative press or attention, it's--I think also, and all of this generational, because even I--you know, as someone... I'm 30, right? So, like, I'm not young-young, but I'm not older. I'm not old. So I think I probably still don't fully appreciate how easy it is--like, for something to go viral, especially as something negative, but it's, like, really, really easy. Like, there's so many avenues and mechanisms to, like, share your voice now, and I just don't know if organizations appreciate that AND the fact that, you know, doing that today, like, airing things out, putting people on blast, is not an automatic career ender like it might have been, like, five or six years ago. Like, if you put somebody on blast now, like, that doesn't mean that your career is over. It means you just--like, you may be actually heralded as a hero depending on how you do it, right? Dr. Gassam: Yeah, you're absolutely right, and just like a lot of these racists who say and do things after a year or so and the public forgets and they're able to go and get jobs, the same I think could be said for employees that put their companies on blast, because so many things are happening in our lives that we forget. Like, I don't remember all of these people's names. Are we still gonna remember Amy Cooper? Well, I guess there's a law now with her name, but are we gonna remember all of the Barbecue Beckys? Like, what their actual names are? Probably not. So I do think that you're absolutely right in that companies I don't think quite appreciate and understand how easy it is for people to get information out and just share their story and just share, "This company has a crappy environment." And you actually shared with me last year that internal memo, that Medium article, that those Facebook, those Black--I believe they were all Black, or some were Latinx--Facebook employees wrote about the toxic work culture and, you know, there's so many avenues to write anonymous memos and things like that about your company, and so that's not the type of press and reputation that you want. So I'm really happy that people are like, "We need to change. We are really--" Like, I've been getting requests, Zach, from, like, the most fascinating, like, industries that I never even expected, like, this person is reaching out and that person is reaching out. A fitness company reached out to me and said that they wanted me to do a webinar. A jewelry company reached out to me, and I was just like, "Wow." So, like, it's every industry. It's industry-wide. So, you know, I think that has really been interesting to me, that everyone is waking up and saying, "Whatever industry we're in, this is a problem that is, like, not specific to our industry. Everyone is having these issues and needs to figure out how we create an environment that is inclusive to Black people specifically," because I think that a lot of times the conversation gets watered down and we talk about other groups but we don't focus specifically on Black people and Black liberation and things like that, and I think that that's a huge part of the reason we're here, that we have more ease with talking about LGBTQ+ issues or gender issues than we do racial issues.Zach: You're absolutely right, and I think a large reason for that is because white people can be women and white people can be gay, but white people can't be Black. So it's like what does it look like to really shift and, like, have authentic conversations that center marginalized people? And it's interesting. I was talking to some colleagues a little while ago and was talking about the concept of, like, decentering whiteness, and they were like, "What do you mean?" And I was like, "A large way that we center whiteness is just in our language, right?" Like, a lot of the terms and things that we've created, we create those terms to avoid Blackness and to avoid the reality of harm. So it's like, we'll have these conversations and we'll talk about--you know, we'll say bias when it's like--and bias is, it fits technically, but what you're also talking about is, like, white supremacy or just racism, right? Like, we're not talking about--this isn't, like--like, bias softens it sometimes. In certain ways, bias softens it in the same way that, like, you know, it's not like I have a bias towards Coca-Cola versus RC Cola. Like, no, I genuinely think this person is less than me and, by relation, because of that, I treat this person differently. Like, that's different. And, you know, even--yeah, so anyway, not to go on a rant. So I do think this segues well though into your podcast, Dirty Diversity.Dr. Gassam: Yes. Yeah, so I actually started the podcast during Black History Month, and it was important for me to not only start it during Black History Month, but, like, the first episode was ironically, like, why your Black employees are leaving, because I don't think that we're talking about these things, and I think that we conflate people [of color?] with Black people, and we lump everyone together, I think for the sake of, like, conversation, it's easier to just say "Black and brown people," and it is, because a lot of these--your closeness to Blackness will impact your experiences, you know? And there's Latinx people who are stopped as much as us when they're driving, who experience racism just like us and things like that. So, you know, I think it's easy to say that, but I think it's important to put a particular focus on the unique experiences of Black people, and I don't think we do that enough, and when I'm asked to do these trainings there isn't a focus on--when that is the problem, Zach, it's that you're not able to retain Black employees. They're leaving, but you want me to come in and do inclusion training. Your problem is not inclusion. The problem is you're not creating an environment where Black people feel like they're valued and they matter, so we need to focus on that specific problem, and I think that watering it down is what we've been doing for so long, and that hasn't produced positive results or changes, so we have to just be bold and call it out for what it is. And I'm so excited, because I feel like I have been censoring myself--I censor myself on social media a lot because my colleagues follow me, so I can't be like, "White supremacy--" I can't be using that language a lot because, you know, my colleagues [?] me and all of these things, and I know in my field that's gonna get you--that sort of thing is not gonna sit well with... but now I feel like I can say what I really want to say, especially in the workshops, and I think that that's gonna make people [uncomfortable,] but for me, my goal isn't to make people feel happy. My goal is to help you change and help you create better organizations, and the way to do that is I'm gonna have to say things that are uncomfortable and you're gonna have to evaluate your role and how you've contributed to inequitable systems and oppression and things like that. And for a lot of people this is the first time that they've ever taken a look in the mirror, and just with speaking with different white women, they've said--and they're millennials, you know? Like, they're young, and they're like, "This is the first time I've really taken an honest look at myself, and even though I have Black friends and, you know, I dated a Black guy, you know, maybe I have white supremacist views," and it's like, "Yes, you do." Every white person who's born and raised in the U.S. have internalized white supremacist views, and a lot of it is just baked into our American fabric, so it's, like, recognizing that and using your privilege and your power to impact change.Zach: And, you know, I think that really leads us well into the book that you recently--I think by the time this airs it'll be published, so, like, let's talk about the book.Dr. Gassam: Yeah, and thank you again for the opportunity to just share my work with your audience. You know, I was--it was important to create the book, but now I'm already [thinking about] book #2 and how it needs to focus specifically on race. So I wrote "Dirty Diversity" as, like, a very simple, practical guide [for] implementable ways that you can create more inclusion and equity into your workplace. The thing that I've learned in the years that I've been--I've been in consulting now for, like, two years or so, and I've learned so much. When I started doing these diversity workshops, I knew nothing. I didn't know anyone personally that was close to me that did any sort of--I didn't know consultants like that, you know? Just people I went to school with who work at large consulting firms, but I didn't know independent consultants, so I had to figure a lot of things out on my own. I had to bump my head multiple times. So the book is written in three different sections, and the first section is for managers, and it's things that are so simple and easy to implement into your workplace you might say, "Why didn't we think about this?" Or "Why haven't we been doing this?" But it's simple ways to create more inclusion in your workplace. The next section is for people who do diversity, equity and inclusion consulting and things that I've learned from creating workshops and ways that you can improve the effectiveness of the workshops, but one of the things that I emphasize is that one workshop or one training is not gonna make a change. You have to encourage the organizational leaders to do multiple trainings and multiple workshops. And then the third section is written for employees and just, like, simple ways and simple things you can include in your workplace to create more inclusion as an employee, 'cause I get that question a lot where people say, "How do I get my manager to care about diversity? And how do I get my manager to--" And I think that it's not just get managers to care and to--it's understanding the value of what this can bring into your workplace, but there are things that you can do yourself. Like, you know, I talk about an employee book club, and that's something, like, super easy, and maybe petitioning your employee to sponsor an Audible membership--because everybody doesn't read. For me, most of my books I consume them now on Audible. So, like, if you have an Audible membership, you don't have an excuse now to say, "Oh, I didn't have time to read." You could, like, take a [?] minute walk and listen to a chapter of a book. It's very easy now to me to, like--for things as an employee that you can implement into your workplace. So I felt like this book was really necessary, and I didn't--I had no idea all of these events would be transpiring right now, so I feel like it's even more relevant. And there's so many--in the book I talk about some really simple things, low cost or no cost things, that you can implement to create more inclusion, and I think that there's a perception that you have to spend a lot of money--which I do think you should be adequately compensating your consultants that come in, and a lot of times people ask me to come in and they expect it to be free, so I think that is part of the problem, but there are things you can do, like having a panel in your workplace. That's something that is a really simple way to create inclusion that you probably didn't think about. Inviting someone like you, Zach, to come in to speak with employees on a panel just about equity and inclusion and different things like that is just, like, an event your company can host, and often times on panels people are donating time or, you know, giving up their time for free. So, like, there's so many simple ways. It doesn't have to be this, like, extravagant sort of, like, training program that could help you to create equity and inclusion. So that's pretty much, like, the goal. It's a simple read. It's, like, a little over 100 pages, and I think it's just filled with things that you can do and can easily implement into your workplace to create more equity and inclusion. I mean, I'm excited to--I've already got a copy, okay? So we're gonna--Dr. Gassam: Thank you so much, Zach.Zach: No, no, thank you, and so we're gonna make sure we put a link in the show notes for everybody to get a copy as well. And the book's title though--is the book's title "Dirty Diversity?"Dr. Gassam: Yes. So same title as the podcast. The reason I titled is "Dirty Diversity" is because diversity has definitely become a dirty word. People are not into having diversity trainings. There's a misconception about what diversity is, what it brings to an organization. There's still diversity resistance and pushback. So when you say, "We're gonna have a diversity training," people in their minds have an idea of what that is. There's a lot of research that indicates diversity trainings are not effective. So I really was kind of focused on, like, what are some things, in addition to workshops and trainings, that you can--what are some ways you can create more inclusion? Because I kind of resent the fact that--I've seen this meme going around, and I disagree--I think it's cute and it's funny, but it's like, "The revolution will not be in diversity and inclusion training," and I disagree with that. [both laugh] Have you seen that meme before? Zach: I have. I don't--I hear you though.Dr. Gassam: I was like--I don't agree fully. I think when done effectively workshops--if you're having workshops every month in addition to a multitude of other things like mentorship programs, I think they can be effective.Zach: I think authentic, intentional workshops paired with other systemic solutions are effective. I think most people when they think about these workshops, they're not talking about the type of work that you do or the type of work that, like, Dr. Erin Thomas at Upwork, that she does, thinking more about the--you know, the very white comfort-centered diversity of thought -type workshops. Those are not gonna lead us to no revolution, but I agree with you about, you know, intentional, intelligent, competent workshops along with other things are very effective.Dr. Gassam: Yeah, yeah, and that's--you know, that was my thought. You know, everybody's kind of--you know, and I try not to curse, but everyone's kind of, like, crapping on diversity and inclusion trainings, and I do think that in itself one training is not gonna change anything, but the problem is those companies don't even have ongoing trainings or workshops. They have one once a year if that. A lot of them have never had any sort of training, yet every year they have sexual harassment training, which I find to be interesting, you know? Zach: Well, it's typically to check a box, right, from, like, a legal perspective. Like, that's typically what they're doing so they can at least say, "Well, we do this, and we do it regularly," you know? It's not really about any type of behavioral change.Dr. Gassam: Exactly. Yeah, so it's like to check a box. So really, like, how to overcome this idea that diversity has become a dirty word. What are some really simple things? And I'm telling you, it's such a practical, simple--I'm not using any, like, jargon that you wouldn't be able to understand. It's very, like, a simple guide. You open it, you read it and say, "Oh, this is something, like, so simple. Why aren't we already doing this in our company?" But you'd be surprised. To me, like, something, like, a blind resume system. When people tell me they can't find Black candidates, can't find Black engineers, I'm like, "Do you have a blind resume system?" And they're like, "No, what's that?" And that to me is something that I think is so simple but a lot of people just don't know. So that's really, like, what the purpose of me writing this book was. Like, simple things that you think a lot of people know but they might not, and it's just, like, so simple to implement into your workplace. It's not complicated at all outside of just workshops that you can do to create more inclusion.Zach: Man, this has been super dope. What else do we need to talk about, Dr. Gassam? 'Cause I want to make sure I give you your space. So we talked about--Dr. Gassam: So much! Thank you. [both laugh] You know, there's so much. All of the performative allyship, all of the--Zach: Oh, yeah. Let's go in on that real quick actually. Yeah, no, this is good. So side note, y'all, for those who are kind of behind the scenes. Typically I send out, like, these very detailed questions before each podcast, but, you know, for people that like--you know, we kick it or, like, we kind of get each other's style or energy, we kind of freestyle. So this is actually a freestyle, y'all. That's why we're, like, actively trying to think about what we talk about next. We have a little bit more time. Dr. Gassam: And I really appreciate that, and we'll talk about how to support each other after we get into the performative allyship.Zach: Yo, let's do that. Okay, so this performative allyship stuff is crazy, right? Like, I'm so tired of these people--and you know what's really wild? It's like--what we don't talk about is, like, just... we don't talk about this enough I think just, like, culturally, the importance of authenticity, right? So, like, I've had people who have harmed me with their racist behaviors hit me up now talking about, "Hey, just thinking about you." Like, what are you talking about? Why are you talking to me, and why would the first thing when you reach out to me not about the harm that you caused, that you KNOW you caused? These are, like, [?], right? Like, these are things that, like, you gravely harmed me personally and professionally, right? It's not like you walked by, you touched my hair and said, "Oh, this is like my little pet lamb's hair back in my Meemaw's house." Like, no. This is "You harmed me." And so it's wild, like, that we have--how members of the majority... go ahead.Dr. Gassam: I know. It's just like--I'm getting a lot of people hitting me up, like, that are--you know those people that are in the periphery of your life? They're not in your life, but they're just, like, there watching from the--I get a lot of those, and there are people who have actively done things to prevent me from being successful, and they reach out to me, or on the other end people are asking of me, and I won't get into too many details, just, you know, to protect myself, but there are people who are actively asking things of me without consideration of the events that transpired. You're asking for projects from me and things like that, and I'm like, "Well, I'm not in a mental state--" And I've had to send emails like that where I'm like, "I'm not in the mental state to produce what you're asking me to produce because there are Black people being killed and slaughtered, videos," you know? And I just--and it's "Oh, my gosh! You're so right! I didn't even realize it! Oh, my gosh. Like, it's all because of Trump. This would have never happened if Obama was president!" [Zach sighs] And it's like... I mean, it did happen when Obama was president.Zach: It happened a lot [?] though.Dr. Gassam: I was just like... "Okay, but thanks." So I get those, where people are completely, like, oblivious to what's going on and what's happening and how maybe the Black [people] you know are impacted by this, so maybe I shouldn't be asking for X, Y and Z, and I've had to let people know, but I've also seen, yeah, like you said, people who have actively caused harm to you, "Hey, how are you?" Without any acknowledgement of what was done, what was said, your role in how you contributed. Lots of snakes in the grass.Zach: A lot of snakes in the grass! I think also just, like, the psychological--and, like, I don't even think, like, even just considering the additional mental and emotional toll you put on that other person when you do that. So, like, now, as the person who's receiving your random message after a year or after six months or however long, now I have to do the mental calculus if I'm gonna even gonna respond and then make a decision if I respond, "How vulnerable do I want to make myself in responding to you?" Knowing that if I respond to you and you get upset it could harm me even more. So it's just so... so that alone is, like, ugh, such a rant. Such a rant-worthy topic. I do think that it's, like, when we talk about allyship and--I just wonder, are people--I'm not curious about it. This is my belief. I don't believe that members of the majority have the capacity to, like, really deal with being explicitly anti-racist for more than, like... like, for a sustained amount of time, right? Like, you're already seeing on Twitter, people are getting burnt out. Like, "Ugh, I know that you guys are probably tired, but here are some tips that you can--" [Dr. Gassam laughs] "Make sure you drink your [?] tea."Dr. Gassam: You're absolutely right, and it's exhausting in that--and I know a lot of white people are confused, because in one breath we say, "You should be checking on your Black friends," but in another breath it's like we're getting binged and pinged and all of this, like, left and right, and then you have to keep having to revisit the conversation of, like, you know, "Why aren't you answering my text messages? I hit you up to check on you." 'Cause I don't want to keep talking about the same--like, I appreciate that you reached out. I don't--I'm not in the mental state. I want to go on a bike ride and just have the sun on my face and just not think about Black people being killed. I just want to listen to a podcast while riding a bike. Sometimes you just don't want to keep talking about, keep talking about it, and what I've found is that--it's interesting, companies want to give us space to talk about without asking us if this is something we want to take part in. A close friend of mine worked in a healthcare system, and she said her company was like, "Hey, can you be on this panel? It's all Black people talking about their families," and it's like, "I don't want--like, why do I gotta--you don't even--" Like, it's really like, "Hey, we want you to be part of this panel." "No, I don't want to." I had another friend who was asked to talk about white privilege, and she was like, "This isn't even my scope or my domain. I'm in PR. Why are you asking me to talk about white privilege? This isn't even, like--what, just because I'm a Black woman you want, "Oh, yeah, have her talk about--"" She was like, "What?" And I had to send out an email to somebody that asked me to a part of a panel, and I didn't want to be mean, but I was like, "When you're asking me to regurgitate and keep repeating why I feel bad as a Black person living in America, like, you should be paying me," you know what I'm saying? And I know that sounds like--it's not a matter of being all about the money, but it's a matter of, like, this is emotional labor, and this takes an emotional toll on me to be on 80 million eleven panels talking about why, what I feel as a Black person and all of this, and it's just like--the idea of paying a Black person doesn't often cross these people's minds who are organizing these events, and I'm just like--at this point, like, my mind [?] so busy with these workshops--and also I teach as well, so it's like with teaching and doing the workshops and promoting the book, like, I'm not gonna just be on a panel talking about how sad I am and my experiences as a Black person. There's so many thinkpieces online with people giving this information to you already. You don't need me on a panel to talk about what it feels like to be Black. And I hope I'm not being too raw, but it's just that's how I've been feeling lately.Zach: No, you're not being too raw at all. I see where you're going and I will meet you there. So look, folks who are asking--please stop asking us to talk about our feelings for free. I need y'all to stop. Many of you listen to the podcast, right? And, like, when I say you I mean aspiring allies and white executives. Stop. Now, look, especially--like, not to be classist, but especially don't be asking a bunch of degreed people to be doing it. Like, that's crazy. You have people out here who have whole doctorates in sociology and psychology and you're asking them to come on these panels for free. It's like, "No." Like, "I have the Western colonized expertise from an actual [?] institution, and couple that with the expertise of my lived experience, when you ask me for my time, I need you to pay me. Don't even ask." I've had people ask me for my time to do things and I'm like, "First of all, do you understand how much--" Like, I'm gonna feel drained after this, because I'm gonna talk about all these things and no one's gonna come back to me with, like, any tangible resources or support. It's just gonna be me, like, giving out.Dr. Gassam: And it's like--you have a podcast where you talk about all these things. You invite people to talk. You have--and then it's, like, on top of that you write about these things, on top of that you work full-time, on top of that you're a father and you have a wife. It's just, like, y'all gotta think about all of these things. It's like, "Hey, can you explain to me, like--" No, I can't. I'm sorry.Zach: No, I can't. And shameless plug, like, Living Corporate, it's not like we're just, like, a random podcast. Like, you can go on our website and type in anything and a bunch of stuff will pop up. Like, we have a whole database, so you can educate yourself, and, like, there's other free resources. I think it's so inappropriate during this time, like, going back to what you said earlier about organizations and, like, predominantly white leadership who have, like, either intentionally or unintentionally been the cause for people to exit their places of work are now, like, sending out these emails with a bunch of different options to have quote-unquote "real talk sessions," and, like, who made you a luminary on the subject one, but then two, like, why do you just presume that I even want to do this? But the challenge, Dr. Gassam, is, like, there's also the reality--which we don't talk about enough, and, like, shout-out to Brittany J. Harris of The Winters Group. I see you. She talked about it, like, explicitly--this was some months ago--about the fact that, like, power is, like, the silent "P" in DE&I, right? It's like--we don't talk about the fact that, like, yo, if a senior executive sends out something to talk, have one of these conversations, there's gonna be a certain percentage of marginalized people who feel pressured to join it simply because the person who sent out the invite is in power, right? Like, there's a power dynamic that we don't want to address, and also when you ask people to do things--like, nine times out of ten the Black and brown folks you ask to do this type of work or, like, to randomly jump in this and it's not even their expertise, they're gonna feel pressured to say yes because you're in charge, and then when they show up to do whatever you want them to talk about, white privilege, their own lived experience, whatever, they're going to be pressured to not be as honest as they would even like to be because they know that they might get fired or they may be opportunities withheld from them if they say the wrong thing.Dr. Gassam: Exactly, exactly, and I'm actually doing a workshop tomorrow, and the two individuals who reached out to me to do the workshop, they had told me they don't want to be part of the facilitation because there are--there's 500 people who are a part of this workshop, and they're worried because in their industry it's, of course, not what you know it's who you know, and I sympathized with them 100,000% because I'm still--you know, I work in an institution, and I can't fully say--I can't go out and jump on a limb and say everything that I would want to say because of that power piece and because I know that there's still many people who are uncomfortable when you're speaking the truth and when you're trying to--so it's like you can only say but so much, and unfortunately it's like--we need the raw, and we need it to the point, and I'm glad people are more open to that right now, but it's still, like, a concern for us and for people who do this work and, you know, even you as a--not only as an employee but as someone in the podcast space, I'm sure there's topics that you can venture into but not too, too much because you don't--Zach: Oh, Dr. Gassam. Ooooh, bay-bay. [laughs]Dr. Gassam: You know? 'Cause it's like, "I know my audience." You know, there's stuff--I'm sure there's a lot of stuff you want to say but you just--one day [I'ma?] have a tell-all.Zach: Listen, one day--no, I literally tweeted this the other day, I said, "One day I'ma let these @s fly." Like, I'ma really talk to y'all. But no, you're absolutely right, the power dynamic, it dictates, like, literally everything. So, like, you know, I talk differently now because I work--I have a 9-to-5 job. Like, the day that I do Living Corporate full-time, I'm still not gonna be able to talk as free because I'm gonna have clients, and my clients need to know and respect the fact that, you know, I won't air them out one day, you know what I mean? So, like, the only time that I think you ever really hear, like, Black people speak the truth, like, unabashed truth is when they have a lot of money, right? So you think about--you know, you think about, like, the Will Smiths and Kevin Harts and Dave Chappelles and Eddie Murphys of the world, the people who just--or people who just don't care at all, and those voices are needed, but it's just, like, I can't shame people for not being 100,000% raw all of the time when, like, our survival is predicated on some degree of white comfort. It just is. We can't just say--we can't speak the truth like we want to. Like, I believe I speak the truth pretty consistently, don't get me wrong, but there are certainly--like, I'm halfway joking, but there are things that I would like to be much more explicit about, but I can't, you know? Especially [because] I have a daughter, you know what I mean? You have to be careful. So let's talk about this. Let's talk about supporting each other during this time. So we're talking about, like, the emotional labor that we sometimes get pressured into performing or just the increased emotional labor during this time, but also just the general amount of labor just in being Black and brown in majority white spaces. When you asked or when you kind of suggested talking about supporting one another, like, what comes to mind for you?Dr. Gassam: So many things. You know, I think that besides the Candice Owens and some of these people out here that maybe don't [?]--Zach: Oh, my gosh. Please don't ever say her name again. Nope.Dr. Gassam: [laughing] I'm sorry. Some of these people, you know, these people, I think for the most part we got us, and the community that we're building and that we've built and the support that I feel from my fellow Black people just makes me really proud to be Black, and I have to say that in a lot of the--in April I was offering these complimentary workshops because I was transitioning from in-person trainings and workshops to online and I was acclimating and getting myself used to Zoom. So I was like, "You know, if your company wants a complimentary workshop just reach out." And let me tell you, I did 7 complementary workshops that month, and all of the people that reached out to me were Black women. I love that Black women are always, always at the forefront of putting other--we're always... I feel like we have such big hearts and we're always trying to, like, save the world, and people need to listen to us more, but I just think that in a moment like this, the support and the camaraderie that I'm seeing among Black people but particularly among Black women is just what, like, warms my heart and reminds me why, despite all of the B.S. and what we're going through, I'm so proud to be a Black person and to be a Black woman. So I think that just supporting each other, supporting Black businesses and things like that, just reaching out to your Black friends, I think--one of the many things that I love about us is, like, we're gonna have fun and find entertainment in anything, and I've been like--we've been crying a lot, but I just find that we just make anything into, like, something funny, into a joke. Like, after the Verzuz of Beenie Man and Bounty Killer, I was just, like, so entertained by the memes and the gifs, and I was just like, "I love us." Like, we are just so funny, and we're just like--so that's, I think, like, the fact that us coming together and just laughing and doing things that bring us joy and just, you know, the community I think right now is we're building that and we're creating these groups, and so I think that we should all be doing one thing that makes us feel joy, and whether that's, like, meeting up with a friend, grabbing some ice cream, riding a bike, I've been trying to do that more and more. And just, like, [supporting] each other. I have friends that reach out to me and say, "Hey, I want to bring you into my company," and it's like, just that support of, like, "I see you, I see the work that you're doing and I'm trying to put you on," is I think what we need more of and what I've been seeing a lot, and I just love that.Zach: Man, I love it too, and, you know, with that being said, if you haven't yet, make sure that you get a copy of "Dirty Diversity," Dr. Gassam's--it's your first published book, right?Dr. Gassam: Thank you so much, Zach. Yes, my very first published book, so I'm awaiting--it is gonna be available Juneteenth, on June 19th, and both the e-book and the paperback will be available on Amazon, but I'm also awaiting Audible approval because I recorded the audiobook, so I'm just waiting on that process now. Hopefully it'll all be good by June 19th, but I think by the time this episode drops it'll be available via Audible as well.Zach: Well, that's dope, and yeah, we'll make sure that we signal boost any of the promotions and advertising for it on Juneteenth, and then we'll also make sure that y'all check out Dr. Gassam's Dirty Diversity podcast. So Dr. Gassam, you know what I'm saying, she's way more fancy than me, so her guests--I mean, we have great guests, don't get me wrong. We have amazing guests, so let me not play, but I'm just saying, like, she's--Dr. Gassam: Yeah, you guys have amazing, amazing guests.Zach: We have dope guests, but I'm saying your guests are nothing to sniff at, you know what I'm saying? So make sure y'all check out Dr. Gassam, you know?Dr. Gassam: Thank you so much, Zach. I really appreciate it. Thank you for amplifying our voices and trying to use our platform to put more of us on. I think that that's an inspiration to me, and that's what I think we should all be doing, using our platforms and our power to put other people on, you know, other, our people on. But thank you so much, Zach, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your weekend.Zach: Yo, same to you. Listen, y'all, this has been Zach with Living Corporate. You know what we do. We're having these conversations weekly. So again, this might be your first time listening to Living Corporate, so as a reminder or as an FYI, we have Real Talk Tuesdays--that's when we have these, like, you know, 1-on-1 conversations. We then have Tristan's Tips on Thursdays, and then we have The Link Up with Latesha or See It to Be It with Amy C. Waninger on Saturdays. Like, those kind of interchange, and so we have essentially three different series a week, so make sure you reach out. We're all over Beyonce's internet, you know? Just type in Living Corporate, we're gonna pop up. And then yeah, you've been listening to Dr. Janice Gassam, public speaker, entrepreneur, educator, consultant, podcaster, and writer of "Dirty Diversity." That's also the podcast. Make sure y'all check out all the links in the show notes. 'Til next time. Peace.

On the fourteenth entry of our See It to Be It podcast series, Amy C. Waninger speaks with Vonda Page, an organizational change leader at PayPal, about her entrance into the tech space and her experience being the only in many job settings, and Vonda talks to the fact that even individuals without a STEM background have spaces for them in technology. Check the links in the show notes to connect with her!Connect with Vonda on LinkedIn.Donate to the Justice for Breonna Taylor GoFundMe by clicking here.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Check out our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate. Now, look, for those of y'all who are new here, the purpose of Living Corporate is to create a space that affirms black and brown experiences in the workplace, right? There are certain things that only we can really understand, and when I say we I mean the collective non-white professional [laughs] in corporate America. And when we look around--if you, like, Google being black and brown in corporate America, you may see, like, a post in Huffington Post or something that kind of communicates from a position of lack, but I don't know if we necessarily see a lot of content that empowers and affirms our identity and our experience, and that's really the whole purpose of Living Corporate. It's with that that I'm really excited to talk to y'all about the See It to Be It series. Amy C. Waninger, who has been a guest on the show, who's a writer for Living Corporate, and who's also the author of Network Beyond Bias, she's actually partnered with Living Corporate to actually have an interviewing series where she actually sits down with black and brown professionals so that we can learn about what they actually do and see ourselves in these roles, right? So it's a variety of industries that she's--she's talking to a lot of different types of folks. You're gonna be able to see what they do, and at the same time you're gonna hopefully be able to envision yourself in that role, hence the title See It to Be It, okay? So check this out. The next thing you're gonna hear is this interview with Amy C. Waninger. Y'all hang tight. Catch y'all next time. Peace.Amy: Vonda, welcome to the show. I'm so glad to have you. How are you?Vonda: I'm great, Amy. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here with you today.Amy: This is exciting for me, 'cause you and I have had so many conversations on these topics alraedy, and every time I talk to someone and we get going and we're on a roll I'm like, "Oh, I wish that I had recorded this for the show," so now we get to, which is exciting to me.Vonda: That's great. I'm happy about it. Thank you so much.Amy: Good. So Vonda, how long have you been working in the tech space?Vonda: It's so funny. You know, I was thinking about it, and I've really been in the tech space for about 24 years, and the last 20 exclusively, and it's interesting because I really got into tech organically because I never was necessarily oriented towards math, towards science or, you know, digital technology, and the way that I got into the tech field was I originally started working in the restaurant business, right, in bars and restaurants, some chain places, some local places, and as different restaurants were getting online with different computer systems, they would need a person that could teach everybody how to use it. And I was always a really good trainer. My background is communications, always really good at, you know, processes and helping people learn how things work, and so they'd say, "Okay. Well, you know, we're getting a computer system, and we need you to train people." And I'm like, "What?" So they give me the big fat book, the big fat manual, you know, the operating procedures, and I have to review that, and it would be interesting because after looking at "Okay, this is how the technology works," I had to compare how are we currently working and what is different, right? So in a restaurant back in the old pen and paper days, right, before iPads and all that fancy stuff, people would come to the table with a paper and a pencil and they would write it down. So when we started to adopt computers and different types of technology, I had to look at "What's the delta between how we're operating in a non-technical way," right, without technology, and then when we move to using technology, what's that difference? So the way I got started was really helping people move from, you know, the paper and pencil onto using different computer systems.Amy: I think that's fascinating. I have a story that I would love to share with you if you don't mind. I went to one of the--you know the really cheap hair-cutting places? I took my kids there one day, and their computer system was down and they didn't know what to do. They were frozen. And I looked at the woman--and I was an analyst at the time, you know, kind of like what you're describing--and they're like, "Well, we can't cut hair because our computers are down," and I said, "Why do you need a computer to cut my kid's hair? Can't you just use scissors?" And they kind of laughed and she's like, "Um, yeah, okay," and so she got out a piece of paper and the first thing she said was, "What's your phone number?" Well, that's the identifier they used in their system to look up what haircut he'd had the last time. I said, "You don't need his phone number. You need a #2 guard. Cut his hair." But they were just so lost 'cause they had been training on how to use the system, not how to do the job, right? And so what you're talking about is the reverse of that, where people come in not already indoctrinated to the technology and now they have to learn to do their job with it.Vonda: Exactly, and then there's that balance of using the technology with the actual process. So the process of cutting hair in your example is perfect, right? You use scissors or you use clippers or you use a combination. You use a comb. Maybe you have a spray bottle with some water. You need that whether you have a computer or not, right? If you're in a restaurant, you need pans and pots and food, right? And you need that, right, whether you have a computer or not. So, you know, it's a very similar thing, and it's so interesting, but that's really kind of how I got started, and for me, I grew up with computers, right? I learned as the technology advanced, and later on in my career I worked exclusively in tech. So now for the last--yeah, since 2000 I've been exclusively in tech, and a lot of what I do is really helping companies when they decide to change a technology, whether that's through an upgrade, whether we are retiring something to bring in something new or just adding new features, I help the company or the team determine "What is the strategy we need to implement that technology change so that we don't have an adverse impact on the business, on the employees or on whomever that change is gonna impact?"Amy: One of the things I think is so interesting about that, Vonda, is that you didn't come in from a technology standpoint--and I think I've had some other folks on the show that have worked in technology, that are pure technologists, but I think it's important for people to understand you don't have to be a technologist to work in technology, and in fact, the tech sector needs people people, right? If you say, "Oh, I'm a people person," my goodness, does somebody in tech need you. Vonda: Absolutely. And it's so funny because, you know, even now every now and then somebody will ask me some kind of technical question. Like, a friend of mine yesterday was asking something and I said, "Listen, I really have no idea." Like, "I've heard of this thing you're asking me about, but I'm not--" And she was like, "Well, you've been in tech for, like, ever," and I said, "I've been in tech, but I'm not a techie." And so what's interesting in the tech field, and what I do is I work with a lot of engineers, a lot of extremely technical people, a lot of architects, and while their expertise is really based in the system and how things are built and how things are connected and put together, they need support from the standpoint of somebody who can take all of that, what they're talking about, and help the business as well as, you know, the community that's gonna be using that technology understand what is it, how does it help or impact me, and why do I want to use it, right, and what is the benefit of it, and sometimes a technologist will say, "Well, it's great. It has all these great features. It does this," and they'll say, "It does," right? So they'll say, "The tech does this," and my question to them is, "Okay, so how does that affect, you know, Suzy? How does that affect Rohit? How does that affect Carmela?" So you're making changes to technology. You're putting enhancements in. You're building things on top of apps or creating features, but what is the people side of that? So one of the gaps that I have seen over my career in the technology field is that people sometimes leave out that we are creating technology for people. The technology is to be used by people. So you have to think--okay, if we take the example of earphones, right, or listening devices, right, and you think about "People need to use this for what? To either block out sound, to focus sound, you know?" What is it that people need it for, and then how do we build it or talk about it so that it matches what that need is? And that really requires, you know, the ability to ask a lot of questions and to be--like, I take a lot of notes. I pull in different people that have different areas of expertise for a particular technology. So sometimes in a phone call or in a conversation there will be an engineer and an architect and a product manager and a project manager that's somebody that's kind of herding the cats and all of that, and then you have other subject matter expertise that may be connected to that particular application, right, or that particular business process. So it's really important to have the soft skill of communication, that you can pull in those different perspectives, you can ask those different questions, you can get, you know, people talking, because a lot of times, technologists, they kind of work inside their own head, right? And so helping them come outside of their head with certain questions, especially open-ended--you know, how will this help John get his work done? How will this make it easier for the customer to execute a transaction? And really helping to articulate that for the technologist so that the business can say, "Oh, we know why you're making this change, and we're gonna make sure that we support it."Amy: Absolutely, and I've spent so much time in those roles. I'm just nodding along like, "Yes, we need a translator between the two worlds," becase they do speak different languages often. So I want to switch gears just a little bit, Vonda, and I want to ask you, especially 24 years ago when you started working in tech and, you know, sort of had a toe in the water but still way too much tday, I would imagine that you are not swimming in a sea of other black women at work.Vonda: No. It's so funny. So I just moved to a different team, and I was the only, only black woman. And I'm in a new team that has more women, but still the only black woman, and what I have found is that throughout my career I'm usually the only black woman--and every now and then there may be a support staff person, like a project coordinator or an administrative professional, but not usually. And so, you know, I've learned to be comfortable in that role, right, and to just really not let it hamper how I'm gonna perform. I don't shy back if I have a question. I ask it. If I'm running the meeting I'm running the meeting, you know? If I am trying to accomplish specific outcomes for a project or a meeting, I state what they are, I let them know "These are the critical success factors for getting it done," and, you know, no matter what I kind of keep on fighting, right? But it is very difficult, because what happens--and I'm sure, you know, in your work and in this inclusion space have had conversations with other black women who, you know, you get into this space where you know what some of the obstacles and challenges are going to be, but what you have to do is just drive ahead, right, and as you experience more and more circumstances, right, whether it's in meetings or whether it's in presentations or whether it's in, you know, any kind of group effort where you have to do things, you have to kind of go into it knowing that you might not get the support or the cooperation. Amy: So where do you get the reserves of energy that it must take to walk in every day knowing that--and forgive me for saying this. I mean, I'm gonna just kind of lay this out, right? Knowing no matter how good you are, no matter how great a job you do that day, no matter how great a job you've done for 20 years, there are probably no people who look like you above you in the food chain at your company, and your shot at getting there is pretty low.Vonda: Yeah, and it's interesting, 'cause--so I do two things. So one thing I do--and it's funny. So one thing that I do to mentally prepare myself is when I know I'm gonna have a challenging day, especially a day that I'm gonna be expending a whole lot of energy, I really make sure that I kind of have a ritual that I do, right, and part of it is the way I take care of myself, right? So I do a lot of physical exercise, 'cause I feel like when my body is strong, that helps me be mentally strong and emotionally prepared. That's one thing. I try to also listen to motivational music. So, like, I listen to a lot of hardcore--not hardcore, but, like, inspirational rap music, right, and I call it my mental warmup. So I have a playlist of, like, Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar and Drake and, you know, Jill Scott and different people, but I have music that kind of talks about, "Hey, things are hard, right, but you can do it," and so I use music and my physicality to help with that, but the other thing I do, Amy, is I have friends, right, and colleagues and associates that I'm close to that I know I can call to vent, right, and I can say, you know, "So here's what's happening. Am I looking at this, you know, in a way that doesn't seem right?" So that really helps. And I also go to therapy. I love therapy. I am a big advocate for people trying to take charge of their own mental health and mental well-being. And I talk to my therapist, right, and my therapist is a white guy in his 40s, and, you know, I look at it as--and we have a great relationship, right, and I look at it as--you know, and I think he does too, as he's my sort of--like, sort of... I don't want to call it a check, but my support from the standpoint that I can describe a situation or what it is, and he'll say, "Wow, that is really terrible. That must be really hard for you. How do you feel about that?" Amy: So I'm really glad that you brought up therapy, because I know, you know, among--particularly among my black friends there's a lot of stigma around seeking therapy because it's viewed as weakness or a lack of faith, and so I want to thank you for sharing that. That's very vulnerable. And, you know, I think it helps people when other folks come forward about those kinds of things, right? About prioritizing mental health, and particularly in a community that has cause for, you know--I mean, you're in a lot of collective stress, especially right now. I do think it's so important. Where do you go at work to find community when there are so few people who look like you in this place?Vonda: Yeah. So I'm funny like that, Amy. I seek out the black people. Like, I literally look for the black people. So I look for any face that I see that is of any shade, and I say, "Hey," and I walk up to people--you know, pre-COVID, right, I would walk up to somebody, a stranger, you know, and be like, "Hey, I'm Vonda. Who are you? What team do you work in?" Sometimes I just get on LinkedIn and I look for people that work for my company, and then I reach out to them on LinkedIn and I'm like, "Hey, we work at the same company. Here's my User ID. Why don't you Slack me when you get to the office?" Or something like that. So I make a purposeful attempt to reach out to people, and then I just kind of build it up from there. So I'm--and I don't know where I learned this. You know, I guess--my under-grad degree is in communications, my graduate degree is in communications. I've always been a very communicative person, you know, and so I will just reach out to somebody and say, "Hi, I'm Vonda. We haven't met. Can I put 20 minutes on your calendar just for, like, a 1-on-1 intro chat?" I've never been told, "No, you can't put 20 minutes on my calendar," I've always been told "Absolutely," and then I just kick it off like that. "Hey, I'm new here," or, you know, "I saw you on campus," or "Hey, I stalked you on LinkedIn, and I just wanted to say hi and find out what you do. Are there any other black people in your department? What's your experience like? If you ever need to talk, let's talk." And fortunately, you know, a lot of companies nowadays have ERGs or employee resource groups. Some companies call them affinity groups. That's a really good way to meet the only, because in a large company, you know, especially in tech and in high tech, they're probably the only in their team or the only in their department. So, you know, everybody is sort of craving that sense of "Oh, there's somebody that gets me. Oh, there's somebody that looks like me." So I bet you they're experiencing some of it, right? So when you're looking at gender the experience is a little different, right, for black men versus black women, because the way we're perceived, you know, in society is a little different, but we still are, I find, in tech usually the only. I would say, other than my colleagues who work more in the non-technical spaces, right, my colleagues who work more in, like, customer operations type of roles, you'll find more black women, right, in those roles, right? So it'll be more in those teams, but in the highly technical ones, everybody is usually the only, and when you are the only, you know, as you said, you do feel like "How am I gonna get to that next level? Because there is no one that looks like me," right? And if there was, you know, a black woman that might have had, you know, a high-up job, maybe she only stayed at the company for a couple of years or maybe she moved on--and it is difficult, but there's a part of me that feels like even if I can't make a significant enough change to maybe see it, I'm at least helping the next generation. So for me--and I guess it's part of the mom in me, right, is I want to help the next generation so that when they get to high tech in the corporate world they're not the only, but if they are, they know "Okay, here's how you need to navigate," right? You have to walk in realizing that the same perceptions that people have out of the corporate space, like, those are the same perceptions that get carried into the corporate space. And really, as you said, there's no amount of excellence and tenacity and accomplishment that will, you know, change that for people, but what you can do is change for yourself, you know, how you approach it, and if you have the information, right, to be able to say, "Okay, I am prepared that my ideas might not get traction. Okay, so then how do I start to build a coalition of advocates, right, and other, like, friendlies to help build that up? I know that if I'm presenting I might get interrupted, so what do I need to do about that?" So I have lines already memorized and prepared in my mind, right? So if I'm speaking and someone interrupts me, I say "Hey, can you hold your thought, John? Because I wasn't done," and then I finish, right? And I serve as an advocate to everyone. It doesn't matter male or female, black or white, Hispanic, Indian, it doesn't matter, and those things I think make a difference.Amy: Absolutely. So just in closing, what advice do you have for people who are maybe wanting to break into tech who maybe are not technologists but certainly, you know, have questions about how to get started. Where would you send them to kind of start this journey?Vonda: Yeah. I've thought about that a lot, because tech is here, and it is going to continue to grow and move into a bunch of different spaces. One of the really growing areas in tech right now is really around data science and data analytics, and I would encourage people to do at every stage of their career, right, whether they're in college right now, just finishing up high school, early career, mid-career, is really just start looking at some of those trends, right? So for example, you could just do a quick Google search on technology trends, and you'll see AI, you know, automation, artificial intelligence, and data science. Those things will pop right up, and the recommendation is really know a little bit about a lot, right? But just enough. You don't need to know, you know, all the deep down nitty-gritty details of what everything means, but if you have some familiarity, you know, "What's the conversation around automation these days," right? What's the conversation around Cloud? What's the conversation around data science? Have familiarity with the conversation around that. LinkedIn is a really great resource to go in in the search, and you can either type in, you know, the title "jobs" and type in, you know, a couple of titles, right? You can type in "data scientist," you can type in "automation," and then you can start to see, "Okay, these are some of the fields, and these are the criteria." But I would tell people even if you don't have a STEM, you know, type of background, science, technology, engineering and math, even if you don't have a STEM background, there's a space for you in technology, because we have to balance out the technologists, right? We have to balance that, and you really need strong communication skills, strong engagement skills, the ability to think not all the time at the detailed minute level, but to be able to look at things from a macro level, from a 30,000, 50,000-foot level. Be able to think about strategy. So if somebody asked me to do X, why did they ask me to do that? What other goals does it match up to? What's the bigger picture? And if you can understand the bigger picture, then that is a leg up, because in my experience folks that have a very specialized area of expertise and they only--let's say they know 90% about that and they know very little about other things, those are the people who really struggle. So you want to be--you know, not a jack of all trades because you can't, but you want to know a little bit about the big things, right, and then when you need to deep dive into them you do more. So, you know, I was on a call yesterday about some cryptography stuff, right? I haven't worked on cryptography--which they say crypto--since last year. So I had to go back and kind of read some of my notes and refamiliarize myself. "Okay, so for crypto here's what we're looking at, right? We're talking about how things are transmitted and are we making sure that the protocols are secure." So it's just a matter of knowing a little bit, and sometimes I'll be in a conversation and I'll say, you know, "I'm the least technical person here," and they're always like, "No, you seem like you understand it." Well, I understand it enough, right, to be able to articulate it, but if you ask me to, you know, write the scripts for it or--no, I'm not doing that. So I think it's really a few things, really understanding them, and just using your communication skills and your personality. And don't feel like, you know, because you're not an expert in something that that doesn't mean you're not valuable, because really most of those people aren't experts, right? And so I guess that's kind of where the impostor syndrome piece can come in for people. You're not an impostor, right? You know what you know, and there's enough resources out now that you can do research, right, to get the amount of knowledge that you need necessary to do it and do well.Amy: Vonda, thank you so much for sharing your experience and your wisdom with our audience. I really appreciate you.Vonda: Thanks so much for having me. It was a pleasure, and I look forward to talking with you soon.

On the seventieth installment of Tristan's Tips, our amazing host Tristan Layfield talks about advocating for yourself in the workplace. With everything going on in the world, many professionals are trying to find a way to make their voice heard, whether it be on the discomfort returning to the office during COVID-19 or challenging systemic issues linked to racism. It’s difficult to speak up, especially when you depend on your job so you can pay your bills and live your life. Remember, no one knows you better than you. It’s necessary that you speak up for yourself, your ideas, and your concerns!Connect with Tristan on LinkedIn, IG, FB, and Twitter. Links in order.http://bit.ly/2G7d6HKhttp://bit.ly/2XDcp3zhttp://bit.ly/2JEbg1Rhttp://bit.ly/2JCmKTzFind out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here or below.https://bit.ly/2Ug4l5KHelp food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.https://bit.ly/2WD73UkCheck out our website.https://bit.ly/living-corporateTRANSCRIPTTristan: What’s going on Living Corporate? It’s Tristan back again to bring you another career tip. This week I want to talk about advocating for yourself in the workplace.Many Black, Indigenous, and other professionals of color don’t often speak up for themselves or the injustices they see within the workplace out of fear of retribution. But with everything going on in the world, many professionals are trying to find a way to make their voice heard whether it be on the discomfort returning to the office during COVID-19 or challenging systemic issues linked to racism. It’s difficult to speak up, especially when you depend on your job so you can pay your bills and live your life. So I wanted to provide some tips on how to begin advocating in the workplace.The first thing to remember is that advocacy starts with you. I mean this in a couple of different ways. You first have to believe in yourself, your cause, and the fact that you deserve to be advocated for because if you aren’t firm in that belief, others won’t take it seriously and your attempts to advocate will be in vain. The second way I mean this is that you can’t advocate for others if you don’t know how to advocate for yourself. Before you start trying to advocate for others, take the time to learn how to do so for yourself. This will allow you to practice, boost your confidence, and help your find your advocacy voice. The first step in advocating is getting very clear on what the issue is. Remember that no one is a mind reader and oftentimes, people who aren’t affected by the issue have a hard time spotting it so it’s necessary to get clear on what is working and what isn’t. The next step is to develop potential solutions and present them alongside the issue. Don’t expect your boss to do the leg work because when you rely on someone else to develop solutions you could end up waiting a long time or they could also move forward with actions that don’t actually solve your problem. A major tip here is never, and I mean NEVER, ask for less in order to increase your chances of getting a yes. When you do this your boss isn’t actually aware that you are asking for less so you really only end up cheating yourself. Lastly, if you get denied don’t let that get you down. Figure out how to reframe your request or tailor it so you can build a better case.Remember no one knows you better than you. It’s necessary that you speak up for yourself, your ideas, and your concerns.This tip was brought to you by Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting. Check us out on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @LayfieldResume or connect with me, Tristan Layfield, on LinkedIn.

Zach has the honor of speaking with Dr. Jonathan Metzl, a psychiatrist and author of "Dying of Whiteness," about the concept of just that. Dr. Metzl shares a bit about his professional training, he and Zach delve into why he chose that title for his latest book, and they confront a couple criminally unjust ways in which black and brown people are classified in relation to their white counterparts. Check the links in the show notes to check out Dr. Metzl's books and more!Check out Dr. Metzl's books on Amazon and connect with him on Twitter.You can read the Toni Morrison piece Zach quoted by clicking here.Donate to the Justice for Breonna Taylor GoFundMe by clicking here.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.

On the twenty-seventh entry of The Link Up with Latesha, our incredible host Latesha Byrd, founder of Byrd Career Consulting, provides some guidance on how you can really navigate the workplace politics and the antics and the performative allyship right now. Check the show notes to put your name on the waiting list for Latesha's Career Chasers Members Club, and don't forget to read her piece on Medium.Interested in Latesha's Career Chasers Members Club? Click here for all the information. Membership will be reopening very soon, so join the waiting list!Check out Latesha's Medium article titled "Working While Black In the Midst of Crisis & Injustice."Stop by LateshaByrd.com! Click here to check out Latesha's shop, and don't forget the 60% discount code GETTHECOINS.Find out more about Latesha on the BCC website or connect with her through LinkedIn, IG, Twitter, and FB.Check out Latesha's YouTube channel.Connect with Byrd Career Consulting via LinkedIn, IG, Twitter, and FB.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTLatesha: Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Link Up with Latesha. Y'all... why is it still 2020? I mean, we aren't even halfway through the year, but it feels like 2025. I feel like I've aged, you know, quite a few years within the last month. On today's episode, I wanted to provide and offer just some guidance on how you can really navigate the workplace politics and the antics and the performative allyship right now. This is an emotional time, I think, for many of us. 2020 has been a wild ride, y'all, and if you've been listening to, you know, The Link Up for a while, then you know that I'm a career coach, and so a part of my work is every day to have these conversations around what my clients are experiencing in the workplace, and when I tell you that these folks have lost their minds... [laughs] Like, people are really losing it out here. I think it's a combination of, you know, folks just kind of going crazy from staying at home and not traveling and not really having a life anymore to just being downright crazy, and as you all know, we are dealing with a lot of racism. Racism is not a new thing, right? It's been around for hundreds, hundreds of years, but it's definitely amplified just a lot more in terms of the conversations that are being brought up in the workplace now just due to all of the police brutality that has been on display for the world to see. I'm seeing a lot of content, I'm seeing a lot of messaging, for companies, leaders, for allies, on what they can do to kind of support the cause right now, but you know where I think we're really missing the mark? I don't see any content for us. Now, when I say us, I mean Black people, the ones that are really hurting right now and that are getting the short end of the stick. We don't have seats at the table to lead discussions and to talk about really dismantling the changes that need to take place within companies. We're not the ones. No, [but] we are being asked though to talk about "What does it feel like to be Black in America," you know? Like, "What? Why? Why would I want to talk about that with y'all?" You know? Like, that's the first thing that comes to mind when my clients are telling me that. They don't give us a seat at the table. I mean, we can't even see the table, you know? And I think about the glass ceiling, right, and how this term called "glass ceiling" means that, you know, women really aren't able to, you know, advance into leadership. I honestly think that, for Black women, I don't even know if there's a glass ceiling. I feel like we can't even see through the ceiling, you know what I'm saying? I don't know what that type of ceiling is, but listen, I don't think it's a glass ceiling. [laughs] And it's to the point where I think our emotions are at an all-time high, and yet we are still expected to show up and do our job and, you know, talk about what it's like being Black in America and to be that Black spokesperson for the Black delegates all over the world. Like, there is so much pressure on us, and it's frustrating for me, it's angering for me as a career coach, because I see and I hear what my clients are going through and all of the people that have reached out to me over the last week or so about, you know, really how to have these conversations and, you know, the fear of, "Well, if I don't have this conversation, you know, my employer is going to, you know, basically put a mark on my record or think that I am being difficult because I don't want to talk or I'm, you know, being aggressive if I speak up." You know? It's like we can't win. So I'm frustrated, y'all. I love us. I love being Black. I love that we are so talented and ambitious and strong, but we are tired of being strong. Like, for real, for real. So I have some tips for you. I'm gonna go ahead and get into it. Before I do that, just a couple of announcements I want to share - and I have not shared this publicly just yet, but I have a membership club called Career Chasers Member's Club. It is for Black women that are really seeking community, guidance and support as we are on this path of career greatness, chasing career greatness. Get it? [laughs] Yeah? No? Okay. Career Chasers, that's the name. Career Chasers Member's Club. So if you are looking for that community of like-minded ambitious women that are typically, you know, super smart but have lost, you know, confidence along the way, and if you're ready to invest in yourself and take control over your career, I want to welcome you to be a part of this community. We're 100 members strong, and my goal is to grow and grow and grow this thing. Excited to share that one of our members, Elise, just landed a role at Netflix in their aero-engineering team. So really excited for her. A lot of our members are getting interviews. They are really putting themselves out there with networking, because listen, y'all. These goals don't stop, and I'm gonna get off my soapbox in a minute, but these goals don't stop, you know, despite what's going on, and just remember that you being able to really step into your most highest and truest and best self professionally, that is resistance, because you are building and creating a path for someone else, right? Someone else is going to be able to look at you and say, "You know what? If she can do it, I can do it too." So more details to come on that. I'll drop the link in the show notes if you want to be on the wait list so you'll be the first to know when membership is opening up. So let's go ahead and get into what I want to talk about today. Here's the thing: I don't think that we should continue to sit in spaces that discount our experiences without letting our voices be heard. I am tired, and I think we are all tired, and I just tweeted this earlier, but I said "Companies, your Black employees are ready to throw in the tile." The TILE. [laughs] Y'all know what I'm talking about if you watch The Verses and Tyrese. Y'all know he can't spell, so he said he's ready to throw in the tile. Anyways, we are tired, but listen, here's a positive thing I think that's going on is that more ears are now open to the conversation about systemic oppression and racism, but I think that there is still a lot--and I mean, y'all know that there is a lot of work that we have to do, but I don't think we should have to censor our identities anymore. I think that now the conversation and the eyes are on us, so you can use that to your advantage, but I also don't want you all to feel pressured if you don't feel like your company has provided a safe space for you to be fully transparent about how you are feeling. Like, let me just say that, but what I do want to say is that, you know, I do think there is some genuine care and concern right now. So I do encourage you to express, like, how you're feeling about everything that's going on. It is not going to be an easy conversation. And what I'm realizing is that it seems like a lot of our white colleagues are making it harder, you know, I think in terms of race and racism. This is something that we typically talk about with each other all of the time, you know? But I'm seeing that our white colleagues are really struggling with even how to have the conversation. Like, they don't even want to say the word race or racism, you know? Or police brutality. You know, years ago Black Lives Matter was very controversial. So saying all that to say I want you to trust your intuition and do what you think you need to do to really just kind of make it through this time. If you need to take some time off, like, please do that. Like, step away from the work, because the work will always be there, you know? I'm hoping that you don't have to take PTO. Maybe your company offers wellness days or you can take a sick day, because honestly when you think about health, it's not just physical health. It's mental health too. Like, take some time and step away if you feel overwhelmed right now--and I know [for] me personally it's been an emotional rollercoaster. I have been feeling overwhelmed. I can't imagine having to go into a 9-to-5 every day and still perform and be expected to, like I said, be a speaker for the Black delegation, so if you need to, take some time away. I want you to do that, y'all. Just start taking a Monday here, a Friday here. Take a whole week if you can. Like, really step away, because you probably aren't as productive as you maybe once were before. So let me go ahead and get into some more of these tips. So like I said, be open to having the conversation when the topic does come up. Don't say--you know, if they ask, like, how you're feeling, don't say, "Oh, I'm good. What are you talking about? Everything is great." Like, you know, you don't have to do that. You don't even have to say, "You know, I'm just having a bad day," or "I'm just having an off day." Like, I would actually say, "You know what? With all of the things going on in the world, in the U.S. with police brutality and seeing, you know, people of my race, you know, being killed for the world to see, that is really affecting me right now. I'm a bit traumatized. You know, I'm not feeling my best right now due to the things that are going on, and so I do want to let you know that." Like, I don't think that we should stray away from being ourselves in these conversations for fear of making someone else feel uncomfortable, y'all get what I'm saying? Because we, as Black employees, we are typically uncomfortable at work a lot of--you know, most of the day. We just are used to working through that discomfort. So don't ever feel like you can't express how you feel for fear of making someone else feel uncomfortable. Just want to be clear on that. Let them know that you are hurt and you're sad and you're angry, things are not easy for you right now, but you are going to do the best that you can. And I think you should definitely share why you are upset. Now, there are things that I do think that you should not have to really speak to, like talking about what it means to be Black in America. I just--me personally, y'all, I just don't think that that is a productive conversation, because it's a little bit--it's infuriating, you know? We live this life. [laughs] We live this life. We can't turn our Blackness off, right? We walk outside and we're bound to have to deal with a micro-aggression at the store, at the gas station, with the neighbor, you know? Racism is always happening to us, so having to relive and tell that trauma to someone else, that just does not sit well with me, especially if you're being asked to talk about that, like I said, in a space that is not conducive to actually healing, you get what I'm saying? It's like you're putting your wounds on display to be picked at, but nobody is coming and putting a bandage, you know, on that wound. So I think that you can talk about how you're feeling, but you don't need to go on and on and on and on about the experience of actually being Black. I hope that that makes sense in terms of the difference there. Another tip is to set boundaries. First of all, y'all, don't allow your co-workers to disrespect you, to say disrespectful things or racist or misogynistic things. I think it's time for us to start to call it out and really use our voice here. End a conversation if you have to. Check somebody if you have to. If someone says something like, you know, "All lives matter," or "I don't understand what these protests are about," like, I would just kind of counter their biases and say, "Oh, really? Can you tell me more about that? Hm. So do you know what's actually--like, what's being protested, and do you know that these protests, like, didn't start out of thin air?" Y'all know it really--it really depends on, you know, how you feel and if you feel like you can have this conversation and school someone and check someone, you know, in a professional way, but you can also walk away. I just don't want you to still, like, actually put a cover on how you feel or feel like you can't, you know, speak up or defend yourself in that moment, and if you have to just end the conversation, then just do that too. But again, we're not going to just suffer in silence anymore. The next thing is to protect your peace. Protect your calendar if you can. Figure out ways to limit the amount of meetings that you're taking every day. Make sure that you are actually--I know a lot of us are still working from home. Make sure that you are taking breaks throughout the day. What I did--so I did not eat much last week. I did not sleep much last week. So what I did this week is on Monday I actually put a calendar reminder or break in my day. I put a lunch, an hour lunch break, each and every day between my meetings so I would not skip lunch. The other thing that I did is that I would just put, like, a blocked time on my calendar, meaning "This is a no-meeting time. I don't want any meetings being booked, I don't want any consultations. I don't want anything being booked during those times so I actually can step away." Also with protecting your peace right now, be mindful of the content that you're consuming, you know? There is so much content going around with all of these videos resurfacing of police brutality and, you know, just more traumatic things that we have to log on and see every day, so I have to remind myself as well to make sure that I am watching funny videos, you know? I am finding things on Hulu and Netflix that is uplifting, because I'm doing a lot of self-education as well in terms of just the history of, you konw, racism here in America, and it is exhausting, and it is infuriating, and so as much as I am interested and I'm, you know, passionate about this topic and learning more myself, it is also extremely tiring and draining, because I think about all of the things that, you know, our people have endured for generations and generations, so I actually have to remind myself to make sure that I am consuming content that is positive and that is also feeding me up and building me up. So I just want y'all to really take care of yourselves in that regard. Stay off social media if you can. I know that--every day there's something happening, y'all. It's really crazy right now. So I feel like if I take a day away from social media I feel like I miss, like, two months, you know what I'm saying? But trust me, that stuff, that content, will always be there, so take your breaks. I want to remind y'all to eat and get your rest. You know, set a bedtime. Set a bedtime. I have been up, y'all, at least last week and even just as we have been going through this pandemic, I was up late, and it's been even later, but this week I said, "You know what? I need to actually implement a bedtime." So please get your rest. The last thing I want to say is that you are not there to do the emotional labor of your white colleagues or leaders or console their white guilt, okay? We don't have to do that, and I think that's where we really need to draw the line. Like, for instance, if a white colleague is talking to you about what's going on and they are making it all about them, like, "I just can't believe this, and I think about my experience as, you know, a woman," or "I think about my experience as--" You know, they'll find a way to try to, like, relate, and it's like, "You don't understand what discrimination is really really like being a Black person. It is on a totally different level," right? So they will try to find ways to relate in that regard, or they will try to find ways to apologize about not realizing, you know? "Oh, my gosh. I just can't even imagine how you feel right now and what you're going through." Y'all, just walk away from those conversations. Just end those conversations if you have to. I don't think that we should have to give an applause or say a thank you for--"You know what? Thank you for putting all of that, projecting that pity on me. I appreciate it." Like, you don't have to do that. If they're like, "Oh, the cops are so mean. Racism is terrible." Well, you know what? What do you--it's like, "What do you want me to say?" Like, "How do you actually want me to respond to that?" Like, "Thank you?" It's like, "We live this. We are living this life every day." So that's all I have, y'all. Take care of yourself, be well. We need safe spaces right now. Create safe spaces within your home. Create safe spaces within your friendships and relationships. It's really healthy to kind of talk about these things and not hold it all in. If you can get a therapist at this time and seek professional help, please do that. I encourage everyone to look at their company's employee assistance plans or company's EAPs. So talk to HR about that and see what options are available to you to actually provide some type of support, you know? Because like I said, you have to take care of you, and I just want to make sure that, you know, you all are doing that. The last thing I'll say is if you feel like you want to see change in your organization, feel free to speak up, you know? Feel free to be a part of those conversations, but you also don't have to be forced. Like, I don't want you to feel forced to do that. If you need to opt out of conversations for your own peace, then you can do that as well, but if this is something that you're passionate about and you feel like you can drive change and make an impact in the workplace, then I encourage you to do that as well. So basically what I'm saying here, y'all, is there is no right way to do this. I think resistance really shows up in different ways for many of us, so figure out your way and know that you just showing up to work is enough. You being Black in America, you know, is enough. So I'm thinking of you all. Definitely engage with Living Corporate on social media. I know Zach and team is really taking all of this in and hearing and listening to the audience right now and just trying to make sure that we are as supportive for you all as possible. So all right, y'all. I will talk to you all soon. Peace.

On the sixty-ninth entry of Tristan's Tips, our amazing host Tristan Layfield discusses the impact of authenticity during your job search and career. A 2016 study published in the Administrative Science Quarterly showed that 25% of Black candidates received interview callbacks if their resumes were scrubbed of racial cues whereas only 10% of Black candidates got calls when they left ethnic details intact. While scrubbing your resume clearly produces results in securing jobs, if a company rules you out because of your name, your natural hair, or your Black organizational affiliations, or any other reason related to your race... is that really a company you’d want to work for?Connect with Tristan on LinkedIn, IG, FB, and Twitter. Links in order.http://bit.ly/2G7d6HKhttp://bit.ly/2XDcp3zhttp://bit.ly/2JEbg1Rhttp://bit.ly/2JCmKTzFind out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here or below.https://bit.ly/2Ug4l5KHelp food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.https://bit.ly/2WD73UkCheck out our website.https://bit.ly/living-corporateTRANSCRIPTTristan: What’s going on Living Corporate? It’s Tristan from Layfield Resume Consulting. This week, I’m not necessarily giving a tip but I wanted to discuss the impact of authenticity during your job search and career.Most Black and Brown professionals are well aware of bias they may experience throughout the job search because somewhere down the line we were taught that we needed to hide parts of ourselves to try to land the jobs that we want. From “whitening” our resume by not using our real name to switching up the way we speak during interviews, we are always aware (sometimes consciously and sometimes not) that our race can and most likely has played a factor in hiring decisions.Recently, I had a Black client who is a whole doctor ask me if she should use her real name on her resume for fear of how the recruiters and hiring managers would view her. I had another Black woman tell me that she didn’t want to take a new headshot for LinkedIn right now because she had in braids and she didn’t want potential employers to think she was “too ethnic.” I had another Black male client who asked me if highlighting his leadership with a professional Black organization would decrease his chances of getting calls for interviews.These are the types of questions and comments I hear from many of my Black clients and I completely get their concerns. A 2016 study published in the Administrative Science Quarterly showed that 25% of Black candidates received interview callbacks if their resumes were scrubbed of racial cues whereas only 10% of Black candidates got calls when they left ethnic details intact. The study even showed that you may be at an even greater risk for discrimination when applying to a pro-diversity employer because candidates tend to be more transparent. So the issue is very real and the tactics we’ve developed clearly produce results in getting us jobs. But I fear we may be setting ourselves up for a fairly tough work experience.The job search, interview, and even the first couple of days on the job are the times when you are laying the foundation of your relationship with the company and vice versa. When your foundation is based on the scrubbed version of you, I’ve found that you tend to get boxed into that version. I’ve seen this lead to us feeling like we’re not seen in the workplace or like we can’t truly be ourselves at work, a place where we spend large majority of our time. And when we decide it’s time to show true pieces of ourselves we start to get pushback from our colleagues and leadership that can take on many different forms, most typically having a negative impact on us. This produces an uncomfortable and, at times, unsafe work environment for us which puts us in a position where we feel we have to leave a company even though we may like the work we are doing.So when my clients ask me if they should present themselves differently to land a role, it’s always a hard question for me to answer because there are obviously risks on both sides. The data clearly shows the answer is yes but the lived experiences show how detrimental shrinking yourself for a job can be. So I always pose the question, if a company rules you out because of your name, your natural hair, or your Black organizational affiliations, or any other reason related to your race…is that really a company you’d want to work for?This episode was brought to you by Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting. Check us out on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @LayfieldResume or connect with me, Tristan Layfield, on LinkedIn.

Zach has the honor of sitting down to chat with award-winning journalist and author Pamela Newkirk to discuss the historical failure of diversity and inclusion. They talk a bit about her 2019 work "Diversity, Inc.: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Business," and Pamela explains how and why transparent metrics across the board are the first step to actively addressing any diversity problem. She also implores institutions that truly want to embrace diversity to just stop doing what they've been doing and lean into the successful models that can be readily replicated that already exist out there. Check the links in the show notes to find out more about Pamela's work!Connect with Pamela on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.Interested in Pamela's books? Click here to read more about them on Amazon.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here or below.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Check out our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and it's a Tuesday. You know, it's interesting--as a sidenote, y'all, you know, we pride ourselves in recording content in bulk, and, you know, we had a lot of different, interesting content that we were gonna share, but because of just where we are, we had to really shift some things. So thank you in advance for the folks being gracious with us, 'cause I know we'll--you know, a little bit behind the scenes. You know, we'll tell folks when we post and things of that nature, and we've had to change a lot of different things just because of where we are as a nation. And, you know, with that being said, y'all should know, if you don't know maybe you're a first-time listener. We actually are a platform that exists to center and amplify marginalized voices at work, and of course, again, considering where we are today, this work is all the more important, and we're really blessed and excited for the guest that we have today, Ms. Pamela Newkirk. Pamela Newkirk is an award-winning journalist whose articles have been published in the New York Newsday, the New York Times, and other publications. She's written a book called Spectacle, which was named one of the best books of 2015 by NPR, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Boston Globe, and The Root. It won an NAACP Image Award. She's the editor of Letters From Black America and A Love No Less:" More Than Two Centuries of African-American Love Letters and is the author of Within the Veil: Black Journalists, White Media, which won the National Press Book Club award for media criticism. In addition to this, and what we're really excited to talk to her about today, she is the author of the 2019 incredible seller Diversity Inc.: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Business. Ms. Newkirk, how are you?Pamela: I'm fine considering all that's going on in the world. Zach: I hear you. I'm exhausted, frustrated, anxious. I'm still somehow hopeful though.Pamela: Yeah, you know, I think that's kind of where I'm coming out on this. I have seen more progress over the past few days than I have in the 20 years that I've been writing about diversity and race and inclusion. Like, suddenly it seems to be breaking through, and I think there is no longer a place to hide and to pretend you're innocent or ignorant about what African-Americans are living through day-by-day. You know, as if the George Floyd travesty, tragedy, was not enough, we're still seeing constantly these videotaped images of police officers, you know, brutalizing peaceful protestors. So it's like suddenly it's all out in the open, and while those of us who have been living this for our entire lives, none of this is new to us. We've been saying it. We've been documenting it. But for some reason, the constellation of incidents, you know, from Amy Cooper to Ahmaud Arbery to then the most shocking, horrifying video of George Floyd being murdered on camera, this, you know, continuing saga of the African-American experience, to finally break through to the mainstream of white America. Zach: You know, it's interesting that you go there, 'cause I was curious, you know, in your book, Diversity Inc., you talk about the adverse impacts of unconscious bias training and how it's been proven to be ineffective, and yet that still seems to be, like, the mainstay or, like, for some organizations, like, their crown jewel. Like, they build everything around unconscious bias, the concept of unconscious bias, training around unconscious bias, you know, language that really focuses on bias only being unconscious.Pamela: Right. It's like drive-through diversity. You know, drive-by diversity. That's what the civil rights lawyer Cyrus Merry calls it. Companies are willing to spend billions of dollars every year on all of these, you know, the apparatus of diversity, but they're not willing to devote their money to interventions to actually doing diversity, actually hiring a diverse workforce. It's not that complicated, it's not rocket science, and yet, you know, we live in a world where you can go on Google and find out almost anything, and yet even in major cities companies pretend that they cannot find, you know, diverse candidates. It's really absurd, and I think, you know, that the level of frustration and the number of people out on the streets is now really shining a bright light on injustice writ large. It's not only the injustice of police brutality. Racial injustice has just been normalized, you know? Whether it's African-Americans dying of COVID at, you know, 4x the rate of whites, whether it's the radical underrepresentation of African-Americans in practically every professional field. You know, the health disparities. You go down the line, and we have, for centuries, normalized this as if it's, like, determined by God that we should have, you know, these kinds of disparities when it really is a function of policies and practices that are human-made, right?Zach: Right, right. No, I agree with you. You know, I want to ask you a question about the book title before we get to the next question. It's Diversity Inc.: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Business. Can we talk about what promise corporate D&I has failed to deliver on?Pamela: Oh, God. You name it. I mean... so, you know, in doing the book, I wanted to interrogate the tension between the rhetoric of diversity, the apparatus of diversity, you know, the diversity czars and the diversity studies and the diversity reports and the diversity organizations and all of this--you know, this huge apparatus. You know, the climate surveys, the training. I wanted to look at--you know, we're devoting so much time to that, and why we consistently fail to achieve diversity. Like, what's going on? Why are we spending billions of dollars on something that has been shown year after year to fail? Like, it just... it seems ludicrous, but yet, you know, you have a company like Google that will spend more than 100 million dollars a year on diversity initiatives and year-after-year end up with a workforce in which African-Americans are, like, 2% of the employees in tech. Like, how do you spend that much money and fail so spectacularly year after year, and could that money instead be used to actually hire... [laughs] Silly me! Like, do you really need to train 30 and 40 and 50-year-olds to think differently about people of color who are just, like, totally missing in those spaces? How about bringing some of those people in those spaces? And guess what, they're gonna have to learn how to deal with them. They would be their colleagues. Like, I don't need to be trained on how to deal with diverse populations, but I do need a job, and if I am in a workplace that has people from different walks of life and different races and different, you know, whatever, I mean, I will learn how to deal with that. I don't need to be trained.Zach: And, you know, it's interesting, because to your point, we talk about this training. It doesn't go anywhere, and frankly I'm frustrated by the space. And so as I continue to look at it I see certain patterns, and it seems almost like diversity and inclusion is a space where--I'm gonna paint with broad brushes here, but you know what? It's my podcast and I can do that. So it seems as if diversity and inclusion as an industry is, like, a space where white women can go to, like, help them with their careers or to help give them certain levels of access or profile. So I've explicitly seen white women, like, talk about diversity and inclusion at, like, these big platforms, like, at Davos, right? And they'll stand up there and they'll say something fairly pedestrian if not outright obvious, but they're applauded for it, and it's like they're applauded by other white people. So it's almost like a community within itself, right? Like, they use a lot of language that we really don't understand.Pamela: Right, and worse than that. I'm gonna go further on your podcast. [both laugh] Diversity has come to mean everything and nothing. What is diversity? Most institutions don't even agree on what diversity is. Diversity could be more women, more white women, diversity could be more LGBTQ, and they can be white. Diversity could be people with mental or physical, you know, issues, and they can be white. So diversity can totally eclipse racial diversity and still, to many institutions, qualify as diversity. You know, the diversity czar at Apple went so far as to say 12 blonde blue-eyed white men could illustrate diversity because of their different backgrounds. So this diversity has--which is why, in my book, I focus on racial diversity, because I think race has sort of been set aside, you know? Because supposedly after the election of Barack Obama we were suddenly a post-race nation. You know, people are not saying that anymore. No, not today, but they were saying that, you know, for 8 years, and here we are, you know, with the same issues and with the needle barely moving for decades in most influential fields, whether we're talking about journalism or academia or museums or the law firms. Like, look around, and while all of these institutions will wave the diversity flag, very few of them are diverse.Zach: Right, especially when you start looking higher and higher, right? So when you start looking at spaces for the folks who actually make decisions and really are responsible--like, who own a P&L, like, that's where you start just seeing--I mean, you may at best see a sprinkling of non-white people, and that's not even to say black people. You might only see a sprinkle of just non-white people. And so I'm curious, when we talk about this space, and you kind of alluded to it when I asked you about how you're feeling and talked about hope, but I want to talk about the fact that we had Howard Bryant, ESPN senior contributor, NPR contributor, on the podcast on Saturday, and I shared that I think right now is a watershed moment essentially exposing how by and large inept diversity and inclusion is at really engaging black and brown employees explicitly. And I'm curious, do you think that we're in such a moment?Pamela: You know, I'm hopeful. Of course, you know, the proof is gonna be in the pudding, you know, whether we actually see change, but I do--you know, I'm heartened by seeing so many white people even out on the streets, you know, protesting. You know, that's not something that we've seen. You know, Black Lives Matter has really been limited to black and brown people who have been out there on the frontlines of that battle, and it's almost as if white people have, like, cast themselves as sort of innocent bystanders in this whole racial conversation. Like, they have, like, really nothing to do with it when they have everything to do with it, and so it's really encouraging to me to at least see whites engaging in a way that I have not seen in my lifetime.Zach: It's incredible that you say that. I was speaking to my father this morning, and he said, "Son, I'm 55 years old, and I've never seen this in my life." It's incredible. So here's what's scary, police been beating us, you know, since antebellum, but to see white folks out there getting beat down alongside us...Pamela: Yeah, but we have to remember that white abolitionists were treated [just?] as badly, you know? During slavery, white abolitionists were killed, you know, just as readily as black people were. So it's really not that unusual. What's unusual is that they're out there, you know? They're out there holding signs saying "Black Lives Matter." I mean, that, I do think it's a watershed moment just for that. I think there are people who are being really cynical about the level of activism we're seeing, saying they're performing, you know, racial politics or whatever. All I know is that they hadn't done that in all of the days of my life, and so the fact that many are now openly expressing their horror in a way that they should have all along--I mean, no doubt, but the fact that they're doing it now, I welcome it, because, like, hello, welcome to, you know, your humanity, you know? We're all implicated in this, and black people should never have been the only ones to single out police brutality, racial inequality, the radical underrepresentation in all of these workplaces. That, you know, injustice affects all of us. And, I mean, I do understand that white people have benefitted from inequality, but they're also paying the price of inequality as well. I mean, you know, no justice no peace. There won't be peace in the land as long as you have a system that's so blatantly unjust. Zach: And so, you know, you talked about white folks coming out and supporting and having Black Lives Matter. I'ma tell you, Ms. Newkirk, when I knew it was a thing was when this Amish came out there. [both laugh] I said, "How did y'all even get the word?"Pamela: I guess what got me was the thousands of people in Berlin, you know? And in Paris and in London. You know? Australia. I mean, around the world, you know, the whole world is watching.Zach: And so, you know, we've talked a little bit about what we think this is. There are plenty of organizations, right, that are--and I say this as someone who, because of my network, I'm able to see... like, I know the diversity and inclusion consulting spaces and stuff out there, right? And I'm seeing there's a sharp uptick in demand for [?]. Pamela: Oh, my God. My phone is ringing off the hook and I don't do diversity training, and I tell them I don't do diversity training. "If you've read my book, you'd know how I felt about it." But I know a lot of people who do it and, you know, you're welcome to, like, speak to them. I'm all in for a candid conversation about what you can do differently to change the game, but I don't think it's something that you need someone in week after week--I mean, if that's gonna help you get to a place where you actually, you know, create opportunity for non-white people, if that's what it's gonna take, fine, but all of the studies have pretty much conclusively shown that training doesn't work. The numbers they report year after year show that training doesn't work too because most Fortune 500 companies have been doing this training for years and the numbers don't budge. And yeah, there's that Harvard study by Frank Dobbin that shows that these studies, especially when it's mandatory training, it triggers a backlash among white men who, instead of supporting diversity, it makes them even more resentful of it. And even worse, the study showed that 5 years after this training, the percentage of black women and Asian men and women actually decreased, their numbers in management. So why are companies doing the same things and expecting different results?Zach: And it's interesting because they're coming in and they're doing that, right? Like, the same training. I agree that ultimately--the whole idea of "We need to come and have a dialogue" is frustrating, because I feel like we've dialoguing--I'm 30, and I feel like we've been dialoguing for a long time.Pamela: Oh, my God. I've been in journalism and higher ed for more than 30 years, longer than you've been alive, and it's the same conversation. It's the same conversation from, you know, the 1960s, you know? And I guess the optimistic way of looking at it is--and, you know, after the uprising in the 1960s when the doors finally opened to people of color in fields that had historically excluded them, we did see, you know, the numbers jump up, you know, considerably. We saw more African-Americans, Latinos and others going to colleges, you know, entering fields that they had been excluded from, but as that progress became to metastastize, then we came into the '80s and we had this backlash against diversity, you know, under Reagan, and we had this, you know, systemic dismantling of every policy, every practice.Zach: All those social programs got gutted, yeah.Pamela: Yes, everything got gutted, and then the backlash--we're still living in that backlash to the progress that had been made. So, you know, the interesting thing is that all of these institutions can turn on a dime when they're ready, when they want to. Like, we're seeing companies now suddenly devote millions of dollars. I just heard Bain is gonna, you know, donate 100 million to, you know, black causes, and all of these things are suddenly happening, so it's so easy for them to turn it around, to open that spigot, but what has been lacking is the leadership, the will, and the intention.Zach: Yeah, yeah. And to your point, right, we've seen this organizations--a lot of these organizations, these big ones, like, they solve big problems. They solve really big problems. But the frustrating thing for me I think is that we treat racism as an abstract, right? So we'll say things like, "Well, we just need to open our hearts and minds." It's like, "We don't really actually need to open our hearts and minds. We just need to tie these things back into tangible outcomes." You know, create and add new policies that hold and drive accountability, increase transparency, and make certain demands and expectations, right? Like I said, I'm alluding back to the Saturday episode, but it's just fresh in my mind, because I think about the fact that Howard Bryant, he said, you know, "The reason you come in [and] you don't sexually harass somebody isn't--you know, it may be because you're a decent person." [both laugh] Pamela: It may be, and it may be because you'll get fired.Zach: You know that there's gonna be consequences and repercussions if you come in here acting stupid, harassing women or harassing anybody, saying something inappropriate. You know that.Pamela: Exactly. And do you need a training program to tell you that?Zach: I genuinely don't, and I loathe every single one of them. But you're right.Pamela: Yeah, and the thing is it's not even that I'm just so against the idea of training--even though I kind of am, but if there was anything, any proof, that they actually helped realize diversity, I'd be all about it, you know? There are measures that we know work, and I just don't understand why we keep doing something that has not borne fruit and we ignore the things that do, and that leads me to believe that there's not an honest intention to actually realize diversity.Zach: I agree. So some of it to me is, like, when you talk about, like, programming for diversity, equity and inclusion, you know, it's typically some type of instructor-led training, but a lot of studies continue to show that being able to have authentic conversations and build stories, again, tying and really having the critical conversations to tie goals and values to policy, is really what drives results, but we're just still not there yet. I'm curious, again, there are plenty of organizations who are just now trying to build, like, some type of office, right? Some type of council or department or whatever you want to call it. What would you say are some of the biggest mistakes folks--and when I say folks I mean organizations--commit when they try to launch initiatives or departments or groups like this?Pamela: Yeah, I think the biggest mistake is that the leadership sort of farms out this diversity issue to the most marginalized person in the organization, which is usually the diversity czar, whatever they call the diversity professional in that organization. Usually that person is the most marginalized executive of the team. It's usually a person of color or a woman, and they usually don't have much power, and so don't do that, and if you're going to do that, if you're gonna go that route, then you have to empower that person to actually get results. One thing that we've seen from studies, there was a study done a year ago, a survey of Fortune 500 D&I professionals, and I think it was somewhere around 65% did not even have access to the metrics, the diversity metrics, in the organization they work for. So how could they hope to fix a problem that they can't even see, right? So they're shooting in the dark. We know the most effective way to tackle a diversity problem is first to have transparent metrics across job categories, across, you know, bonus systems, any kind of award systems. Who's getting, who's not? Right? You know, you have to look under the hood and see what's actually happening in these companies, because we know with unconscious bias you can keep blaming everything on unconscious bias, but whether it's conscious or unconscious, let's see how it's working in your organization. Only then can you hope to even have an intervention, you know? Whether it's in your promotion system, it's your hiring system, it's looking at, you know, who's even being interviewed for positions, you know? What kind of outreach are you doing? So you have to have transparent metrics across the board. It is the first step, and once you do that then you can hope to have the kind of interventions that will allow you to actively address the problem. It's what--I do a chapter on what happened at Coca-Cola after they were sued for racial discrimination, and part of the settlement was having this task force that oversaw what they were doing to correct the problem, and over 5 years they were able to make substantial improvements through a system of transparent metrics and accountability.Zach: And, you know, it's interesting because I think when we talk about metrics--and it goes back just to, like, the lack of inclusion in this work, but when you talk about metrics it presumes that the people who are measuring understand what they're measuring for, right? But if you have a group--and there's plenty of articles, you know, op-eds, analysis, reports, all kinds of things about just how behind the majority population on matters of race, so then why would that same population then be responsible for measuring the nuances of race and diversity? [both laugh]Pamela: Are you saying the fox is guarding the chicken coop? Is that what you're saying? [laughs]Zach: Absolutely. Absolutely it is.Pamela: Well, yeah. So if you're not allowing the person charged with increasing diversity, if you're not giving them access to those numbers, you know, you're hiding something for one thing, right? And you're handcuffing them. There's no way that they can hope to correct those issues without having that kind of information. I mean, that's just basic to their job, but yet you talk to most D&I people and they don't have access to that.Zach: And what's also interesting about that is that--I don't know, there's different levels, right? Because the other piece, you talked about power, and I've been--Living Corporate has been a bit more intentional in calling out, like, the ethics of power and how all of these things work, right? Because you just rarely ever see the person who's really driving diversity, equity and inclusion be somebody that really has authority, and they're not respected in the space because typically their role is something internal. You know, they're not necessarily driving any type of revenue, so they're not gonna really be heard. And on top of that sometimes compounded is the complexity that you have organizations that will get somebody who is black or brown, but again make them junior, so not only do they not have the formal hierarchal power, they don't even have the social capital that comes with being white to really navigate and do their jobs well because they're, you know, often times tokenized.Pamela: Right. It really comes down to leadership, because in any organization people know what matters and what doesn't matter, right? You know if a person really has power or if they just have a title. Like, it's not hard to figure out, you know, who you have to respect and who you can ignore and, you know, what they stand for, so it really does come down to leadership and if leaders are gonna continue to farm this issue out to marginalized people, be they consultants or, you know, a diversity person who really has no power, you know? We're not gonna see any progress in that space. And, I mean, looking at all of these fields that have not changed in all of this time, that has to be willful, and so it's gonna take will to change that, and I hope that we're living in a time now where people realize that, you know, this is not a sustainable situation.Zach: It's not, and that actually leads me to my next question. I want to quote an excerpt from your book. "The quest for racial diversity has long been an uphill crusade, but now it's waged in a far more polarized climate in which many whites now claim they are being disenfranchised as others are afforded undue advantage. An NPR poll conducted in 2017 found that 55% of white Americans believe that they are discriminated against while, tellingly, a lower percentage said that they actually have experienced discrimination. A Reuters survey in 2017 found that 39% of whites polled agreed with the statement that quote, "White people are currently under attack in this country," end quote." So I'm quoting this because the reality of this, I believe, is still showing up in 2020 in that a significant percentage of white D&I experts, quote-unquote, they have the opinion that white folks, particularly white men, need to be included, because if you don't include them, then you're essentially violating your own principles by excluding them. [both laugh] And so I'm curious, like, especially as we see an uptick in focus on black lives and really working--you know, there's a lot of folks downloading and buying books on anti-racism and, like, you know, there's really a push for that right now. Do you see this trend increasing?Pamela: Oh, definitely, but we're just weeks into it. [laughs] So I can't tell you where it's headed, you know? But I see that as a good thing, you know, because for years, for decades, you know, African-Americans and other scholars of color and journalists have been doing this work, and often times we're preaching to the choir, you know? And now to see so many whites leaning in to this scholarship and to the idea of anti-racism, not only, you know, relating to members of, you know, skinheads or the Ku Klux Klan, but could implicate the average white person, you know? Reading Robin DiAngelo's work, White Fragility, she talks about the ways in which whites perpetuate white supremacy, but they do it in a way that they feel they're just neutral in it. They don't see how they are helping by either their silence or by just holding these deeply embedded ideas about race and merit and who actually deserves the kind of privilege that many whites enjoy. Like, are they African-Americans? Maybe there are a few who they see as deserving the kind of privilege that they enjoy, but that's the exception, not the rule. So these ideas are so deeply embedded in the white American psyche that it will take, you know, some time to kind of dismantle an idealogy that has been rooted in the history of this country, right, from the very beginning, and these ideas did not bubble up from the ground up. They were taught in places like Harvard and Princeton and Yale and Columbia University, you know? So this whole idea of science, you know, was rooted in this notion of African inferiority and European superiority.Zach: Yeah, measuring skull size and all that kind of stuff.Pamela: Yeah, so we're not that far removed from that. That idealogy is still very much a part of the American ethos, and until that is exposed and examined by the people who hold those ideas, we're gonna continue to see it play out in so many ways.Zach: And to your point, when we talk about racism--there are folks who I have, colleagues, associates, whatever, right, and we'll talk about racism, and a lot of times we'll talk about it, like, in forms--like, "It's out there." Like, it's "out there." Like, that's why George Floyd--because of systemic racism, that's why George Floyd was murdered in the street on camera with no accountability until we had riots, but the challenge and I think the next step as we look at this work, to your point around, like, really addressing and interrogating it, is analyzing what the same systems that allow those types of things to happen, the Amy Coopers of the world, those systems persist here too in work. Pamela: Exactly, and it's being able to kind of position yourself within the space. Like, where are you? Like, how do you benefit from this system, and what do you do with your privilege? And it's not enough just not to be actively racist. Like, in what ways are you anti-racist? In what ways are you working to dismantle injustice? And that's the next step for the so-called decent whites who I don't think are, you know, actively racist, but they're complicit in a racially injustice system through their silence, through their inaction. They work in these spaces, and they're not using their forums and their positions to tackle something that is so persistent and perverse.Zach: You know, I just started really thinking about, again, like, connecting historical racist idealogies and beliefs in America and then, like, how they show up at work. And so, like, an example that I think about, and I'm not a researcher and, like, I've talked to some friends and, like, I really want to put some research together on this, but, like, when you think about the history of black women and how they've been treated in this country and how essentially--there's been all kinds of writing on how there was a belief that essentially black women--black people across the board, but black women specifically--they don't feel pain in the same waysa that white women do, right?Pamela: Ugh, right. The black superwoman, yeah.Zach: Right? So in fact a lot of the understandings that we have about the female anatomy comes from the abuse of black female slaves. But this idea that, you know, black women are just tougher and, like, stronger inherently or biologically, you know? And we see that in sports, right? Like, Serena Williams is, like, a classic example of that and also why she wasn't heard and she almost died when she had her child, but I think that mentality and that attitude, it persists in the workplace as well, and it shows up in the workplace by way of black women being overworked and underappreciated.Pamela: Right. Well, you know, it's what history has demanded of us, right? We had to be stronger. Like, what was the alternative to that? Being beaten more? Being raped more? So paradoxically it's partly true that that's why we're still here.Zach: Right, by means of survival.Pamela: Right, but, you know, we haven't been given the opportunity to show weakness and to cry when things happen, things go wrong, you know? That fragility that may be afforded a white woman doesn't work for us.Zach: And I think we could find, like, similar... I guess my point is, like, that the meta-narrative doesn't stop, and so when you talk about systemic racism--so I'm the son of an English teacher, so, like, I'm very sensitive about words, right? So if you're gonna use a word like "systemic," then be comfortable with interrogating the concept that whatever you're talking about reaches as far as you can see and beyond that. And so, you know, when we talk about, like, we just talked about science and a lot of the racist concepts in considering that black folks were inherently inferior.Pamela: Right. And, I mean, those ideas are still debated, you know, just--like it was, like, 10 years ago, maybe it was a little more than that, when Newsweek and Time had, like, this big debate going about, you know, the bell curve.Zach: People still talk about the bell curve.Pamela: People still do, and, I mean, it's still with us, even if it's not as polite today to [?], it's still very much with us. Even if people don't say it, that idealogy persists.Zach: Exactly, and so it's like, "Okay, not only was this--" Like, at one point in time this was rigorous, firmly accepted, widely, globally accepted academic truth, and now it's waned into being impolite conversation...Pamela: Precisely, but still true. [laughs]Zach: Right, but still believed to be true.Pamela: But it's PC to now say it.Zach: Right, so it's not unreasonable then to believe that majority counterparts presume or have some conscious or unconscious beliefs that black people are inferior, and that comes up in language like, "They're not as strategic," or "They don't think as critically," or whatever, but it's subtle, and [?]--Pamela: Or that they're natural athletes or natural artists. Like, nothing comes out of a thinking place. [laughs]Zach: Right. "They're creative, but they're not strategic," right? And it shows up in a lot of genteel language, but you talked about Robin DiAngelo and you talked about white fragility. You know, we had her on the podcast a little while ago, and--you shared it actually on Twitter. Thank you for that.Pamela: I did, because I think it's so timely.Zach: It is. And when we talk about white fragility--and for the sake of just kind of level-setting, right, it's essentially the low fluency and resilience white folks have with regards to engaging matters of race, especially discussing where they may be the perpetrators of conscious or unconscious racist behaviors.Pamela: But then think about it. There are no penalties for them not knowing so much about the history of race in this country, you know? I've written about this. You could do a doctorate, a post-doc, and never have to meaningfully confront the history of race in this country, you know? You don't have to know about what happened to the Irish and what happened to, you know, Italians and Greek people at the turn of the century and how, you know, they were demeaned. You don't have to know how race operates and how it is just, like, so deeply embedded in the whole system of this country, and so because you may know who some of the major contributors to American history were who happen to be African-American, they never have to know. They don't have to know who Fredrick Douglass is, Booker T. Washington. Like, all of the people who I grew up just knowing because my parents taught me, I would never be penalized on an SAT for not knowing that. So they've been able to skate through life without understanding why it is that we have this kind of systemic imbalance around race, and they think it's because of merit. They think it's because they worked harder. They think, "Well, slavery was abolished in the 1860s, so what's the problem? You've had all this time." They don't look at the ways in which that system is still very much actively working against any kind of racial equality, you know, racial justice. And so when you're, like, just ignorant and not penalized for that ignorance, like, it's not totally the fault--you know, I have white students who sometimes are in tears in my class. I teach a class that examines the history of racial portrayals of marginalized groups, and they say "How is it that I'm in college and I never learned any of this history?" Like, it's not their fault, you know? Because only those who choose to elect--and these are electives that they would take to learn about this--like, it's not required. These courses are so marginalized, and they're so important for white people to have a sense of all of the ways in which they have been privileged throughout history without knowing that they're twicely just ignorant. Zach: And to your point though, right, you have this group who--so, like, let's talk about the workplace. So you have this group that has never had to really critically engage around race, never had to engage around how their own behaviors have been harmful to folks who don't look like them. Now all of a sudden, no matter [?]--like you said, this just really got started, right? We're just a couple weeks in, but let's say this goes on for two years, whatever, you know, suddenly there's going to be--you go from, like, not moving at all to almost running at a rabbit's pace, and I'm curious about with the current client focusing on black people, black experiences and really continuing to unpack that, how would you advise, like, a majority-white leadership space mitigate burn-out? Because they just don't have--again, we talk about white fragility, they don't have the bandwidth and they don't have the cardiovascular, right, to keep up.Pamela: Well, you know, I think they do, you know? I think these institutions have been so afraid to engage these matters and now they're seeing the consequences of kind of their hands-off policy, you know? We've made the progress we have made due to uprisings in the 1960s, because all of that scholarship was out there then, but no one listened until buildings started building and, you know, people started feeling kind of unsafe, and then suddenly everyone leaned in [?], and I think we're in that same kind of space right now where I think people are honestly leaning in--I mean, I've gotten notes over the past week from colleagues who, you know, kind of didn't really--I guess they saw me as kind of a radical, and now all of a sudden they're seeing my ideas as mainstream. So they're writing me like, "Wow, you know, you were prescient." It's like, "No, I wasn't. You just weren't paying attention." Everything that we're seeing has been happening all along. Nothing is new. The only thing that has changed is that white people are suddenly acknowledging the truth that has been with us all of this time. So now that they are, I do believe that we can begin to--first of all, there's so much out there. There's so many scholars of color and professionals of color and people who are ready to, like, get in there, right, and contribute to all of these institutions that have ignored them, devalued them, you know? Not hired them. You know, these institutions are about to be enriched, you know, if they truly embrace the diversity that is available, you know? Well-trained, well-educated, just ready, ready to jump in and help these organizations become more just places, and I do believe that if they continue to lean in in the ways they have over the past few weeks, I think a lot of good can come from this moment.Zach: And do you think--let me ask this then. So do you think that will offset the amount of folks who are uncomfortable and end up, you know, going elsewhere or--Pamela: What do you mean?Zach: Yeah, so what I mean is, like, do you think the amount of folks that come in and they deliver learning and folks grow, and they increase black and brown engagement through hiring and of course, like, retaining the talent that they have, do you think that will offset the amount of white folks who just find all of this offensive and disengage?Pamela: You mean like the 57 police officers in Buffalo that resigned because two of their colleagues were suspended for, like, critically injuring an elderly white man? You know, I don't think that's gonna happen, you know? Because first of all people need employment, and yeah, you know, I think that you're always gonna have that percentage of, you know, just straight up white supremacists who are not going to be in spaces where there are people of color, and, you know, good riddance, but I don't think that's gonna be the biggest roadblock to having diverse environments, because I don't think they're gonna give up all of these fields, you know? I don't think they're just gonna suddenly say, "Oh, here. Take my privileged position at this law firm or in this company," you know? But I think people can learn to work together. In fact, I think that is the best way to condition people to deal with different kinds of people is just to put them in the same space where they see that, "Oh, this person is not, like, a Martian. This person actually has kind of similar values," and then they begin to see that there was nothing that frightening to begin with. But I think when you continue--you know, we live in a rigidly segregated society, and most white people don't have to be in spaces where there are people of color, and particularly people of color who are peers, you know? They may be in the mail room or, you know, delivering their food, but to have people of color who are your peers, many white people don't have that experience, and they certainly don't have that experience of having people of color who are neighbors, who go to the same church, who go to the same--we live in such segregated worlds, and that kind of segregation becomes a self-replicating situation in the workplace, right, because people hire who they know, they hire who their friends recommend, they hire from this very closed off world, and until you can break that up, you know, and have a far more diverse workplace, you're gonna continue to have that kind of self-replication.Zach: Ms. Newkirk, this has been incredible. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. Before we let you go, any parting words or shout-outs?Pamela: Well, you know, I guess the thing that I'm most hopeful about is that there are successful models that can be readily replicated, and if institutions truly want to embrace diversity they need to just stop doing what they've been doing and lean into models that have proven to be successful.Zach: Well, there you have it, y'all. This has been Living Corporate. Like, we do this every single week. We're having real talk in a corporate world, and we center and we amplify marginalized voices at work by having black and brown thought leaders of all types of varieties on the platform. You make sure you check us out. Just Google Living Corporate. I ain't about to shout out all the places we on 'cause we all over Barack Obama's internet, so just type in Living Corporate and you'll catch us. 'Til next time, this has been Zach Nunn, and you've been listening to Pamela Newkirk, award-winning journalist, educator, speaker and author. Peace, y'all.

Zach has the honor of welcoming Howard Bryant back to the podcast on this special Saturday episode. He and Howard touch on several elements of our current civil rights protest, and Howard graciously explains why he disagrees with the sentiment that white folks are just now really understanding and seeing the evils of racism. Check the links in the show notes for ways to pledge your support!*This episode features occasional explicit language.*Connect with Howard on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and don't forget to check out his website.Learn more about Howard's latest book, Full Dissidence, by clicking here.Interested in finding out more about Howard's other books? Click here to be redirected to his Amazon page.Donate to Black Lives Matter by clicking here.Split a donation between 70+ community bail funds, mutual aid funds, and racial justice organizers by clicking here.You can pledge your support to a variety of institutions by clicking the following links: Know Your Rights Camp, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and Campaign Zero.Check out our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and I have my daughter Emory in my lap. Say something, Emory. You gonna say something? No? Okay. And, you know, this is not the norm, right? Like, typically you're gonna listen to See It to Be It with Amy C. Waninger or The Link Up with Latesha with Latesha Byrd. However, as we look at the world around us and the chaos that continues around us--like, we're not teetering towards chaos, we are in a chaotic time. And we see the state by way of their police force abusing everybody. It's a unique time, and so we wanted to make sure today--not Tuesday, but today--that we actually had a really in-depth and frank conversation with someone who understands the concept of dissidence, and that's Howard Bryant. Howard Bryant is a senior contributor and writer for both ESPN and NPR, and he wrote a book titled Full Dissidence, and it tackled the reality of protest, and he really analyzed and assessed Colin Kaepernick's protest and really broke down white power structures that maintain the status quo in spite of dissidence. And, you know, we also talked a little bit about--and you're gonna hear this--the responses of many of these corporations and how authentic they were in actually addressing the problem. And so, you know, one point of feedback, and you'll notice this, is that organizations are going to--and they're doing it now, and they're going to continue [to do it]--to treat racism as this abstract concept, and so it's up to those who are in positions of authority and have courage to speak to tie those words and concepts into tangible actions, right? So it's not enough to say, you know, "We have to do better and be better and treat people better and open our hearts and minds." That's not actually what changes. What changes is actually structures and policies to actually make a difference, right? Enacting pillars or means of accountability and repercussions for bad behavior. That's how you change, and so to all the organizations who are seeking to make these statements, understand, like, we're in a different place, and folks are looking to hold folks accountable in a different way. [laughs] I just saw a Google Sheet that's been going around that actually really starts getting tangible about how authentic some of these folks are when it comes to anti-racism, and, you know, it doesn't just stop out there. It continues within organizations, right? Like, your company does not have this magic barrier that stops racism, and so that's important, and so we talk about that, and I wanted to make sure--because we didn't have a lot of time with Howard Bryant so I didn't have time to do a bunch of intro stuff, we just got right into the questions, so I wanted to make sure to give a little bit of context. I pray that everyone who's hearing this is staying safe. Definitely support everybody protesting. You're seeing on Living Corporate, we are trying to amplify as much as we can. You're gonna see some links to donate to different protestors and bail funds and things of that nature. You're gonna see that in there. My hope and my desire is if you're an aspiring ally and you listen to Living Corporate regularly that you would check those links and donate. You don't have to donate to Living Corporate, just donate. Just click the links. Just please donate to those links. Shout-out to all my people. Love y'all. 'Til next time. Peace.Zach: Howard, welcome back to the show. How are you doing? Howard: I'm good. How are you?Zach: Man... you know. [chuckles]Howard: [chuckles] Staying sane during all of this?Zach: Trying to, trying to, trying to. Look, you know, we had you on not too long ago, and you've seen a lot, I know, in your life in terms of civil struggle. I think I was a kid when the Rodney King riots happened. In your estimation, is this the largest civil rights protest that you've seen in your lifetime?Howard: I don't know. That's a good question, that's a really good question, considering a few things, right? I was, what... Rodney King, I was 22, and that was nowhere near close to this. I mean, that was--that was disbelief followed by sort of [retrenchment?] followed by rage, because let's not forget that Rodney King happened over a year. Because first it was the beating, then there was the trial, you know, and then there was the uprising, and that happened in '92, but Rodney King actually got beaten down in '91. And so there was that, but this is also--then there's also Ferguson, and so what was happening in Ferguson and Baltimore, all of these things were sort of separate. So I think yes, actually when you really think about it in terms of one sort of linear scale moment, yes, this is the biggest reaction, this is the greatest singular reaction that I've ever seen, and I think that it's been a long time coming. I think that there's so many different avenues that you can take when assessing something like this. Obviously if you're Black you're sort of wondering "What took so long?" I think even if you're just an observer you look at it and say, "Okay, why now? Why Minneapolis? Why was this one the one that linked everybody?" All kinds of great questions there, and then I think the other question that you have here too when you look at it is "What is going to come of it?" And happening during a pandemic. I mean, I swear, man, I believe--I woke up the other day wondering if I had, like, fallen down the stairs and been in intensive care and nobody told me. I mean, I woke up--I woke up and had all these messages from all these people, all my white friends. "If there's anything I can do." I'm like, "What happened?" Then I get another one going, "Oh, I'm so worried about you right now." I'm like, "What happened?" I'm checking my phone, I'm checking the news. I'm like, "What happened? Why is everybody texting me making sure I'm okay?" Then I check my email. "Just really worried, you know, about you and yours, and anything I can do," I'm like... "What happened?" And now you're recognizing that "Oh, they're getting it now. This one got to them." And I'm not even trying to be funny. I literally had no idea why I was getting all these messages, because for us this is normal. This was like, "Okay, this is one of many."Zach: Exactly, right? And I saw you tweeted about this, and I've actually talked to my colleagues about this too, but there seems to be, like, this large sentiment that white folks are just now really understanding and seeing the evils of racism, and, like, what do you make of that? What do you make of this phenomenon?Howard: Yeah, I don't make any--I don't believe that for a minute. I think it's something totally different, and I think that we're in the middle of... I don't know if you're an Alfred Hitchcock fan or not, but Hitchcock mastered the art form of the MacGuffin, and the MacGuffin was essentially the red herring. It was the thing that made you think the plot was, but it wasn't. Like, if you're watching--like, if you watch Psycho it's like, "Okay, it wasn't about the $40,000 he stole after all, was it? It wasn't that. It was this." I don't believe that I'm actually gonna say this, but I'm gonna say this, and I was talking to Roland Martin about this the other day. I really believe that racism in some ways is a bit of misdirection, [that?] racism is not the issue. The issue is policing. The issue I think white people are tired. I think the country's tired. I think after three and a half years of this administration and this buildup, I think that people are recognizing there's no way out, and I think that if you combine that with a pandemic where everybody's been in the house for three months, I think things are starting to--I think it's sort of, like, a perfect storm in a lot of ways, and I think that the visceral nature of that killing... I think Eric Garner was one thing, and I think Eric Garner was every bit the same type of killing that this one was, but I think Eric Garner happened in such a flurry that I don't think that people paid as close attention because Eric Garner and Ferguson were right next to each other, and I think that there was still enough misdirection--and I also think there was something else, and I think that there was a feeling too that there was going to be some form of accountability because you had Barack Obama in the White House and he was talking about accountability and talking about [?], and so there was this feeling that maybe the system was actually going to maybe kind of do something down the line, but here with this administration, I think they've made it very, very clear that this is the norm, and watching that murder and having it be a physical murder--it wasn't that he got shot or anything, you literally put your knee on the neck of somebody while he was held down, you know, apprehended by three other officers. There was no reason for it. It resonated. I think people saw it because their lives have shut down. I think it's easier to ignore this stuff when your life is moving on. You, like, take a little look and you keep going, but everybody's been stuck in the house, so everybody's been paying--I think people paid much more attention to this because they didn't have anything else necessarily, because it feels like the country is falling apart, right? I mean, it already feels like, "All right, we're talking about the economy and everybody's losing their jobs and you have 40 million people out there on unemployment AND you're in the house watching videos all day in-between Zoom chats." All you're doing is you're online. So something about it hit in a way that it didn't hit in other ways, and then on top of that the marshal response is very different, where you have a bunch of white kids out there, this looks like--I mean, so when you say "my lifetime," technically my lifetime? No, because I was born in 1968. So this feels like '68 in terms of when you see a whole bunch of anti-war people and, you know, when you see white people--when you see white people getting the shit beat out of them by police, you know that something's happening.Zach: They getting whooped out here.Howard: Exactly, and they're out front. And I think there's something else too worth paying attention to, and that is this may be a delayed sort of effect of the last 12 years. I think that if the 2008 election was your first election, you were 18 years old, you're 30 years old now, and in 2008 you had a belief that this was gonna be different. Not just black people, but everybody on that side had a belief that that election was finally going to turn a corner and that these corners were going to keep being turned, and they're not, and now you see this frustration. And on top of that, that generation, that generation believed. I mean, we talked about this last time. The thing that I was really worried about, I was worried about it for black people, I'm now somewhat worried about it for white people in a lot of ways, is that they believed in 2008, that this country was free and that all you had to do was break that logjam, and I think that logjam, first you break it with Obama, but then after that you break it with his reelection. So you think, "Okay, maybe we normalized this idea that anybody can be president," then it's been backed up with nothing but retrenchment. You know, 1. you look at how Hillary lost, 2. you look at how Brett Cavanaugh got to the Supreme Court, 3. you look at how Elizabeth Warren was essentially humiliated, even though she was clearly one of the smartest if not the smartest candidate who was running for office. So now you have these white people, and white women in some ways especially, finally realizing what it's like to get punched in the face politically, you know? Where you finally start to realize "Oh, we're getting it too," and if you start to add up this accumulation on top of an administration that has essentially been cracking down, whether you're talking about immigration, you're talking about--it's all of these things together, and then you see this black man getting killed in essentially slow-motion for 8 minutes and people are like, "Enough," and then the dam breaks. And it's an election year as well. So I think there are so many things that are happening. You know, and this is how it usually works, right? And how it usually works is that it's all the things. It's never "the one thing," it's all the things combined that create the breaking point, and the Trump reaction to the breaking point, to essentially build a fortress around the White House, to have prison guards who are unidentified out in the streets policing D.C., to essentially unleash police on everyday citizens, you know, to do that, to have them fire into crowds of white people... this feels like dystopia. It's not like, "Oh, we're nearing chaos." No, we are in chaos right now. We're in it.Zach: I want to pivot a little bit and talk about some of the responses, like, that we're seeing from these major brands, and I'd like to stick to sports [chuckles] for a second. Is there any bigger example of cognitive dissonance than Washington making statements or [?]?Howard: Oh, and the Chicago Blackhawks or the Braves? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, you know, but once again, people talk all the time about weaponizing your politics, right? And usually when they talk about these types of weaponizings they talk about political correctness or they talk about virtue signaling or they use all of these very insulting terms to essentially ridicule people of color or people who are gay or Black people or whoever about their identity choices, identity politics. You hear all of these different insulting terms, right? There's no greater example of political correctness than the National Football League acting like they care about this. All they're trying to do is send a message that they're on the right side of this when their history shows 100% they are not on the right side of this. They're on the opposite side of this. And the Washington Redskins and the Chicago Blackhawks and the Atlanta Braves and the Cleveland Indians and all of these teams with their racist logos are gonna say that they care about this, that they actually care? And all of these teams, every team in the National Football League who essentially took Colin Kaepernick and ruined his career, they took his career from him, are now going to say that they're in support of Black people? But if you notice, it's a very delicate dance because they don't want to mention the word "police." Zach: I was just about to say it's interesting to see that machine coming together, right? Like, they'll talk about [?] "Racism does not align with our values," [but] they don't talk about the police brutality. Mainstream media isn't talking about widespread police abuse.Howard: Well, that's what I mean about racism in its own way being a red herring. It's a MacGuffin. The goal here is not to eliminate racism. That's not the goal, right? The goal is for the system that you tell us to trust to do its job and arrest those four cops and prosecute them and have the juries out there recognize that crimes were committed and convicting them and of course putting them in jail, and on top of that we're forming laws that give police this wide latitude to do these things in the first place. But if you focus on racism, you don't have to change anything. You don't have to do anything. So you concentrate--so all we've been seeing here is "Oh, we've gotta--oh, Black Lives Matter, and, you know, we have to be better and be kinder to people, and we need to--you know, racism is the pandemic, it's the second pandemic." I don't care about any of this. What I care about, I care about the actual concrete structures changing, and they're acting like this, and what they're doing is that they're selling this to the public to make it sound like there's nothing they can do. They could go back to session right now and change the damn laws. That's what they can do. And when you think about on the other side, right, when there is a scourge that they feel is affecting society and affecting crime and everything else, all of a sudden there's plenty of concrete steps when it comes to black people. When they find black people as a scourge, all of a sudden you've got all kinds of tangible, concrete resources and solutions. You've got tougher laws. You build more jails. You put more cops on the street. You have more resources. You have longer prison sentences. Suddenly the entire machine actually works with concrete steps. But when you're asking white people to hold police accountable, it's "Let's abolish racism. Let's be nicer to each other. Let's one day open our hearts and be the society we say we want to be." No. No. You guys go to session and you take those cops and you put them in jail. Let's have a little conversation about one other thing, right? Fear. Let's talk about fear for just a minute, right? One of the reasons that you don't walk into an office and you look at your female coworker and you say, "Nice rack," or you say, "Nice ass," or you make some comment on her, right, you don't do that. Not anymore you don't. Why don't you do that? It's not because the minute you walked into that building suddenly your heart opened up and suddenly you were a nicer person and you weren't a frat boy misogynist asshole anymore. It meant that when you walked in that building you knew the fear of what was gonna happen to you if you talked to your coworkers by that. So what we're really talking about is you know damn well you're not a nicer person. You just know not to talk like that 'cause you know you're gonna lose your career.Zach: There's consequences and repercussions to that, absolutely.Howard: Right, there's consequences and repercussions to that. So why doesn't that get applied to policing? That you are going to lose everything if you act like this. If you changed the laws and you changed the cultural attitudes and said, "Listen, if you do what you guys did to George Floyd, your careers are over, we take your pensions, you are prohibited from working in this field for the rest of your lives," it would change. And on top of that, and to you police departments, these civil settlements that we have to pay that are in the billions, they're coming out of your budgets and your pensions. You would see a behavioral change overnight. "And if we catch you on video punching some teenager who's already in handcuffs, you're done," and it's an immediate felony charge, and all of a sudden if you start applying three strikes to the police the same way you apply three strikes to some dude buying a dimebag, all of a sudden you would see change, but instead what you're seeing is "Oh, well, open your hearts and let's be kind," and they're using racism and the utopian society as some sort of goal when actually none of this would have happened if you had arrested those guys and put them in jail the minute it happened.Zach: 100%. You're absolutely right, right? And I think it's actually happening also in the corporate space too, you know, and I want to talk about dissidence, and I know we have a little bit of time left, but I want to get to this. So the last time we spoke about, you know, we talked about the concept of full dissidence, and it's interesting because I think Black professionals across the industry in North America that I've definitely seen, they're seeing these companies treat race as an abstract, and they themselves, similar to how you're saying about, you know, the policing system and how there are things that we can tangibly change, they too are seeing how things can be tangibly changed. I'm curious though, before we get even into work, what are your thoughts about the video that just dropped from the NFL players. Is that an example of the dissidence that you're speaking about?Howard: Partially. It's on its way. It's on its way, and what I like about that is I feel like they're recognizing that you have a responsibility here. And let's face it, the NFL opened up the door here. They all did. Hollywood did, sports did, everybody did, and now the question's gonna be "Are you gonna walk the walk? What are you gonna do?" And now people want to see what you're gonna do. So if you're the NFL, are you gonna put out 33 of these statements, 32 teams and one league all putting out statements, and then blackball a guy? Well, what good is the statement? Are you going to put out all of these statements about how much you're down with Black people and then prohibit them from expressing themselves? Are you going to do this and, at the same time, make everybody celebrate police? And how are you going to celebrate police and military when you have the police knocking down 75-year-old men and you have the National Guard pointing weapons at its own citizens?Zach: And killing folks.Howard: And killing folks. Are you able to do that? You aren't going to be able to do that anymore. So I like what the players are doing. I also feel like the larger unspoken part of all of this is also the idea that your white fans are more important than your black fans. Because let's face it, if you had respect for your black fans, you wouldn't have done that to Colin Kaepernick because most black fans supported Colin Kaepernick. So what you were really doing was you were sending the message to your white fanbase saying, "We got this," right? And I understand it at some level. I understand it at a fear level, the fear level being, "Well, listen, this is our business model, and if people abandon our business model what are we gonna do?" But then, you know, it's fear versus courage. Do you have courage to also say to those people, "Listen, A. it's a free country, this is his protest, B. he's right, we have issues and we need to fix them, and C. in a sort of way, I dare you to leave. You ain't going nowhere. You're football fans. You love this sport, you love this game. Are you really going to tell us that you're no longer gonna watch the National Football League because one guy on a team you don't even follow is taking a knee about an issue that he cares about?" But that's really not the issue. The issue is that what he did inflamed all of them, the people who run the game. He offended their politics, and he forced a reckoning that you're seeing right now with the Saquon Barkley video that those guys did, and interesting respect seeing Pat Mahomes on there because, you know, for lots of reasons. You know, I mean, 1. people have been talking about the biracial element of this, you know, where does this leave the biracial kids? Well, Pat Mahomes told you. "I'm Black. That's where it leaves me." And it also leaves you somewhere else. When the superstars get involved things change, and the superstars have a quarterback, and Pat Mahomes is a superstar quarterback.Zach: Right, arguably the best quarterback in the league right now.Howard: Arguably the best quarterback in football, and if he's gonna be the guy, then all of a sudden the whole game changes. Zach: Right. So let me wrap up on this one. You know, the last time you were here, you called out how a lot of this diversity and inclusion, corporatized stuff, is actually anti-Black, and I think we're seeing, like, a watershed moment right now where these organizations and this industry that has largely been focused on white women, if queer identities white queer identities, is now scrambling to hire consultants and create new programs and create new statements to really address their actual black employees, and I'm curious to know, what do you predict is going to happen, and where do you see this ending now that we're in a situation where corporations and businesses are focused to actually talk about blackness explicitly?Howard: Well, I'm not willing to go there yet, and I'm not willing to go there yet for a few reasons. One, it's too new, because I think everybody right now is just in damage control mode. That's what I think, so that's my first reaction is "I'm gonna wait and see. Let's play this out." What's gonna happen two, three, four months from now? The world has been moving so quickly that this--who knew that a global pandemic was actually going to be second on the news items now to something else? You never know what's coming. And to me, I need to wait and see what they do with it, because right now the first thing that these guys are thinking about is putting out the fire, and once they put out the fire, are they going to go back to their regularly scheduled racism? And are they going to go back to the old way that they do things? Look, the bottom line with everything corporate to me, if you want to talk about diversity and inclusion and if you want to talk about advancement and if you want to talk about all of the different ways that the corporate world can be a hostile environment or it can be an encouraging one, to me it's usually been hostile because I think that people in these industries have always wanted diversity of color without diversity of thought. The real question to me when I think about the corporate world has always been this - "Are you grooming me to replace you?" That's the question. "Are you grooming me to be the face of your company? Are you grooming me to be the head of your corporation? Because if you are not, then what you're really saying is I will always have limitations and that you're always going to be scrambling to mollify whatever crisis we have in the day, that whatever the crisis [?] we're gonna find some way to calm it down and then go back to what we usually do." If you are at a point one day where these corporations look at you and they say, "Hey, it's okay to have two of our top three officers be Black, and one of them is the CEO and one of them's the CFO, and we're good," instead of having your top Black officer always be corporate comm. If that's the case, then maybe you'll see some serious change, but to me the real issue has always been the actual limitations. When you look at the--you know, I talk about big government, and you think about advancement and the rise of the black middle class and the destruction of the black middle class, you're usually talking about government. You're not talking about corporations. You're talking about the post office and you're talking about civil service jobs and you're talking about--those are the jobs that built the middle class. Corporations generally still do not hire black people in great enough numbers where you're not relying on the government, you know? When black wealth starts to decline, usually it comes from the shrinking of government, of government jobs. So to me, when you start to see, if you ever start to see, a movement or a shift in those numbers where you have corporations who are willing to groom African-Americans to be real players in their industries, when you start to see that, then you'll start to see change, and then I'll look at it and say, "Hey, this is different," but until then I'm gonna take a wait and see. And then also there's one other thing to consider about that too. We don't even know what the world is gonna look like, right? I mean, Black people right now are in the middle of this because of what's happening in Minneapolis and around the country, but let's not forget, we are still in the middle of a pandemic, and we are still--we're only in the first wave of that pandemic, because when flu season hits we may be shutdown again. So we still need to take a long look at the larger picture of what's happening, but as of today, the corporations have certainly put themselves in the position where it is appropriate to ask them if they're going to walk the walk.Zach: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Living Corporate. This has been Zach. You've been listening to Howard Bryant, ESPN senior writer and contributor and NPR writer and contributor as well. 'Til next time, y'all. Peace.

On the sixty-eighth installment of Tristan's Tips, our amazing host Tristan Layfield talks about why you need to keep an eye on statements made (or not made) by your current employers and any potential employer you are considering. As Tristan says, "It’s necessary for our sanity and well-being that we position ourselves in spaces where we are welcomed, appreciated, and allowed to show up as our true selves so we can thrive." Connect with Tristan on LinkedIn, IG, FB, and Twitter. Links in order.http://bit.ly/2G7d6HKhttp://bit.ly/2XDcp3zhttp://bit.ly/2JEbg1Rhttp://bit.ly/2JCmKTzFind out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here or below.https://bit.ly/2Ug4l5KHelp food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.https://bit.ly/2WD73UkCheck out our website.https://bit.ly/living-corporateTRANSCRIPTTristan: Hey Living Corporate, It's Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting, and I'm back to bring you another career tip. This week isn’t like all of the other weeks that I’ve come to you. We are in the middle of what many are calling riots but I prefer to call an uprising, rebellion, or revolt due to police brutality that has largely gone ignored and unpunished due to systemic racism and white supremacy. This has proven to be a call to action for many companies to step up and assert their stance on the matter. Some, like Ben and Jerry’s, have provided statements that show direct unwavering support. Others not so much. I want to talk about why you need to keep an eye on statements made (or not made) by your current employers and any potential employer you are considering.Over the last couple of years, a cornerstone and conversation starter in both the job search and corporate environments has been company culture. With large corporations trying to shift their narratives and the public’s opinion of them, this has largely been a tiring and frustrating dance for job seekers who are trying to understand how they may fit within a certain company. Our current social and political climate has required many companies to begin speaking out about their stance on police brutality, racism, systemic oppression, and white privilege. Many are rising to the occasion but many more companies and organizations are falling short. I believe the statement these companies and organizations are giving is a very good indicator of their current culture. Companies and organizations who are truly dedicated to the work of reforming an unjust system will have already put processes in place to build teams that can respond to this with the fervent passion and action that the moment calls for. The companies and organizations who simply created a diversity and inclusion statement because they felt pressured or see this work as trendy have provided tone-deaf statements that lack substance, action, and passion.Need an example of a great statement? Look to Ben & Jerry’s. For me, they set the standard of how a company responds when they truly values Black lives and the contributions of Black people within their company because they leave no room for doubt and ambiguity. They understand that the perceived risk of losing customers, members, partnerships, etc. does not outweigh the countless lives lost at the hands of an unjust system. I want to break down the key components:First and foremost, they called a spade a spade instead of skirting around the issue. They directly stated the words Black Lives Matter, police brutality, racism, and white supremacy. Personally, I’m side eyeing any statement that misses those 4 key words and phrases. If a company or organization can’t directly name their support, call out the oppressive system, and clearly state the things that led up to this moment they are likely to only be providing lip service with their Diversity and Inclusion or Social Justice initiatives.Second, they named many of our fall brothers and sisters including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, Travyon Martin, and Michael Brown. They even took it all the way back to Emmet Till and provided some classy shade by including Martin Luther King Jr. as another victim of inhumane police brutality. Companies who are giving those generic statements know that saying these names directly can cause quite a stir so they avoid it similarly to how they avoid the words I previously talked about.Third, they say Black people instead of African American and they were sure to capitalize the B. You always, and I mean always, capitalize the B in Black when you are speaking about Black people. Also, I’m really apprehensive about people or organizations who state they are dedicated to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work but are hesitant to say Black when referencing us.The Fourth and final point, they didn’t rely solely on their words but they tied them to action. They called for political, systemic, and structural changes. Words are cool but action is better. If the company or organization isn’t actively changing policies and implementing new ones, breaking partnerships with law enforcement, or donating to organizations doing the work I question how invested they are in the fight for true justice.Many companies or organizations have not made a statement or made a generic statement that only expresses vague solidarity with the Black community and eludes the specific of what is wrong, what needs to change, or in what ways they will do anything about it. If you are currently at one of those companies and feel you are in a position to speak up, do so in whatever way you feel is appropriate. If you don’t feel you can speak up, I’d encourage you to start reflecting on if this is a place you’d want to be and, honestly, if they even deserve to have you as part of their team. If you are ready to jump ship, there are plenty of Black resume writers and career coaches that are here to support you in this endeavor.While this time is truly a trying for each of us, if anything it has given us much clearer indicators to evaluate if companies and organizations are truly as dedicated to the work as they say they are or if they are only dedicated when they feel the pressure or because they believe it’s trendy. It’s necessary for our sanity and well-being that we position ourselves in space where are welcomed, appreciated, and allowed to show up as our true selves so we can thrive.This tip was brought to you by Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting. Check us out on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @LayfieldResume or connect with me, Tristan Layfield, on LinkedIn.

Zach has the honor of sitting down to chat with Mary-Frances Winters, the founder and CEO of The Winters Group, Inc., about black equity and power. Mary-Frances shares some of the top things she believes that majority leadership groups are doing today that undermine their own workplace equity efforts and explains her perspective on why chief inclusion/people/culture officers are typically white folks. Check the links in the show notes to find out more about The Winters Group!Connect with Mary-Frances on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Links in order:https://bit.ly/2Bs8pZBhttps://bit.ly/2ZXoMYlhttps://bit.ly/3csD9qbLearn more about The Winters Group on their website. http://bit.ly/33pqotqCheck out the Inclusion Solution blog.https://bit.ly/2yX2quXYou can connect with The Winters Group on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Links in order:http://bit.ly/2WrDjtghttp://bit.ly/3d69LYhhttps://bit.ly/2XUy6t7Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here or below.https://bit.ly/2Ug4l5KHelp food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.https://bit.ly/2WD73UkCheck out our website.https://bit.ly/living-corporateTRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and look, it's Tuesday. The day of this recording is May 4th, so May the 4th be with you. We have incredible guests every single time we come on, and today is no different, because what we're trying to do is what we always do, right? Which is center and amplify marginalized voices in the workplace. Now, I would like to think Living Corporate is a little bit unique in that we're having these conversations, but not only are we having these conversations that are centering marginalized voices, but we're having these conversations with marginalized identity groups, right? So a lot of times when you think about this diversity, equity and inclusion space, it's folks who don't look like me using fairly esoteric, like, heady language to describe things that they really don't experience, right? Like, not to put too fine a point on it. Just look... I'm just gonna be honest, right? Just gonna be a straight shooter, okay? And I'm proud of the fact that we've been able to have incredible guests that have not only the lived experience but have the practical knowledge and expertise to talk about real subjects, and so that's why our tagline for Living Corporate is real talk for a corporate world. Now, look, some of y'all have been listening to us and been rocking with us for a while, but every episode is somebody's first episode, so I just want to make sure I kind of level set a little bit. So with all that being said, I'm really excited to have our guest today, Mary-Frances Winters. Mary-Frances Winters is the founder and CEO of The Winters Group, Inc., a global organization development and diversity and inclusion consulting firm with over 35 years--count 'em, y'all, 35... more than I've been alive--more than 35 years of experience. She truly believes that diversity and inclusion work is her “passion and calling.” She's been dubbed a thought leader in the field for the past three decades and has impacted over hundreds of organizations and thousands of individuals with her thought-provoking messages, and her approach to diversity and inclusion. Ms. Winters is a master strategist with experience in strategic planning, change management, diversity, organization development, training and facilitation, systems thinking--yo, shout-out to systems thinking--and qualitative and quantitative research methods, and she has extensive experience in working with senior leadership teams to drive organizational change. My goodness, gracious. With all that being said, Mary-Frances, welcome to the show.Mary-Frances: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. You're definitely dating me, but that's all right. I'll take it. [laughing]Zach: I apologize. I wasn't trying to date you. I was trying to speak to the depth and breadth of the work that you've been doing, 'cause I think a lot of times it's easy, you know--like, pausing on, just, like, this conversation, but kind of, like, thinking about generational tensions, right? So I think there's, like, a lot of frustrations sometimes with folks who--like, millennials, you know, folks, like, in their early 30s or even, like, mid-20s to late-20s crowd who just think that, like, all of these frustrations that we're seeing now are new, right, but there have been folks who have built foundations before us that allow us to actually move forward, so it's just incredible that you've been in this space and doing this for a significant amount of time. I don't believe that should be taken lightly at all.Mary-Frances: Well, thank you. I appreciate it. I accept it with honor and respect, so thank you so much.Zach: Thank you so much. So how are you doing during this time? Like I said, we're recording this on May 4th. How are you and your loved ones?Mary-Frances: We're well, we're well. We're doing well. You know, it is unprecedented times. It's very, very difficult times for the world, but, you know, we're doing well, and thank you for asking.Zach: So let's get right into it. Diversity, equity and inclusion work is about marginalized identities, yet the loudest voices in this space tend to be those of the majority, right? So, like, when you think about these big, big organizations and you look at, like, the chief inclusion officer or the chief people officer or the chief culture officer, they're typically white folks. Why do you think that is?Mary-Frances: Well, I don't think that the dominant group sees diversity and inclusion as being about marginalized folks. They see it as being about everybody. "We have to include everybody," and so some of what my frustration has been, as you mentioned, 35 years, and so when we used to talk about it, you know, in the days of affirmative action, they were protected groups, right? So the initiatives were targeted towards those protected groups. When we started to talk about it as being diversity, then it broadened and everybody got included in diversity, and the group that gets least talked about now are black folks, because they don't want to talk about black people. So I don't think that the dominant group that controls the narrative, I don't think that they see it about being about marginalized identities only, right? And so the focus may or may not be there, you know, depending, and so we did a session for a client not too long ago to talk about the relevancy of white men in the organization. So, you know, you've got to be inclusive of white men. [both laughing] Yeah, so that's why I think--you asked me why I think that is? That's why I think that is, yeah. Because in the corporate world, we don't even use the word "marginalized identities." So it's not a new term in sociology, but let me tell you, 35 years in this business, it's a new term in the corporate world. It's starting to be used, and I think it is because of the influence of the millennials. We've been doing some work in some organizations that, you know, normally--some of these older, traditional organizations have been around 150 years and still got baby boomers at the helm, right? Some of these other organizations have been around 15, 20 years, they've got a lot of millennials at the helm. Those organizations are using this language, the social justice language. The traditional organizations? Not so much.Zach: [laughs] So one, thank you. I'm really curious--that really is a good segue into the next question I have for you about just you showing up doing this work as a black woman, and not to, like--again, not to age you, we're talking about the fact that--[Mary-Frances laughs] It's not like you're a black woman who just graduated from college and, you know, you're in this space, or you just finished B school, like, you're someone who has seen this space grow and evolve and change and shift and permutate, you know, various times over over the past three and a half decades, and so I'm curious, like, what does it look like for you to operate in this space, and then specifically going into the example that you just provided, how do you respond to narratives like that? That, you know, white men need to feel just as included as black men or other marginalized groups?Mary-Frances: Yeah. So as a black woman in this work, a cisgender heterosexual black woman, baby boomer, there are different ways it impacts me. So one way that it impacts me is "Oh, yeah, let's get Mary-Frances because she can bring the voice of black folks." Um, no. Mary-Frances brings her voice, not all black folks, right? That's one way. This other way is, "Gee, we really can't hire The Winters Group to do this--" This is a black person talking now. "Because you're black and I'm black, and, you know, the optics of it, it looks like we might be giving you, you know, preferential treatment." The third way is when I stand in front of a group, to the question about, you know, white men, I do--if my question is gonna get across, I do in some ways have to disarm white men, because they're gonna--they see me coming in with my sister locks and, you know, "This black woman is gonna come in and she's gonna tell us, you know, how racist we are. She's gonna make us feel bad," and so what I've learned over the years is that you've gotta get them to like you first. No matter what they've gotta like you, right? And they have to think that the message resonates. So I learned the language. I learned the language of the organization. I connect my message to whatever their business plan is, whatever their business strategy is. You know, I connect it to that, because, you know, you're already coming in being black, being a woman. So those are two, you know, marginalized groups, historically marginalized groups. And so yeah, so there are different ways. And, you know, we talk about code switching, right? So we have to code switch a lot of times in order to get the work done, particularly in corporate spaces. Now, I don't know if you've noticed--well, I'm sure you've noticed because you know my colleague, Brittany J. Harris, who is the vice president of The Winters Group, and we're doing a series right now in our inclusion solution blog on decolonizing DEI work, and, you know, part of that--and I wrote a couple of weeks ago about decolonizing particularly the corporate world with, you know, corporate speak. So you come in and they have to have a business case, and the business case has to be "How does this help my business, you know, perform better?" That's, like, the classic corporate business case, and that's kind of centering this capitalist narrative, right? We're about the profits, and you can [show?] me by hiring black folks and hiring women, whoever else you want me to hire. If you can show me that that can help me to sell more whatever I'm trying to sell, then it's okay. So I think that, you know, to some extent--you know, I was just talking to a very large client just before this--I will not name that client. Very old client, 150, 160 years old, you know, very old. [laughing] You know, middle of the country, and they're just trying to get this stuff off the ground and you come in talking about marginalized groups and whatnot to a bunch of these white men, they're just not gonna--it's just not gonna happen. So it's this delicate balance, Zach, of on one hand, you know, you have to be able to engage the groups that they listen, and on the other hand you're trying to dismantle, you know, this dominant sort of narrative that doesn't necessarily work, and it hasn't worked. 35 years, 36 years, all of the same issues that I was teaching and talking about 36 years ago are the same. As a matter of fact, my book Black Fatigue will be coming out in February. Black Fatigue: How Racism Erodes the Mind, Body, and Spirit comes out in February, and I have a chapter in that book, Chapter 3, called Then is Now, and so I go back and I look at data from whatever point you want to take. You can take it from 1965, 1975, it doesn't really matter what you want to take it. When you look at our data and our statistics, we have not made progress. We're stuck, and we're at this standstill. Brown vs. the Board of Education was 1954, which was desegregate schools. Our schools are more segregated today than then. You know, the Civil Rights Act of 1964. You know, all of this legislation, housing. In 1975, 43% of black people owned their own homes. In 2019, 43% of black people own their own homes. The net worth--and, you know, net worth is, like, what you're worth, right? Net worth. A single black woman's net worth is $500, versus the net worth of a white woman, single white woman, which is [$5000?], still low. The net worth of white people, at 150 something thousand dollars, is 10 times that of a black person, and it follows even if you look at college-educated. So somebody who has a PhD who is a black woman college professor with a PhD makes 20% less than a white man who has a PhD and 7 to 8% less than a woman who has a PhD, and so all of these inequities--and I'm using those just as an example--is about Then is Now, that we haven't really turned the corner. So we're fatigued. [?] And it's particularly tiring for me because, like you said, I've been doing it for over 35 years. [both laughing] I'm tired.Zach: You're absolutely right, and we've had conversations about that on Living Corporate, and we cite the study Umbrellas Don't Make It Rain that really goes into dispelling the myth that higher education will, you know, somehow close the wealth gap, and it hasn't and it doesn't. So let's talk about this. There's a variety of folks that we've had on Living Corporate who have said, you know, diversity and inclusion, corporate diversity and inclusion, is inherently [anti]-black, not just in its external doings but at the internal politics. Do you have any thoughts on the voracity of that position?Mary-Frances: Well, society is inherently anti-black, so by extension the corporate world is inherently anti-black. We live in a society that has historically and continues to be anti-black. I don't know--yeah, so I agree. [both laugh] I mean, right? So yeah, you know, D&I is inherently anti-black. It is because that's the society--you know, when I wrote this book Black Fatigue and I was telling people about this, "Oh, please write about black and brown fatigue and, you know, all deference to indigenous people and native people and Latinos and everybody, right?" But the black experience in the United States has been different than any of those other experiences, and because of that the stereotypes and the marginalization plays out differently, and so I really felt a need--even though [?]--I show statistics for Latinos and Asians, you know, as well in the book, but I really wanted to focus on how this is playing out for black folks, because let me tell you. I say--you know, [?]--race is diversity's four-letter word, and particularly when you talk about black folks, people don't want to talk about it. They don't want to talk about the black and whiteness of it. "Let's talk about Asians. Let's talk about Latinos," right? So this anti-black--so that's one way anti-black plays out. You know, we have to include the other groups that we have [?]. I had a call with a client just on Friday, and they talked about how the psychologist or sociologist, whoever we were quoting--I forgot who it was--was black, and so we were like, "Uh, yeah," and they said, "Well, you know, perhaps we need to get some other experts included in this data set." What's that about? "Are there some Asian people who have spoke on this too?" [laughs] So yeah, I mean, we live in an anti-black world, and by extension our corporations are anti-black. I mean, look at things like the recent legislation around the CROWN Act. Why does anybody freaking care how I wear my hair? Why do we have to have legislation for people to be able to wear their hair--for black people to be able to wear their hair the way they want to wear their hair. You know, the young man wrestler, right, and they made him--Zach: Yes, made him cut his hair. His dreads.Mary-Frances: His dreads, right. Exactly. Right there. You know? I mean, why do you care? You don't have to like--what I say to folks is, "I don't care if you like it. You don't have to like my hair. I'm not asking you to like my hair." [laughing] But, I mean, are we still in a slavery, there's no freedom, that we can't even wear our hair the way we want to wear our hair? You know what, I heard about hair 36 years ago when I was in the corporate world and I had a very short afro, and one day a colleague--wasn't even my boss, a colleague--comes in my office and says, "Will your hair grow?" And I just looked at him and I said, "Yeah," and he said, "Well, you oughta let it," and he walked out of my office.Zach: Wow.Mary-Frances: That's why I left corporate. One of the reasons anyway. But anyway, so yes, is it an anti-black world? Yes, indeed. Indeed, it is. Unfortunately, you know, it is. And when you say that--and the problem is when you say that to white people they think that you're calling them a racist, and I'm not. I'm not. What I'm saying is the very foundation and structure upon which our various societies and the way we think and the policies and all those things are based on anti-black sentiments, anti-black beliefs if you will. Zach: You know, I'm really curious about, like--because you're right, we had Brittany Harris on the show some time ago, and we were talking about decolonization and dismantling and deconstructing systems, right? So it was more so about, like, kind of, like, trying to make some shifts and some headway in this work, because like you said, there's a lot of conversations that have just been happening, they've been recycling for years, and I'm curious to know, what are you seeing some other, like, DEI groups or, like, kind of names, things that they're saying that you're like, "Man, we've been doing that." Like, "We've been working on that," or "That's not new. Like, y'all think it's new, but it's not new." Like, does anything like that stick out to you?Mary-Frances: Yeah, I think that, you know, the whole idea of, you know, oppression, marginalization, privilege, all of those kinds of things I think have been out there for--you know, for a long time. You know, we can all remember--those of us in this work--Peggy McIntosh's White Privilege. Judith Katz, my colleague, did something on heterosexual privilege back in the '90s, and the Peggy McIntosh book was back in the '70s. You know, Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes, which shows, you know, bias. We now call it unconscious bias, but Jane Elliott, you know, put that out in, I don't know, the '70s, '60s or '70s. I was using that video--now that you've already dated me I'll just keep going with it--but I was using that video [laughing]--Zach: I'm so sorry. [laughing]Mary-Frances: No, no, no. You're fine, I'm just teasing you. [laughing] You know, I was using that video in the '80s, right? And now I hear people like, "Oh, do you know about Jane Elliott's video Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes?" And that's the other thing, [?] why I wrote Black Fatigue is because--and I'm not saying this is about millennials. This is not about generations at all thinking this stuff is new. This is about folks who are, like, in my age group to who this is all, like, a revelation, right? "We didn't know." So here, case in point. We know that COVID-19 is disproportionately impacting particularly black people, and when it came out, this proportionality, it was like, "Oh, wow, we have health disparities?" This is not new. I mean, these health disparities have been--they have been well-researched, well-written about, and they continue. They have not improved. Even middle-class black women are twice as likely to die in childbirth. You know, these are not new, and so that's what's part of, you know, the frustrating thing. You know, I really respect some of the newer folks who are coming into this space, and I think that they're doing remarkable work, and I'm hoping that perhaps they can put a different spin--I know Brittany, as a millennial, has brought definitely a different spin to our work. When Brittany came on board, which was, like, four years ago now I guess, we had started to talk about the intersection of social justice and corporate speak, because, you know, the language was all different, right? Everything was different. So we talk about mapping the intersection. What is the intersection of social justice and corporations? So corporations worried about the bottom line. Why should they be worried about, you know, social justice as well, and how do we get that languge? So I think at The Winters Group we're a little bit further ahead of mapping that intersection of saying that it's not one or the other. It really is a both and, because if you help to alleviate the social ills of this world or even of this country or even of the place that you operate your business, your business is going to be better.Zach: No, I'm right there with you, and I really think that segues well into this next question, which is just, you know, what trends do you see in this work from a thought leadership perspective, and if you were to kind of look across the landscape of this work and when you think about workplace equity as a whole, you know, where are the biggest places you think we have to grow?Mary-Frances: So where I see that we have places to grow in this work is fixing organizational cultures so that they truly are inclusive and we're not just using the word, that we're not just saying that we're inclusive, because the surveys that we do inside corporations would suggest that the cultures are not inclusive, particularly--PARTICULARLY--for black folks. Particularly. Now, when we do surveys with Latinos and Asians, culturally they may not be having a good experience, but they're not gonna tell us that because culturally they don't talk ill of--and I'm stereotyping, I know I'm stereotyping big time right now, but for the most part Latinos and Asians don't speak ill of their employers. That's a cultural thing, right? And so they're gonna say, you know, everything is good. We, you know, coming from a history of descension, a history of sort of laying it out there. You know, "No justice, no peace." Zach: Give us us free, yes.Mary-Frances: Yeah, right. We're willing to say, "No, this is not a good experience," if we answer the survey. We did a big survey for a corporation recently, and not many black people answered the survey. So then I did a focus group with them and they said, "Oh, no, we're not answering that survey. They can figure out who we are because there's only about 100 of us in the whole company." So the point is that organizational cultures, the traditional organizational cultures, are designed for dominant groups. They always have been. In the '70s when I was in the corporate world, they decided to bring in a whole bunch of black people, a whole bunch of black professionals, because they didn't have enough, and they just said, "Let's bring 'em all in here." Within a year, every single one of them were gone except one. There was probably about 30 people. Every single one of them left because the culture was not friendly, was not conducive. There were micro-aggressions all day long. [?] I told you about the micro-aggression about my hair. Here's another one. So the company sent me to some banquet or something, and I was sitting there--and I got to represent the company, so I was sitting at the head table, and we had a little fruit cup, you know, as our appetizer or something, and so the person sitting next to me said, "Oh, look at that, you have more watermelon in your fruit cup than anybody at the table." Now, why would you even say that? What would even make you part your lips to speak like that? Yeah. So you know what I did? I said, "Oh, you like watermelon? Would you like mine? I'll trade with you." [both laughing] So my point is that hasn't changed in 30 however many ever years that is. That hasn't changed. And so, you know, where we still need to grow is to really get at the culture, and the only way we're gonna get at the culture is to hold people accountable, and because the experience that people have in their organizations are 1:1 with their direct manager, right, and so if the direct manager is not talking the talk, walking the walk, it's not happening for that person. We often times focus on the top leadership, top of the house--"Let's start at the top of the house." I say that we need to focus on first-line leadership, those individuals who are most likely to have the greatest span of control. First-line leaders have more reports than the CEO. The CEO probably has six or seven direct reports, right? All the senior vice presidents, and then it goes down from there. So the biggest span of control and the biggest opportunity for change is at that first level, and we often times don't work with that first level of leadership because they don't have the budget for it or, you know, all of these other excuses. So I really think--and I've been saying this for years, so I don't know if this is a trend or not, but I've been saying this for years, that we have to get to that level. The other places that we still need to grow is pay inequity. You know, pay inequity for women and, you know, women of color in that equation too. That's an easy fix. You look at your data and you see who--if you have a disparity with women not being paid the same amount, then you fix it. You see, this is why if organizations wanted to do it, they could. Any aspect of diversity. If they wanted to do it, they would absolutely do it. So those are areas, I mean, in just terms of very tactical places, in terms of--cultures are really, really hard to change. So I had a call with a client this morning, and they had a question on the survey--they wanted me to review their survey. We have our own survey, but they got somebody else to do their survey, but they wanted me to review the questions. Here's one of the questions. "I fit in well at this organization."Zach: Hm, that's a good question.Mary-Frances: Huh? No, that's a bad question.Zach: Talk to me. Educate me why it's a bad question.Mary-Frances: Okay. Because it's about fitting in. Fitting in is about assimilation. Fitting in is about "I fit in," meaning that--Zach: I'm adjusting myself.Mary-Frances: I'm adjusting myself. I fit in, right? I mean, you still may get at it, but the whole idea of--even putting the language out there. So that's, you know, colonizing language, "fit," you know? Because what do we say when we hire somebody? We say, "Oh, yeah, they'd be a really good fit," and what "a really good fit" means is what? "They're like us."Zach: It's interesting, because the reason I was saying it's a good question is because I know a lot of--I know for me I would be like, "No."Mary-Frances: Right, exactly, and that's what they're hoping to get, but you see how the message could be from the other side, that you need to fit in.Zach: It absolves the organization of responsibility and onus in creating an inclusive work environment for that person.Mary-Frances: Exactly. So I said, "Why don't you have the question "I feel included at this organization?"" Right? I mean, you're gonna get the same answer, right, but you're now using language that is language that's about inclusion rather than fitting in, because fitting in is basically saying, you know, "Yeah, we need you to fit in. We need you to be like us." Zach: Okay, okay. Let's talk about black male presenting identities in this space, right? I could be speaking selfishly, but it seems as if they're still not highlighted with the same level of attention or nuance of some other people groups. Am I being fair? And, you know, if you agree with that, then could you kind of talk to me about why you think that may be?Mary-Frances: Yeah. So, you know, this is so interesting, because the chapter in Black Fatigue, it's called I Can't Breathe: Black Men's Fatigue, and I also have a chapter in the book called Say My Name: Black Women's Fatigue. So for the black women's chapter it's almost, like, twice as long as the black man's chapter, right? And I'm like, "Wait a minute." I said, "Is it because I'm a black woman and, you know, I relate to the experiences more?" So yes, and I'll tell you--this is the absolute truth. I am not kidding. I have been wrestling with this all weekend because I want to modify the chapter on black men to bring more of that voice. So with black women I could talk about, you know, #BlackGirlMagic, right? You know, what's the analogous movement for black men?Zach: There's nothing that big. I would say, you know, you have Black Boy Joy, but it's not as big, and there's some tension in that because a lot of black men are like, "Well, I'm not a boy. Don't call me a child. I'm a man." You know? So I'm not sure. That's a good question.Mary-Frances: So I write in the book about two experiences, two stories I tell. One story is about somebody who actually now--he has a degree in human resources, but he prefers to work with his hands, and he comes over and he tunes up our air conditioning in the spring and changes the filters and all that kind of stuff. So he was over the other day, and he worked for a large heating and air conditioning organization and was doing really well. They had him in their commercials on TV and everything and, you know, he said he just couldn't take it anymore. We would talk about entrepreneurship while he was still working there, 'cause he knew I was an entrepreneur and everything. So he finally left, and he's been on his own for 18 months, and he works 14, 16 hours a day. Nicest guy in the world. Got a young family, you know? Just really very customer service-oriented. He said, "Yeah, you know, when I go knocking on the doors, I've got to know how I'm coming," he said, "Because when they see that I'm black, you know, they get a little afraid." Ryan is all of 5'6" and, you know, maybe 150 pounds. He's a slightly built man. Zach: Slight guy, yeah.Mary-Frances: So he said, you know, "Why is this? Why do I have to exist like this, where, you know, I'm just trying to live and I'm just trying to, you know, run a business?" And he ran into--while he was in the corporate world, they told him one time that he couldn't get promoted because he was so good at his job that they needed him to stay in that job. That's why he couldn't be promoted, 'cause he was so good. [both laugh] Another time he was told that--he was promoting a particular service that they had, the air conditioning or whatever, and they said, "You're selling too much of this service." That's why he couldn't be promoted. So that's one. Another black guy, who had been with this organization for over 30 years, very well respected externally because he was in manufacturing and he has this particular knack for--he was called the turn-around man. He has a particular knack for going into a manufacturing operation and being able to, you know, whip it into shape, you know? The key performance indicators, the KPIs and all those kinds of things. I mean, he's a guru at that, right? [Lead?] manufacturing and all of that kind of stuff. And they would always send him to the place that was performing the worst, and he would go. So then they decided they were gonna put him in D&I, and this was after 30 years [?], so he's out of his element in D&I. He's gonna do his KPIs, he's gonna do his, you know, manufacturing operations. I think he turned just a few people off, right? So he ended up retiring early. No retirement party after all this. He's doing so well on the outside because he's got articles, he's got--he's well-known in this space, but he was kind of forced out of the organization because somebody didn't like, you know, what he said. So I think, you know, black men, one of the [?] chapters in my book, I have Tall, Dark, and Handsome, right? So when a white man is tall, he's paid more. When a black man is tall, he's actually paid less. The darker-skinned the black male man is, the less that he gets paid, right? Lighter-skinned black men get paid more than dark-skinned black men. So you take a black man who is tall and dark-skinned, you know, that feeds a whole lot of stereotypes, right? You know, and the handsome, you know, like I said in my book, black women [think they're handsome?, laughing] but the majority group probably doesn't. Not so much, right? But you're penalized. You know, black men are penalized, you know, for being tall. Black men are penalized for being darker-skinned. So my son, who is--he went to Harvard, Duke and Princeton, he studied under Cornell West. He is now a tenured associate professor of religion at Duke University. So when he was a kid he was always big. Joe's about, like, 6'5", so he was always big, and they always told him, you know, "You're gonna hurt the other kids. You gotta, you know--" So he's this gentle giant now because he was told, you know, "Don't be too aggressive." Up until the fourth grade there was something wrong with Joe all the time. We had to see a psychologist. You know, he just wasn't adjusting right, and he just da-da-da-da. All of these things. You know, he was in a white school district and usually the only black kid, one of two in his class. So in the fourth grade he had a teacher, he was a white male teacher, who said, "You know what? I think the only thing wrong with Joe is that he's brilliant." He said, "That's the only thing I think is wrong with him." And as soon as Joe started to see himself as brilliant and everybody else started to see himself as brilliant, guess what? Joe become brilliant, and voila, Harvard, Duke, Princeton grad, but if somebody hadn't told him that he was--[?], right? And so Joe writes about hip-hop and religion. He writes about the African-American experience. His book is--you might want to interview my son. His book is called "Hope: Draped in Black," and--Zach: I'd love to interview him, yeah. Let's talk about it offline for sure.Mary-Frances: Yeah, but what he talks about is how you hold hope in the wake of, you know, all of the oppression and whatnot. But, you know, we talked this weekend about black men and about, you know, the hip-hop culture and the gangster and, you know, the rape culture, and we talked about all of that and how that plays out and, you know, why that is, and yeah, it's--black men are very complex, very complex, and they have been, you know, obviously treated the worst. So it's tied up in self-concept. It's tied up in a whole lot of--and what one study found is that black men who have a good self-concept and are also able to figure out how to navigate, you know, the system, they do well in a corporation, but you've got to come first with a good self-concept, and I think, as quiet as its kept, all that bravado sometimes with black men, you know, "Show me some respect" and all that kind of stuff, you know, and "I'm all of that," I think underneath is really a lot of trauma.Zach: Oh, I agree with that. I think you're 100%, I mean, just spot on, and I also think, you know, when you think about black men in this space--it's interesting because black men and white women have something in common, where black men are black, yet they benefit to a much lesser degree, but they still benefit to a degree, from patriarchy, and white women are women of course, but then they benefit from white supremacy. So there's some dynamics there that are nuanced, and yet in a way that black women don't. So black women are women and they're black, right? So it's like, okay, there's no pool that you can pull from or there's nothing that you can really pull from a position of privilege. Of course you have able-bodied privilege, and if you're cisgender and all those things, but I'm talking about, like, just at a high level. So then--but I was gonna say that, you know, it's hard to talk about that because black men benefit from patriarchy, but it's like, "But it shouldn't be hard to at least try to engage in the subject a bit more intentionally," because, I mean, it hasn't stopped white women from being the center of attention for diversity and inclusion efforts for decades.Mary-Frances: Right, exactly. Yeah, no. I think you're right, and so in the book Black Fatigue I question whether, you know--so to a certain extent yes, I guess I would agree that black men benefit from patriarchy, but it's more intra-culture than it is inter-culture.Zach: Right, 'cause black men ain't out here about to just be out here disrespecting white women at work.Mary-Frances: Right. Yes, there you go. Yeah, not unless [?]--nobody better know about it anyway, right? [laughs]Zach: Well, shoot. [laughs] Well, and that's the thing that blows my mind. Like, I had a conversation. I'll never forget. This was some years ago. I had a conversation with somebody who tried to, like, insinuate that the reason why I spoke so much at work was because, you know, I was the only man, and perhaps because as a man I'm used to dominating conversations. And I said, "Look, I might be the only man in this space, but I'm also the only black person in this space, and certainly the only black man," and I said, "So if you think that the reason why I'm quote-unquote dominating this conversation is because I'm a man and y'all are a bunch of white women, that's false." I said, "I would actually be more akin to being quiet," as it took me time to find my voice as a black man in white spaces. I said, "I would challenge you to ask why you would use the language that I'm dominating anything by simply raising my voice in a meeting," right? But there's, like, this--I agree with you. I think that there's a, like, lack of nuance when we talk about even how patriarchy is mobilized for black men. I think black men are benefiting from patriarchy with other black people. They don't benefit from patriarchy, like, from--like, if it's me or Karen, Karen is gonna win out.Mary-Frances: Right, exactly. And for reasons like I was saying earlier. These studies show, you know, a tall--you know, you've got your stature if you will, that's a negative. You've got the color that's a negative, right? And so yeah, in white spaces, I think that it is an intersectionality in white spaces. You're black and you're a man. It's a marginalized identity.Zach: So, you know, your colleague Brittany Harris, VP of learning and innovation at The Winters Group, who we've had on in the past, has said that power is the silent P in this work. I'd love to hear more from you on the concept of power and how it fits into this engagement of workplace equity.Mary-Frances: Yeah. I mean, it is very much at the center, and it's complex, and when folks have power, why would they want to give it up? So I am not a proponent of power and privilege discussions with novices in this work. So folks who have not--I'm talking about people who are trying to teach, people who are trying to teach who have not had years of kind of understanding how all this plays out, I'm not in favor of going in and telling them that they have power and privilege. Yeah, I have it and I want to keep it. [laughs] Right? I mean, why would someone want to give that up? [?] Black people standing in front of a bunch of white men talking about, "You have power and privilege." Yeah. And so [they're?] like, "Yeah, what's wrong with that?" [laughs] I mean, they don't say that, but. And the other thing is how do they relinquish that power? I mean, that's really difficult to do. And the other problem that I have with that--so yeah, there's this inequitable power dynamic, but the other problem that I have with that is that we are accepting that we don't have power. We're rendering ourselves powerless, right? And so in the corporate world what is the key term? Empower. We want to empower our people. E-M, right? Empower, right? That is somebody giving you their power. So this is part of the corporate speak, you know, that I don't like, right? It's part of the dominant culture of corporate speak. I should have written about that one in my book. I might still. Anyway, I want to turn that around, that E-M to M-E. Me power. I have power. And so we have agency, but we don't take it. We don't use it because we have internalized that we don't have the power, we don't have power, and we cannot continue to--this is one of the trends I'd like to see, not to continue to talk to folks about power and just use our power, not to magnify the inequities. So everybody knows that if you're a white man in a corporation and whatnot and you're the manager or the leader or the director or the whatever, everybody knows you got power, right? [laughs] You know? You gotta tell me you have power? Why you gotta tell me that? Right? And so I think that there are other ways to claim power. I think that part of that is just the confidence that we come with, the self-concept that we come with. I think that we have to be ready to leave spaces, because there are consequences for us exercising power, and we have to have some safety nets, more safety nets than we have. So I left, you know, some 30 something years ago. I just stepped out on faith, I mean, 'cause I have a strong faith, and I didn't know what was gonna happen, but I just knew I couldn't stay there. We do know that black women, they're 40% more likely to start their own businesses than any other group, right? Because we recognize that it's traumatizing, and so this whole idea of--so who came up with the idea of power and power and privilege? White folks. To tell us that there's a power inequity... Surprise, surprise. And you know what? We're not gonna change that by telling white people that they have power. That is not gonna change that. The only thing that's gonna change it is for us to claim our power and to recognize that we have it. Zach: I love it. No, I'm right there with you.Mary-Frances: Right? [laughing] Stop telling white folks what they already know, that they got power. They already know that.Zach: No, that's true. Like, them not, like, screaming it from the rooftops doesn't mean that they don't know that.Mary-Frances: Well, exactly. Why would I scream it from the rooftops? Again, the dominant group, it's not something that they probably even--even when we call their attention to it, there are many who will want to say, "Uh-huh. And let me figure out how I'm gonna maintain it." There might be others who are curious. "Hm, there is this dynamic. Maybe I should, you know, do something to work on that," but the forces are so strong and entrenched, right, over 400 years of entrenchment, that it's not gonna change. You know, two or three or the small groups that you might get who are all for shifting that power dynamic, they're not strong enough to overcome that larger group who wants to maintain the status quo. So we just have to take it. We have to grab the power. We have to first of all understand we have it already. It's not grabbing anything. We already have it. We just have to use it and accept that there will be consequences sometimes for using that power, and if we don't have the strong safety nets in our community to, you know, accept and to protect those folks who, you know, get fired, you know, are out there, you know, being called out on social media because they're telling the truth or, you know, whatever it might be. We as a people don't support and protect our own as much as we should.Zach: Man, that's, like, a whole separate [?], and what we need to do is make sure we bring you back on when your book is closer to being published and talk about that, because I do think that, you know, how we--so, you know, we had Robin DiAngelo on some time ago, and she talked about white solidarity and the concept of essentially the formal or informal closing of ranks that white folks do to protect one another, often times at the detriment or harm of black and brown folks, and yet I don't--you know, because of colonization and because of just internalized oppression, you know, we don't have that I don't think in the same--Mary-Frances: We don't, yeah.Zach: And that's created so many challenges for us. I mean, since antebellum to today, right? Like, we've had so many issues because we don't necessarily practice to the same degree, protection of one another. So let's do this. You know, as you look across these leadership groups, especially during this pandemic, what are some of the top things you believe that majority leadership groups are doing today that undermine their own workplace equity efforts?Mary-Frances: They have not educated themselves, so they are not--they think that they know, they think that their good intentions are good enough. So I've heard leaders say, "I don't care if it's the right thing to do for business," you know, the business case that we talked about earlier, "I just think it's the right thing to do, so now go forth and do it." However, because they don't have an understanding of the history or they know the history that was told wrong, they really don't know what to do. So they're making wrong decisions based on ignorance or, you know, a lack of information. I think the second thing that majority leadership does, particularly in the corporate world, is that they still have to speak to and answer to shareholders, and so they're not going to do anything that is going to, you know, jeopardize that. And so even when you're looking at board members, and what I hear often times is, you know, "Oh, the board won't go for that," or "We've gotta satisfy the board." Well, you need to change the board then. The board may not be--you know, you may not have the right people, because boards are tokenized [when] they have one token black person and one, you know, token woman on the board, right? So those are two things, and I think during the pandemic, I think because of this ignorance they are just not aware, big companies are just not aware of the world that some of the folks on the lowest rung face, and so when you say, you know, "shelter in place, stay home," that home may not be safe. That home may be filled with violence, right? You know, you make decisions about "Who are essential workers and who are not essential workers?" and you don't--you know, are you thinking about the health--again, talking with a client today, you know, talking about some of their contingent, you know, workforce, and they were saying, you know, "Well, are we gonna pay the sick pay or aren't we gonna pay the sick pay?" You know, [?], and so all of these kinds of questions, and they realized that "Yeah, we absolutely need to do that," and so I don't think that there's enough understanding of what marginalized groups face regardless of their socio-economic. So they're making decisions from their own lens, from their own--I'll use the word privileged--from their own privileged lens, and they're missing things. It's coming to light, right? A lot of this stuff is now coming to light, but some of the earlier decisions missed just the horrific impact that this is having on everybody, but particularly those who are in the lowest low end of the economic chain.Zach: Mary-Frances, this has been an incredible conversation. You know, I'd love to make sure that I give you space to talk a little bit more about The Winters Group, what you're most excited about, what you're looking forward to, even during times as uncertain and extraordinary as these. I'd love to just give you space to talk a little bit more about your company. Mary-Frances: Yeah, so we're looking forward to, you know, transforming ourselves as we always do, but this pandemic has made it absolutely imperative, and we've already been doing virtual learning, but we are looking at innovative ways to do virtual, ways that other people are not doing virtual. You know, we have whiteboards, and we have ways that we can break people out into groups. Like, the technology allows that, but I think the ways that we're doing it--we're doing simulations, and so I think this is an opportunity for us to be really, really innovative in terms of how we deliver our message. I did a virtual keynote, you know, a few weeks ago. I think it's also an opportunity for us to continue our [?] of the corporate message and the social justice message, because they have certainly come together with COVID-19 in terms of just what I was just talking about, how we see how marginalized people are even more marginalized. You know, as the saying goes, "When the world gets a cold, black people get pneumonia. When the world gets pneumonia, black people die," and so we're seeing that now, and I think it's the opportunity for us to even more strongly advocate for the intersection of social justice and corporate.Zach: Man, thank you so much, Mary-Frances. This has been phenomenal. And y'all, that does it for us on the Living Corporate podcast. You know we do this every week. Coming to y'all with real talk in a corporate world. Make sure you check us out everywhere, okay? So you pull up your Google or your, I don't know, Bing, or your Yahoo or whatever search engine machine you're using, and you just type in Living Corporate. We're gonna pop up there, okay? Make sure you check out the show notes. Make sure you check out The Winters Group. Check out all the work that they're doing. Shout-out to The Winters Group and all of their incredible work. Shout-out to black women out here holding everybody down per usual. Thank you for all of your work. And shoot, 'til next time, we'll catch y'all. This has been Zach. You've been listening to Mary-Frances Winters, CEO and founder of The Winters Group, leadership, diversity, equity and inclusion consulting firm. Been out here laying the groundwork for y'all, setting legacies, and [they're] probably your favorite consultant's favorite consulting agency, okay? They've been out here. They've been doing the work. 'Til next time. Peace.

Our very own Zach Nunn steps in for Latesha and Amy today and delivers a powerful statement regarding the recent deaths that we've been forced to engage and encounter. He also implores white diversity, equity and inclusion leaders to ask how they can decenter themselves in their own efforts, stating definitively that "You should not be the face of your diversity, equity and inclusion work."Sign the Change.org petition "Justice for George Floyd."Sign the Change.org petition "Justice for Tony McDade."Sign the Change.org petition "Justice for Breonna Taylor."Donate to Black Lives Matter by clicking here.Show your support for Regis, Tony, and Ahmaud by donating to their GoFundMes.We also recognize and mourn the senseless and tragic deaths of Nina Pop and Monika Diamond, but regretfully there are no fundraisers to link in their honor.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here or below.https://bit.ly/2Ug4l5KHelp food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.https://bit.ly/2WD73UkCheck out our website.https://bit.ly/living-corporateTRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and yeah, it's a Saturday. I'm here, uh, talking to you. As you know, Living Corporate exists to amplify and center marginalized voices at work. I believe that we're one of the few spaces that does that in a consistently intentional way by having black and brown voices, including my daughter who's in the background. As y'all know, she's a new cohost of the pod. [laughs] Oh, man. Keep it in. Keep it in, keep it in, 'cause we're talking about life actually. Typically you hear Latesha Byrd with Link Up with Latesha or you'll hear Amy C. Waninger from the See It to Be It series, but I wanted to 1. give our team a bit of a mental and emotional break this week and do a bit of a, like, a state of the pod and, like, more of a current events type episode today, so I'ma be rocking with y'all for just a little bit, not too long, as I seek to really get some mental restoration myself. So let's get started with just, like, the recent deaths that we've been forced to engage and encounter through social media or through closer circles. So we have George Floyd, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, and then of course Breonna Taylor, all senselessly murdered by the hands of the state, and, you know, it's just another set of black bodies brutalized for no other reason than just existing, right? Like, brutalized by the state and/or killed and then covered up and then supported by the case, to be clear, because Ahmaud Arbery was not killed by police, but the legal system failed and was forced to come back to the table after being pressured and shamed through social media. You know, it's challenging for me to do this work, and I think it's challenging for us just black folks. Like, we talk about black--some people say "Being black is exhausting," and that's true in that being black is exhausting in the fact that we have to deal with white systems that continually oppress and harm us, and for the white systems that are harming us or the white folks who aren't being maliciously intentional about it, then you have a whole 'nother set of people who are just being complicit in that they are too lazy to figure out ways to engage honestly and openly about the problems. You then of course have a portion of people who are really engaged in seeking to be allies, and I'm gonna talk to you guys in a minute as well, but, you know, when it comes to George Floyd specifically, I knew of George. I knew of George because George, he was a part of a church plan that came out of a former mentor and colleague, and we had very similar circles, ministry circles, and so I recall helping them set up a church service because George was very active in the community. He was a man of love and peace. And I remember seeing him. I remember seeing him at that church service, because he was helping with the chairs and he was talking to the people. I mean, again, he was a man of the community. He was in his community. And so knowing that he was so--the degree of separation is just so small. Not only that, but he was murdered in Minnesota, and my father and my step-mother and my siblings and my step-grandmother and my--and I have cousins and aunts who live in Minnesota, and an uncle too. I have family up there, like, very close, very, very close to where George was murdered, and so, you know, I'm seeing a lot of folks question the rioting that's happening and, you know, what I want to do, what I really want to do, is talk about the systemic challenges and reasons as to why people riot, and as you look at just kind of, like, the system of oppression and why these things continue to happen, but instead what I think I'm gonna do is I'm going to actually read this piece, this excerpt, from King. You know, a lot of people have been saying, you know, "The riot is the language of the unheard." Like, they take a piece of King, of that quote, and like many times, like we mostly do with King, like, we'll, like, boil down these beautiful pieces of what he's saying into something like a sound bite. It's disrespectful to his legacy. It's disrespectful to his genius. I want to read it in totality, and then we can kind of--we can go on from there. "Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots, but in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It's failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay, and as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention." And so I think what people miss the most about King--because a lot of folks, they just use King as a cudgel to shame and shut up black voices as they grow discontented with the reality of America, and what I think--what's the biggest challenge, right, as it comes to, like, this DEI work is that there's a bunch of folks in this space for reasons that have nothing to do with black equity, that have nothing to do with justice, that have nothing to do with actual equality, but it has more to do with creating false peace and, in so doing, they recenter themselves. They recreate or they reestablish the very systems that silence and mute and discourage black thought and black and brown voices, and they create, unto themselves, fiefdoms of thought leadership that have really nothing to do with anything tangible. We are in the middle of a racist cold war, and it has everything to do with white America's reluctance to face itself. It's neglected itself, it's neglected its own humanity in as much as it's neglected its black brother and sister. It's coming to a head, and it's gonna continue to surface. I mean, the fact that I'm able to quote a quote that's over 50 years old. He said this in 1967, and yet it's just as pertinent now. I think what we have to ask ourselves is what does it really look like to create and pursue justice, and those words are scary for white people in the context of race. Despite our obsession with justice in media, right--we love Law and Order, Criminal Intent, Elementary, NCIS, like, the list goes on and on. Cops. We love justice when we are on the dispensary end, but no one wants to rush to be on the other end of justice, and the fact that white America is so terrified of justice really is an indicator as to the extent and depths of their crimes. And that's what makes this work hard, being a black person, being a black man, and, like, even being a cis, hetero, black, large, Christian man makes this work challenging. We're at a crossroads though where esoteric language that really isn't approachable or doesn't mean anything just doesn't--we're just past that, right? Like, we're coming up on a national election, and the likelihood is that there's gonna be another black or brown person, a woman, a trans woman, a trans man, a cishet man, black man, body, there's going to be someone else who's gonna be brutalized by police this year. The statistics show it. And so we're at a fever pitch, but things have to change, and so with that being said, I want to talk about white response, right? So there are folks who listen to this podcast regularly who consider themselves allies by various measures. I'm not here to really judge the voracity of your claim. I will give you points of advice though as you ask yourself what it is that you can do today. I'll start with this. I'm seeing a lot of things on social media around checking in on your people of color colleagues. I'm gonna say don't do that. It's an unpopular position I'm sure, but don't do that. If you're listening to this and you and I are friends and you are white, don't check in on me. I have people who look like me, I have my family, I have my friends, I have my daughter, I have my wife, I have my parents, I have my cousins. Like, I have people that can empathize and support me in a unique way because of their joint shared lived experience, and I'm not really looking for your words right now. And I say that with love. I'm not mad, right? I'm just trying to be honest that I'm not looking for your words right now. I'm looking for your actions. So what you can do and who you can check in on are your white colleagues, your white family members, your white friends, your--again, I know I said family, but parents. Like, check in on the folks that you know don't understand, don't engage, and don't listen and/or believe the reality of black and brown people in America. Check in on your boss, the people who actually have access and power. If you actually have access and power, check in on yourself. Ask yourself "What are you doing to help improve the experience of the people that you work with?" "How can you leverage your voice and your power, the power that comes with that voice, the political capital that comes with your skin, to advocate and support others?" My frustration kind of, like, when I think about this space is that, you know, we talk a lot online--but, you know, online gives a bit of a mask, and I'm not gonna say the person who said this, but I recall I wrote something. I wrote something about white welfare. I wrote it on Martin Luther King Day. And the person who I was speaking with shared that, you know, they thought it was good, but they felt it was a little uncomfortable and that it would alienate their audience. Their audience is predominantly white people. But what they would do--while they wouldn't email it to their newsletter or promote it on their website or promote it on LinkedIn, they would tweet it, because they could "get away with it," quote-unquote, on Twitter. That's not what I'm looking for, and that's not what black and brown people are looking for. We're not looking for you to figure out the lowest stakes possible. We're looking for you to actually commit something. We're looking for you to say something. We're looking for you to do something. We're exhausted. And frankly, like, a lot of these efforts to reach out to people of color, to black and brown people, is often times an exercise in your own ego, in guilt. I'm not looking to assauge or to comfort or stroke your ego or massage your guilt. I don't care. I don't. I genuinely don't care, and I'm giving you this as a gift, because the people that are in your circles probably won't tell it to you like this, but I'm telling you as a favor. So you're welcome. So that's white response at, like, an individual level, but let's talk about it at an organizational level. So there are a lot of organizations right now that feel stuck and paralyzed at figuring out what it is that they need to do, how they need to respond. Again, the 45th, 65th email, if you're the kind of company that sends these out often, is gonna really create, I believe, more frustrations than it will relief. I would ask, if you're an executive or someone in a position of, like, organizational power, like, you manage a P&L or something like that, just ask yourself what systems exist today that harm and disenfranchise the folks on the margins. Ask yourself what new policies need to be erected to protect those who are most vulnerable, and ask yourself what are you doing as a leader to drive equity within your immediate team. You know, these are the types of things that we have to get to. It's about taking your own medicine of accountability, and the funny thing is because of the way that white supremacy is set up, if you do it right, you can do all of this and still be hailed as a hero, right? Yeah, you're gonna lose some relationships, because there's gonna be some folks who don't want you to do this. I'm talking to the people who actually care. But for the organizations that care, if you do it right, you can market this and be a hero. There's a lot to think about right now in this time. Folks are exhausted. There's all types of implications and things that we'll continue to talk about on Living Corporate regarding, like, just the mental health implications and the--[sighs] I mean, we didn't even talk about the reality of coronavirus and how it's been disproportionately impacting and killing black and brown people. I can tell you that while no one in my immediate circle has died, I've had some friends who have come close. It's just a tough time, and we're at a crossroads with diversity, equity and inclusion work. You're either going to kind of toe the line and continue to alienate and drive away black and brown folks--and maybe that's what you want to do, you know? Like, maybe this is, like, a long play for you to say, "We tried," but it's easy for you just to not do anything. You can say that nothing's changed, but you tried. So maybe that's--you know, maybe that's the route you want to take, but if you're looking to really engage this future workforce and retain talent--and not only retain them, but keep them at their best--there are some things about the way that you think about this work, that we think about this work collectively, that's going to have to fundamentally change. My ask is if you're a white diversity, equity and inclusion leader, you're listening to this, ask yourself how you can decenter yourself in your own efforts. You should not be the face of your diversity, equity and inclusion work. You shouldn't. I know, it's a wildly unpopular position, but you shouldn't. Think about ways you can empower the folks that don't look like you to drive change. They know better than you what it means to be equitable and inclusive. So with that, I am wrapping up. Lower, different energy podcast today, I recognize, but I hope that the folks listening to this, my black and brown brothers and sisters, that you take care of yourself, protect your peace at work, take off time, communicate to your diversity, equity and inclusion leader, whoever that may be, about your mental health. Take the time off that you need. Trust me, companies are incentivized right now to not deny you time off, if you're in such a blessed position to have PTO. 'Til next time, y'all. This has been Zach. Peace.

On the sixty-seventh entry of Tristan's Tips, our amazing host Tristan Layfield talks about how you’re waiting too late to start your job search. For those of you saying you’re going to wait for the coronavirus pandemic to blow over, Tristan would strongly recommend you reconsider that strategy - listen to the full tip to find out why, and if you’re ready to get all your ducks in a row, land three times as many interviews and have options, apply for a suitability call with Tristan! Check out the show notes to find out more. Interested in applying for a suitability call? Find out more by clicking here or below:https://layfieldresume.lpages.co/careerlevelup/Connect with Tristan on LinkedIn, IG, FB, and Twitter! Links in order.http://bit.ly/2G7d6HKhttp://bit.ly/2XDcp3zhttp://bit.ly/2JEbg1Rhttp://bit.ly/2JCmKTzFind out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here or below.https://bit.ly/2Ug4l5KHelp food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.https://bit.ly/2WD73UkCheck out our website.https://bit.ly/living-corporateTRANSCRIPTTristan: What's going on, Living Corporate?! It's Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting, and I'm back to bring you another career tip. This week I want to talk about how you’re waiting too late to start your job search.Take a moment to think about when you start looking for a job. There are typically 4 scenarios:1. When you get fired2. When you get laid off3. When you are fed up with your job4. When you’re bored or ready to move to the next levelThe first two are the worst, you’re immediately pushed into job searching if you’re fired or laid off. You become desperate to find a job because you need to be able able to pay the bills and take care of yourself and that unemployment just isn’t going to cut it. But desperation is never a good thing in a job search and we’ll talk about why in a minute.The second two, being fed up with your job and being bored or ready to move to the next level, while not great, are better positions to be in because you are still employed. Many hiring managers and recruiters tend to favor what they call “passive” job seekers, A.K.A. people they know that are currently employed. There’s an underlying assumption that if someone is working right now that they are creating value for their employer and have up-to-date skills. So while your situation may not be the greatest you get the benefit of the doubt from recruiters and hiring managers.But what happens when that benefit of the doubt goes away?You may think your job is secure, but odds are it's not. You may think your company is going to bring you back from furlough, but the reality is most of these companies can’t afford to hire back all of their employees. So what happens then?You fall into the same act of desperation as those that were fired and laid off. Recruiters, hiring managers, and the people you call yourself networking with can all feel the desperation. This makes you less likely to be able to build your network, gain referrals, and get hired.That’s why the best time to search for a job is when you already have one or simply when you don’t need one. Things aren’t happening in a rushed timeframe then which means that that desperation is non-existent. During this time you’re actually able to start building valuable relationships, putting feelers out for what type of roles are out there, and make advocates out of the people who want to help, which I call career boosters. If you play your cards right you may even become the bachelor or bachelorette of your job search with multiple companies vying for your attention.But much of that goes out the window if you wait too long to start your job search. So for those of you saying you’re going to wait for the coronavirus pandemicc to blow over, I’d strongly recommend you reconsider that strategy. First, you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. Second, if you decide to wait you won’t be any more prepared than you are now plus you’ll have quite a bit more competition. Many of which will have taken this time to get prepared.So if you’re ready to get all your ducks in a row, land 3x more interviews, and have options I want o to invite you to book a suitability call for my career LEVEL UP program. Together, we’ll identify your value or what makes you different from everyone else doing this work. We’ll then package that up together in a results-driven resume and optimized LinkedIn profile. And most importantly, we’ll put a proven networking plan in place to not only build but engage and leverage your network to get you 3x more interviews.So, if you’re interested in this program make sure to book a suitability call utilizing the link in the show notes.This tip was brought to you by Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting. Check us out on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @LayfieldResume or connect with me, Tristan Layfield, on LinkedIn.Career Level Up Suitability Call: https://layfieldresume.lpages.co/careerlevelup/

Zach has the honor of having a conversation with Dr. Erin L. Thomas, Head of Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging at Upwork, about organizational equity during the COVID-19 pandemic. She graciously shares some advice regarding what organizations can do during this time to at the very least reduce harm for their black and brown employees and talks a bit about how her perspective and focuses at work have shifted as this pandemic has continued. Check the links in the show notes to connect with Dr. Thomas!Link up with Dr. Thomas on Twitter! She's also on LinkedIn. Links in order:https://bit.ly/3c0BXKhhttps://bit.ly/3c7qhFELearn more about Upwork on their website. You can view their open positions by clicking here. Links in order:https://bit.ly/2TEC8Vnhttps://bit.ly/2A5X00WFind out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here or below.https://bit.ly/2Ug4l5KHelp food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.https://bit.ly/2WD73UkCheck out our website.https://bit.ly/living-corporateTRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, everybody? It's Zach, and you know what? I'ma just go ahead and say it right now. It's also Emory. Emory, say something. [Emory breathes] That's just her breathing. Emory is, at the time of this recording, six weeks old. So we're here because I'm on daddy duty and my wife has to get some sleep. That's right. Husbands, help your wives, or partners rather, excuse me - not to be overly gendered on a podcast all focused on inclusion, equity and diversity. Help your partners, you know what I'm saying? Everybody, you know, they--one person can't do it all. Sometimes you gotta step in, and this podcast is great, and I love y'all, but of course I love my daughter the most. Well, I love my wife also. Let me not do any type of weird hierarchy right now live, like, a live-streaming conscience of thought on the podcast, but the point is you have responsibilities. There are things that take precedent. And look, we're in a new normal, so I'm just here. Where was I? Right, Living Corporate. So look, Living Corporate amplifies and centers black and brown voices at work. Why do I say black and brown and not, like, people of color? Because I want to be very explicit, we want to be very explicit, with what our mission is. So we aim to center and amplify black and brown identities, marginalized folks, folks on the periphery, in the workplace, and we do that how? We do that by having real talk in a corporate world. Now how do we do that? We do that by interviewing incredible leaders cut from all type of cloth. And, you know, we've had executives. We've had professors, entrepreneurs, public servants, activists, civil leaders, elected officials. We've had all types of people, artists, and today is no different. Today we have Dr. Erin L. Thomas. Dr. Thomas is the head of diversity, inclusion and belonging at Upwork where she leads diversity, inclusion and belonging, or DIBs. She leads the strategy implementation and coaching for all of Upwork. Prior to Upwork though, Dr. Thomas was a managing director at Paradigm, a diversity and inclusion strategy firm where she partnered with companies to embed DIBs into organizations through culture transformation and people development. Prior to Paradigm, Erin held positions at Grant Thornton LLP, Argonne National Laboratory developing D&I strategies, programming and metrics. Her work has been featured in Fast Company and the New York Times and recognized by Forbes, Human Rights Campaign, the National Association for Female Executives and the Equal Opportunity Magazine. She holds a PhD in social psychology, a Master of Philosophy in social psychology; a Master of Science in social psychology; and a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and international studies from Yale University. She is accredited, y'all. Okay? Don't question us, okay? We're coming to y'all. We bring y'all heat rock every single week, and the heat rock we bring is because we have guests that have heat rock. I'ma say heat rock again just so y'all get the point. Yes, I'm turnt up. Yes, it's a Tuesday. Who cares? Erin, what's up? Welcome to the show. How are you doing?Erin: I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having me. Hi, little baby Emory. I am so excited to be here, and I want to give you a number. So I'm really into, during COVID times, anchoring, you know, "How are you doing?" on a scale. 1 is, you know, "We've got to get out of here and get some more support." Like, "We're not doing well." 10 is, you know, "COVID what? COVID who?" But I think, like, if you're a 10, you also probably need some external support. Zach: Facts. [laughs]Erin: And I think today I am... I'm, like, a 7, 8. I'm very excited to be chatting with you. What's your number?Zach: That's a really good question. You know, I don't know. So it's interesting because your scale, I don't know how it accounts for, like, other things, right? So, like, I'm also here with, like, a six-week-old baby. So maybe I'm, like, a--so, like, coronavirus is not, like, at the top of my mind because I'm trying to focus on keeping this thing that looks like me alive. Maybe I'm, like, a--I'd probably say I'm, like, a 7, 8. Like, I'm pretty good. I'm happy, right? Like, I mean, life is good. The new Drake album--well, not the album, but a little collection of loosies came out recently that was very good, that I enjoyed. You know, my favorite shows are still coming on. I've caught up on some anime. So I'm keeping myself well-distracted.Erin: [laughs] That's good. I think distracted is good. I think--I don't know, I think in the beginning days of all of this it felt, for me at least, a little weird to compartmentalize, or I felt a little guilty, but I actually think that's incredibly healthy, you know, to find moments of just pleasure and delight. That's all we got, right? That's all we got.Zach: I mean, this--the reality is that before this pandemic, like, I was already a homebody. Now, people at work--like, people who know me from work would--they may not know that, because, like, in person, like, I'm a fairly gregarious guy. But, like, you know, people are complex, right? I think, like, we create a lot of these terms and things that aren't really academic or scientific just to kind of better compartmentalize people, like, "You're an extrovert, you're an introvert." It's like, "I mean, I enjoy people, but I also enjoy being alone." Like, I enjoy being at home, being with my wife and now my kid. Like, I'm fine with that. But I'm glad, I'm glad that you're excited. I'm excited and in a good place as well. You know, this would be interesting to do again, like, if our numbers were wildly different, right? So, like, you're a 7, 8, I'm a 7, 8, but if I was, like, a 2, then, like, I wonder how the dynamics of this discussion would look, especially considering what we're talking about.Dr. Thomas: Yeah. I mean, I think then--and this has happened to me at work, right? Like, I come in low and someone else is high or vice versa. I think then that's the--I mean, that's the point of it, right? It's a moment of pause to figure out what do you need to put aside or do you need to get off this call or how can I support you and give that person who's lower an opportunity to either just share or not or articulate more. I just think it's a great window into "How can we work together towards whatever it is that we need to achieve?" And if now's not the time, fair. You know? We gotta go and come back together when we're both in the right space. I think that happens all the time, we just don't often put numbers to it, right?Zach: I agree, I agree. So look, that actually is a really good segue for us to get into this. Like, this pandemic, it continues to expose and exacerbate all types of inequities, from social to governmental and of course workplace, just all across the board, and I'll tell you, frankly it just feels overwhelming for me to think about holistically, let alone try to address, and so I'm really curious about just, like, considering your role with Upwork, I'd love to hear how your perspective and focuses have shifted as this pandemic has continued, and considering your level within Upwork and, like, the organizational power that you wield by way of your level, I'd love to hear about how power and influence has shaped your praxis.Dr. Thomas: Yeah. Whoo, this could take the whole hour, which, you know, happy, happy to unpack it for that long, 'cause it's deep. It's deep and very real. Like, the quickest answer for me is not that much has actually changed about the objectives that we set out to achieve for this year. How we go about them certainly has had to stay agile and nimble, but in the work that I do that's always the case. I always like to be super responsive to context and not get so [prescriptive?] about how we execute but to kind of keep our eyes on the prize, and so from my personal vantage point, I--especially during the beginning days of this--have never felt more critical than I do right now. You know, I think there's so many external conversations and great thought leaders who have articulated this better, what this crisis has really done, like most crises, is magnify fractures, gaps, inequities, that already existed, and so I've used this really as an opening to accelerate my platform and the work that I'm doing for marginalized folks at our company. So just to dig into it, you know, I did a couple of tactical things once it became clear to me that, you know, "This is serious. This is not the flu. This is gonna change everyone's lives forever," and I don't think that's an overstatement. So once that reality sort of set in, the first thing I did was I revisited these operating principles that I had crafted when I started at Upwork. So I joined the company in December of 2019. I'm only about weeks in, and there's been a lot of change since then, internally and obviously externally, but as a team of one and as the first DIB leader in our organization, I thought it was really important for me to just get anchored on what [?] and, you know, use that decision framework for really [advertising?] how I [fell?] in my role. I think, especially when a role like this is new or especially when someone comes in with a multi-disciplinary background [or] a very strategic lens, folks don't necessarily know what the role is and they kind of fill in their own blanks and make their own stories. So that was important to me, and I revisited those once we started quarantining just to make sure that they were evergreen and [stood up?] in this crisis, and they did, thankfully, and I can put [?] on my name. There's only four, and everything we do is, you know, it's systemic, so #1 is account for the systems and structures we're operating in, and that's, you know, systems and structures within our company and certainly externally as well. So that's #1, definitely holds true today. #2 is everything we do is tailored to the most specific population or the most specific point in the employee experience as possible, and so it kind of goes back to how you introduce the podcast, which is it's basically about centering. We have to get specific. We have to get articulate and discrete about what problem we're trying to solve or what opportunity we're trying to seize, and certainly during public times that's been really critical, and I think that principle holds up. The third is active. So I really wanted to mark that for myself and for others. You know, there's no passive way to do this work. Like, we're gonna have to change some things, and, you know, I think that's intuitive, but also [?] to declare. And then the fourth thing which is super critical for me, and this is where I see a lot of DIBs or DEI, whatever acronym you want to use, professionals flounder a little bit, is being pragmatic and being compelling and cohesive and telling, you know, one story that folks can get behind that also makes sense in the context of the day-to-day decisions and work that they're doing, and I think too often DIBs work kind of exists in a bit of a vacuum, right? It's a little bit of a tag-along or an extra-curricular, and I think that's the piece, you know, during corona times, that I've had to really get critical, even more so with myself, about "[?]," right? Like, do people have the capacity for this new thing or this new structure or this new effort and just really kind of giving grace to the folks who have to carry forward on the strategies, who have to, you know, change their behaviors, because it's a lot to ask even in the best of times, and I want to push and, again, lean into this comfort, but also be gracious with the fact that folks are dealing with a lot right now. So that's one of the things I did, was just, like, double-check on the way that we're going about this work. So relevant during this time. Another thing was just re-prioritizing some of those actual objectives. There were just, like, a couple that, even before corona, were nicer to have, but now it's clear that this is not the year to be working on the frills. It's really--we gotta stick to the essentials in terms of our strategic goals. And then the last thing I'll quickly say is I actually really leveraged the fact that it seems like most folks are becoming kind of armchair experts in academiology these days, right? Like, I'm learning more, more about viruses and how they spread, and I think there's some really interesting--and if I thought about it hard enough there could be a poem out of this, but, you know, I think there's some really interesting overlays between what we're seeing with the virus [Emory makes some noise] and how I think about people and the fact that--hey, Emory! The fact that we are all connected, we're all inter-dependent, and we need to center the most vulnerable. I think, as a society, that's becoming more and more clear, just with the true facts that are coming out from COVID, but it also I think has been what activists and DIBs practitioners have been saying for, you know, decades, and so I think, at least in my company, it sort of seems like there's this window of opportunity to seize on this understanding of centering and equity and disproportionate impact that folks are getting externally and [?] that same framework and understanding through the work that I do internally. I just think folks are grasping it a little bit more easily now than they might have been before this. So that, for me, has been exciting.Zach: That's awesome. And yes, hello, Emory. But no, you're absolutely right. [laughs] You know, what I find curious about this time, or intriguing even, is that because of the real impacts that this pandemic is having with folks that look like us and that don't look like us and the frustrations that come along with that, it's creating avenues for people to have even more frank conversations and to really kind of, like, get past some of the jargon and, like, these super long monologues about whatever and really get into, "No, how can we actually create impact and change and help? Because there are people who actively need help," and I think that's--and I try to be, like, a silver lining type of person, so, like, that's--so I would say that is something that is a positive out of all of this. I do think also, to your point around DEI practitioners, I do think that there's a bit of a gap when it comes to, "Okay, how do we transition from--" And I've talked about this with some other folks in the past. I think we're now doing a decent job of, like, talking about the historicity of oppression, or we'll talk about systemic inequities in, like, these very, like, high level systems that almost seem--like, we speak about them almost, like, in the abstract, right? So we'll say, like, "Well, you know, black men, they have disproportionate--they're targeted by police and da-da-da," and it's like, "Okay, that's true," and I'm not being dismissive of that. "Let's talk a little bit more about the systemic inequities in your workplace though," right? Like, "How can we transition these conversations to be a bit more practical and targeted to the reality of your employees?" And, like, that's--and I get why, you know, there's a variety of reasons why we don't necessarily have those conversations when I don't think we necessarily know how, but then two, like, it's increasingly uncomfortable to have conversations about actual power in your workplace, because then we start looking at individuals, right?Dr. Thomas: Yeah. I mean, it's hard, or maybe impossible, not to take, you know, a conversation about power and privilege personally, but at the same time I think where I've seen the most effective work, where I've done the most effective work, is where we actually sort of meet somewhere in the middle. It's about what roles or positions do we hold, how are those products of a greater societal system, and given the seat we're in--it's not really about us. I think it's really about the position. But given that we fill it, you know, what is our responsibility? To disrupt things that before now we weren't aware, you know, we were products of, or now that we are we realize we have a bit of an urgency to leave a legacy or leave things better than where we found them, and I think that's where the activation can happen. That's where we can get [?] without guilting people, right? Without making them defensive. I think it's just the reality of, "Oh, this is all by design, and we're sort of products of this greater architecture. So now what are we gonna do about it?" And if we're not gonna do anything, that's fine too, but then we should stop talking about it. Right? So, like, that's fine. I don't--[laughs] I want to be clear that I don't judge or begrudge that. It's fine. You know, companies and leaders can make those choices, but then stop talking about it. That's where--right?Zach: Yes. That's my rub too. At a certain point it's like, "Look, I'm tired of us talking about diversity being our strength and there not being anybody that looks like me that actually has any type of authority or power." You know, "I'm tired of us always--" Like, not shoehorning in, because no disrespect. We talk about gender in these very, like, binary, exclusionary ways without being intersectional at all with race or sexual identity. We talk about sexual identity in these binary ways without including race. We ignore any race trans identities, particularly trans black female identities. So, like, if we're gonna do this, let's do it. If we're not gonna do it, let's not. It's 2020. Rona or no rona, let's just--let's just be honest. [both laugh]Dr. Thomas: I agree. I mean, you know, that's where folks get disillusioned. That's where, you know, when the word doesn't match the deed, it reads as inauthentic because it frankly is, and I think most companies or leaders within them would be honestly better served to talk a little less about diversity, about inclusion, about equity, [then keep on?], or to raise--you know, raise the bar for themselves, but this weird in-between is just not working, right? It's not working. It's frustrating the folks who are most impacted. And then we see the results, which is very minimal quantitative gains when it comes to actual representation within the workforce. So these things all [?] together. They all relate, so yeah.Zach: They do. Now this is me going off the chart, but it just popped in my--not popped in my head, 'cause I think about it a lot, but we didn't talk about it for this interview. We gotta have you back, Erin, 'cause I really want to talk about in group, out group dynamics and the pressures that marginalized people in positions of authority have to, like, toe the line in that regard or how much they push against to then create inclusive workplaces for people who look like them. 'Cause, like--no, and I recognize that's a big topic, but, like, I just want to say this 'cause it's on the top of my heart and my mind. Like, I've noticed--and I've had these conversations, like, with black folks, like, off the record, right? So, like, in consulting, you know, there's all these different tracks of leadership, and, you know, the highest up is typically managing director or partner, and I've talked to some black partners who I really respect and everything, and I'm like, "Look, how many of you do you meet?" 'Cause the people that I talk to, like, they're with it. Like, they're conscious. They genuinely care. They try to use their access, power and privilege, relative power and privilege, to help other folks that look like them--and I'm talking, like, two people, right? [both laugh] And I asked them like, "Yo, what's going on? Like, why are the rest of y'all a bunch of Clarence Thomases up here? Like, what is this?" And so we had this whole frank discussion about it, but I really want to have you back on, because, like--I don't know. I feel like you and I could have that conversation, but I want to have it because, like--and I had this very... it was not uncomfortable. Wait, let's pause. Everybody stop, everybody. Y'all should know by now. This is, like--we're a couple hundred episodes in, hundreds of episodes in actually of Living Corporate. Y'all know I enjoy awkward conversations, so this exchange I'm about to explain to y'all was not awkward for me. It was awkward for them, okay? It was not awkward for me. So, you know, I had this conversation, and--[Emory makes noise] Oh, goodness, my daughter is loud. Hey, y'all. Y'all, check it out. Y'all hear these vocals by Emory. Don't play. No labels, but, you know, we'll make a SoundCloud soon. So anyway, I was talking to this person and I was like, "Look, the reality is the folks in power only let a certain amount of us in these spaces, okay, and when you see us in these spaces high up, like, to find somebody that looks like us in those spaces who genuinely care, who are not closing doors behind and who are speaking truth to power--" Again, I'm not asking you to come show up in a Kunta Kinte shirt. I'm just saying if you could just--[Dr. Thomas laughs] Okay? If you could just, you know, act like you're black, act like you recognize, you know, experiences. To find those types of people, it's like finding a unicorn with gold teeth, you know what I mean? It's crazy. Dr. Thomas: Yeah, and it's hard for me to speak to personally simply because my role is diversity, right? [both laugh] I'm not here as a [?] professional, I am a diversity expert and researcher. So that's, I guess, a privilege if you will that I hold as a leader in my company, and I recognize that. It was true in my last role too. I was in a consulting firm, and I was on the leadership team, but we were a diversity consulting firm, right? And so even in there you see some of that where, yeah, I had to really reconcile with the fact that I was doing this work and certainly had more latitude to, you know, speak that truth to power than I would if I were in another profession, and at the same time even I find myself vigilant, of course, and protective, of course, of how much is too much, you know? Where do I strike that balance of advocating in ways that people can hear versus that active, you know, operating principle that I called out earlier, you know, [?] folks that healthy discomfort. It's tough. It's a whole level of calculus that I have become I think decent at. I think also though I always--and, you know, we should talk about this another time because we can go real deep into this, right? I always view this dance of, like, on the one hand, any professional--especially any leader--is context switching and code switching all the time, right? Like, that is effective leadership, right? That's effective, but yet when you're a person of color, when you are black--which I can speak to--when you're brown, I think it creates some compunction of, like, "How much of this is playing the game that anyone would play and how much of this is selling out?" And I don't have an answer. I think everyone has their own barometer for that, but it's something I challenge myself on all the time. Like, "What of this feels like me and what of this feels like I'm becoming complicit in something that I don't subscribe to?" And, you know, sometimes I can't really codify when I'm feeling uncomfortable, but I know what I'm feeling, and that's when I have to really check myself and really examine if how I'm showing up or what I'm sharing or advocating is really serving my key audience, which is our marginalized folks at our company.Zach: Yo, so thank you for real. Sound Man, put a little round of applause in here for Erin answering this question off the fly, 'cause we did a pre-production. This was not part of the questions, but it was just something on top of my mind. Thank you so much. Now, look, let's get into this though, because we're just now really at the top of the conversation we planned on having. So look, at the time of us recording this, over 32 million folks have applied for unemployment benefits. At the same time, many companies are trying to retain their employees and keep them engaged in new working environments. I mean, there's even a lot of unofficial conversations happening on companies having pressure to not let go of too many minority employees in the name of just optics and potential legal ramifications. I'm curious, can we talk about this dynamic [?] where tensions may be, particularly for black and brown employees.Dr. Thomas: Sure. I mean, when I hear this question I'm really thinking about it as what are black and brown workers maybe thinking, feeling, [?] with individually if they are still employed, and I think I've seen both--at Upwork it's certainly [?] as well, 'cause obviously I consume research, I consume, you know, thought leadership externally, and I think there's a picture that's sort of forming for me in my head, which is there's a range I think of emotional reactions for folks who are still employed, and I think at its best folks are feeling really grateful of course. Right? It's sort of--going back to operating on a scale of 1 to 10, it's, like, yeah, a very compartmentalized 1 to 10, but, like, we're grateful for the blessings we have, and I think certainly that is true for folks who are in jobs with fair pay and fair benefits. They want to give their all to their employers because their circumstances could be so much worse. And I think especially in, you know, people work, in mission-driven organizations and purposeful organizations, that's incredibly true, you know? I'm seeing more and more come out, for instance, among mental health professionals who are burning out 'cause they're just giving it all. And I think, you know, in normal times it's hard to strike that balance of taking care of others versus yourself, and I think especially now, if folks are lucky to still have some semblance of job security, they're giving a lot, and they're very grateful. I think, towards the more extreme ends of this spectrum of reactions, I'm also seeing certainly some guilt, some comparative guilt, you know, around--there are folks out there who are on the front lines, who are essential workers, who have lost their jobs, and so "Maybe I'm not feeling great about what I'm doing or where I am, but, like, how could I complain?" Right? Like, "How can I explain when--maybe things aren't ideal, but I have so much," and so that's where I start to get--yeah, I get a little nervous about that, but I understand it, right? Like, you won't want to rock the boat right now when employment is so precarious. I think there is, you know, on this extreme end of the spectrum, a bit of grief happening, just--obviously black and brown folks are more likely to have people around them succumbing to this virus, falling ill, being unemployed themselves, and so, you know, folks are at work but breathing different losses that some of their counterparts may not be breathing as directly. And then there's backdrop of fear. Like, even if you feel secure in your job for now, this whole situation is obviously unprecedented. We don't know what will happen to the economy, we don't know what will happen to our companies. And again, the research shows that black and brown folks, and women, are the first to get furloughed, to get laid off, to your point, and we know in secure times black and brown folks are more heavily scrutinized, and I think folks who are still working feel a microscope that may or may not be on them, but it's impossible not to be vigilant about if you're gonna make it out of here with the job you went into this crisis with and if that job is actually the right job for you or if you're feeling beholden to, you know, a vulnerable time in your life. I think it's a very confusing time, but it all goes back to what we were talking about earlier, which is that it's just magnifying some of the sentiments that folks are always feeling. I think there's an overlay of, like, true uncertainty that is pressing, but I think folks are really trying to just get through the day, trying to keep the jobs they have, and, you know, trying not to encounter some of the secondary traumas that come when you lose that job, that security that you have in place. So I'm seeing a whole swirl of things, and the way they look to me basically is people are tired. They are exhausted. They are burning out and, you know, I think they're taking care of themselves a little less than they used to because it feels a little risky to do that.Zach: You segued really well into my next question about, like, black and brown employees and their experience, and it's funny because I was talking to a colleague about this, talking to a workplace colleague about, like, my own experiences, and I was telling him about, like, you know, "I've had some stresses because I've had some friends who almost fell victim to COVID-19," and, you know, they recovered, you know, but I also have acquaintances whose family members have passed, right? So you're right, like, what's on my mind and the stresses and the drama is--just what's on my mind is different throughout the day, or maybe it's just a little more real. Let me not say that other folks--'cause there have been white folks dying from the coronavirus too. So it's like, you know, not about trying to dismiss one to uplift the other. It's just like, "Okay, this is real for you, and it's even more real for me." And so I'm curious, like, you know, can we talk a little bit about what organizations can do during this time to at the very least reduce harm for their black and brown employees?Dr. Thomas: For sure. I think, you know, first I want to say 1. thank goodness for your friends who have recovered, and 2. I'm very sorry for the losses that are close to you, and to your point, I'm sorry for that for everybody. This is--you know, the backdrop to all of this is just... it's really hard to fathom honestly. It's hard for me to, like, wrap my head around the devastation this has caused, and it's just--it's so painful, and I'm sorry that everyone is going through this in some way, 'cause everyone is affected and is going to be in some way by the physical toll that this is taking on people. To that point, you know, I think there's a few things that orgs can do kind of from the top down. I think there's also things certainly that any individual colleague or manager can do for the folks around them, but I'll talk about this on a couple of levels. Sidebar, I always think of the Nick Jonas song "Levels" whenever I'm thinking about how to approach this work. Zach: Now, hold on, what is the Nick Jonas song--'cause see, the only song I know by Nick Jonas is that "I still get jealous--" You know what I'm saying? "[continues singing]."Dr. Thomas: It's about--I'm trying to think of how it goes. It's about "love has levels." "Levels, levels." I don't know the words.Zach: Come on, Erin. Come on. I hear you with the vocals.Dr. Thomas: I know. I gotta find it, but I like him, and I know he has a song called Levels, and I always think about it. It's like, "Oh, levels, take me higher--" I don't know. Levels take me higher. I don't know. It's a terrible song.Zach: It's a terrible song? Okay. Did he have a black choir in the background? [both laugh] Yo, when Nick Jonas came out there, boy, he came out there and they was like, "I still get jealoous." I was like, "What is going on? Jesus ain't got nothing to do with this." I mean, he's a jealous guy. Anyway, moving forward... [both laughing] Dr. Thomas: I'm gonna have to find it, I'm gonna have to sing it and just send you a little audio clip, 'cause I can't even remember the tune, 'cause it's not a memorable song. Love you, Nick.Zach: Okay. [laughs]Dr. Thomas: You know? From the top down, companies, and really I'm talking about leaders, people leaders, diversity leaders, can take care to do a few things. One is--and I saw this during the earlier days of people sheltering in place. I think it's leveled out maybe a bit, at least from my vantage point, but in the beginning there was a lot of corporate messaging--and I think you even see this still in commercials--of, you know, "We're all in this together," and on its face, cool, cool, cool. Like, right, you want to build camaraderie, you want to cohere folks around a shared sense of community, but if you beat that drum a little too long, especially within your company, I think it can kind of err to the side of being colorblind, right, and really minimizing the disproportionate strain that there actually is on employees of color and on black and brown folks. So I think striking that balance of certainly we're all in this together, and also there are distinct experiences that we know folks are grappling with. It's an important sort of dual approach to make sure that your folks who are black and brown know that they're seen, know that they're recognized for their unique experiences through this and the unique impacts that they're encountering. So that's one thing, just sort of take that multicultural lens to those company communications that you're sending out. I think another thing is, you know, wherever you can creating space for employees to uncover and share more about their specific experiences. So, you know, we did this back in April at Upwork. We partnered with Michelle Kim, who I know is a friend of the pod.Zach: Come on. What's up, Michelle J. Kim? Shout-out to Awaken Co. What's up? [imitating air horns]Dr. Thomas: [joins in, Zach laughs] She's awesome, and we sort of co-facilitated I think a 75-minute conversation with leaders of our Asian ERG(s)--and this is before the data about [?] were coming out with regards to black and brown folks, and the conversation was mostly around--in terms of the media--anti-Asian bias and discrimination and racism, so we seized on the timeliness of that conversation and built out, you know, a virtual forum for our employees to share what they were concerned about, what they were hearing in their day-to-day lives and interactions, and to scale out from that, from those stories to give more context to, you know, why are we seeing this, what is this. This is not unique to this moment in time. This is, you know, a pattern repeating, and really come from a place of urgency to educate our folks a little bit more about historical context and why it matters now and certainly what they can do to disrupt and call out bias in themselves and discriminations they're seeing externally. A third thing is certainly around mental health and benefits and resources to aid folks, you know, who are experiencing trauma and grief. And I don't think this just has to be if you've lost someone close to me. I think in general folks are really struggling obviously with anxiety and insomnia, and there's data coming in on that, and so making sure that your company has the right level and amount of bereavement and [leave?] policies, but also just coaching and support with your EAP if you have one or your [?] and getting them at least to a basic level [?] of providing that 1:1 support for folks and hopefully referring them out to medical providers if they need, you know, more professional coaching. And then the last thing, you know, is related to what you were saying about terminations and lay-offs and all that. Every company should be auditing the decisions they're making this time when it comes to furloughs and risks, making sure that they're looking at that through an equity lens, making sure that they're not just focusing on people's kind of positions in the company or tenure, because black and brown folks tend to sit lower in the org and tend to be earlier in their tenure, so really taking a performance-based approach to that analysis can be helpful in getting out of that sort of hamster wheel of, you know, first in first out when it comes to black and brown folks. So those are, you know, top-down, structural considerations that companies can be taking every day. I think on the ground, peers and managers can be doing some of what we've already role modeled in this conversation. Check in with people, my goodness. Just think about who you haven't spoken to in a while. Think about who you might normally pass at, you know, the water cooler or the coffee station, and if you haven't chatted with that person 1:1 in a minute, you know, Slack them, ping them, whatever you've got in terms of internal messaging systems, call them, pick up the phone and check in. Just see how people are doing, and make sure you create, you know, space to actually hear their answer and to actually respond. So, you know, as opposed to the normal "How's it going?" Like, really ask the question and really wait for the answer and be with that person with whatever they share, you know? I think it's really about those personal connections that we probably took for granted when we were back in an office setting, for those of us who were in offices, and that are harder to actualize now, right? Like, we're all home. We're all behind screens, and so there is no organic water cooler conversation. That means we have to make a little bit more effort to reach out to folks and to show them that we care about them, that we're connected to them and that we're a resource, or that the company has resources, for them whenever they need.Zach: I love it, I love it. Now, Erin, you know that we're about real talk in a corporate world like I said at the top of the show. For the executive leader to this and perhaps rolling their eyes or maybe, like, speed listening and being like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know this. Yeah, yeah, yeah," like, you know, just kind of being dismissive as to the gravity of this and why this matters. Why should folks have an inclusive and equitable lens during this time, and then what's the potential fallout in your mind if they don't?Dr. Thomas: I have so many reactions to this question. I think, first, if someone's rolling their eyes to this, which... yeah, could be true, I'll just, like, emphatically say that's not my key audience. Like, I'm just not--you know, I'm really not, and I'm just not. That's not my sweet spot. There were times earlier in my career where that was, where I found it fun to really push the business case for equity, business case for diversity. I am not interested in that anymore, and thankfully I'm in an org where I don't have to do that. Like, kudos to those of you who are doing that. Frankly, for me personally, that's ineffective, right? You know, people do not make decisions based on facts or data. So, you know, I could stand here and talk about the research that's been done. You know, Great Place to Work just did a study around [?], right, and they showed that those who focused on inclusion did better during the recession and saw more returns. So, like, I could share all those stats and all that, but it doesn't matter. Like, if you're rolling your eyes, if you are asking why or if, like, it's probably not gonna happen for you. Just call it, you know--because you can Google it, you can ask Siri, you can ask Jeeves, you can do whatever you want to do, but, like--Zach: [laughing] Not ask Jeeves.Dr. Thomas: [laughing] You can go back to Jeeves if you have to, but my point is that this is not how people make decisions. People make decisions emotionally. They do what they want to do and then they rationalize it later. That is a fact. Zach: That is a fact.Dr. Thomas: You know, it is. And that's science. [laughs] And so if you're not in any way emotionally inclined to care, nothing I say, no data point is gonna make you care. So I think that's one thing. Like, I am impatient and frankly, especially with, you know, decades of research that I think has really caught on in industry, we're just past the point of denying the value proposition of diversity. I think it wastes calories. I think it distracts from the meaningful question, which is, like, how we can go about it during this time or, you know, what we should be prioritizing. I think those are fair questions, but if you're, for whatever strange reason, listening to this podcast and rolling your eyes, like, I don't have time for it. I just don't. I don't. And already that was too much time explaining how I don't have time for it. So that's my quick reaction to that. [both laughing] I think those who are kind of, you know, struggling with how to go about this or where to maybe invest less or more, that's incredibly fair. I think that is incredibly challenging. So what I would say there is just--it goes back to what we talking about earlier. I mean, this is life and death, right? It does not get more real in terms of a call to action than this moment in time, and I think every leader should sit themselves down and critically examine what legacy they want to leave, you know? This is the time for companies to demonstrate what living values, living their values actually looks like. It's their time to pressure test, you know, different mantras that companies love to share around, you know, authentic selves at work, or "Bring your whole selves to work," because you saying--it goes back to what we were talking about earlier. You're saying those things... well, here's your moment. Here's your moment to [know?] what it really means, and that's true at the company level, it's true at that personal level. Hopefully you're inclined to want to dig more deeply into what actualizing on your commitments actually could mean right now, and I think that's the place to get really serious about where are the potential gaps between what you're saying and doing. And as we said earlier, you know, if you realize "Huh, even in these most dire circumstances, we're maybe not really ready to make the investment that we might need to actually move the needle or create the environment that our people need." Okay. That's a tough conclusion to come to, but okay.Zach: That's responsible though, right?Dr. Thomas: Right. Yeah. I mean, and then okay, well, then you have to communicate that back, but if you have been talking a game for a while and are realizing you want to step it up, that's amazing, and I think from there what you can be doing is really leveraging external leaders--I mean, there's a lot of information, tools that are free. You could certainly and should be always leveraging your internal employees or workers however they want to be leveraged to help you reveal your blind spots. But this is it. Like, this is the moment, and hopefully orgs will really step it up and leave a footprint that I think can last for generations. You know, what companies do now I think is going to reset how people see them in the public light, how people see them as an employer of choice or not, and so it's a critical kind of come to Jesus moment hopefully for leaders and orgs to double down or to de-emphasize the things that we've been talking about for a while.Zach: Yo. Man, I mean this has just been an incredible conversation. I would be remiss not to drop a Flex bomb right here, and then also some air horns, put 'em in right here. Okay, there we go. Erin, before we let you go--before Emory and I, excuse me, let you go, any parting words or shout-outs? I know you've been dropping wild gems this entire time, but I just want to give you one last--you know, where they can find you, what you're excited about with Upwork, anything. Give you time to plug.Dr. Thomas: Oh, goodness. Okay, I did not prepare for this. I have so many people to thank. I would say find me on Twitter. That's it. Please don't try to find me on LinkedIn. I don't respond on LinkedIn. Real talk. It's just too cluttered. So ErinLThomasPhD is my Twitter handle. I would say check out Upwork. I have been a lot of places. I have led diversity within two other organizations before now. I've been an expert consultant. I've seen a lot of what companies are doing, and I wouldn't be at Upwork if I weren't rabidly passionate about what we're doing and about all of the magic ingredients that attracted me to our company. So I'd love for folks to check us out. Come work with us. We're a great, amazing, purposeful company doing great work, with cool leaders like me, so come on through.Zach: I mean, this is the best ad I could imagine. [both laugh] All right, y'all, you know what it is. We're having real talk in a corporate world. I'm saying it, like, three times this time, but you know we amplify and center marginalized, underappreciated, underrepresented, undersupported, underestimated voices at work, and look, you can check us out anywhere, okay? Look, we're all over Barack Obama's internet. You just Google Living Corporate, okay? We're gonna pop up. We're there, okay? We're all over. Check us out on Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod, @LivingCorporate on Instagram. Shoot, if you old school and you're like, "Nah, Zach. I gotta go in the browser and type in the domain like a true OG," then I'ma say, "Okay, cool," and I'ma tell you www.living-corporate.com, please say the dash, or livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.us, livingcorporate.tv, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.net. We got all of the Living Corporates except livingcorporate.com, so if you type in livingcorporate.com and Living Corporate does not pop up do not be mad at me, 'cause I told you already we don't got that one. We got all the other livingcorporates, or living-corporate.com--please say the dash, all right? You can also email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com. You can also DM us, okay? DMs are wide open. We are not afraid of the random DM. Just hit us up. We'll make sure we hit you back. If you have a listener letter, you know, you could submit it right there. We'll answer it on the show. We got a decent number. We try to get to a critical mass so we can answer a few, and then we kind of make that an episode. Just so y'all you know. It's, like, a peek behind the curtain. Until next time, y'all. This has been Zach, and you've been listenimg to Dr. Erin Thomas of Upwork. Me and Emory are gonna catch y'all later. Emory, you got anything to say? [Emory's silent] Nope? All right, y'all. Peace.

On the thirteenth installment of our See It to Be It podcast series, Amy C. Waninger speaks with Traci Adedeji, the AIO program lead at AIPSO and president elect of the Rhode Island Chapter of the CPCU Society, in a wide-ranging interview about her unique role, her unconventional journey into the insurance industry, and so much more. Traci espouses the importance of establishing mentoring relationships at work and shares some advice on how to foster a very strong professional network on LinkedIn. Check the links in the show notes to connect with her and find out more about the CPCU Society!Connect with Traci on LinkedIn.http://bit.ly/2T9giYRFind out more about the CPCU Society on their website. They're also on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Links in order, beginning with their website:https://bit.ly/3cWpbh7https://bit.ly/3giUQeGhttps://bit.ly/2WUwfFuhttps://bit.ly/3e6nON4Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here or below.https://bit.ly/2Ug4l5KHelp food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org:https://bit.ly/2WD73UkCheck out our website.https://bit.ly/living-corporateTRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach Nunn. Now, listen here. Y'all know what we're trying to do. We're trying to build, inspire, encourage, empower, all on a platform that affirms black and brown experiences in corporate America. And it's interesting because as I came up just kind of coming into myself as a professional, I didn't see a lot of people that looked like me in consulting. I didn't see a lot of people that looked like me in human resources either. But when I would come across someone who looked like me doing something I wanted to do, it gave me encouragement. It gave me a stronger sense of hope that I could do it too, and so it's with that that we're really excited to talk to y'all about and bring you another entry, actually, into our See It to Be It series. So the next thing you're gonna hear is an interview between Amy C. Waninger, a guest on the show, a member of the team, and the author of Network Beyond Bias, and a leader who just happens to be an ethnic minority. In fact, yo, Sound Man, give me some air horns right HERE for my leaders. [he complies] Yo, and give me some more air horns right HERE [he complies again] for the See It to Be It series. So catch y'all next time. I know you're gonna enjoy this. Peace.Amy: Hi, Traci. Thank you so much for joining me today.Traci: Oh, it's my pleasure. I'm honored that you asked me to join you.Amy: Well, I am excited, because you and I have worked together before on committees and projects, but never in the same company, although we are at least in part in the same industry, in the insurance industry. And so I was wondering if you could tell me just a little bit--because your job title is program manager, but a lot of people who are not in a project management space or in a corporate space with a lot of projects may not understand what a program manager does, so can we just start there with kind of what is that job?Traci: Okay. So technically it's "program lead." I work for AIPSO, which is not an insurance company, but we provide services to the insurance industry. So the easiest example that I can offer for what we do would be let's say that in the state of Rhode Island, most--every state actually has a mechanism to handle what's called residual market business for automobile insurance, because in just about every state you have to have automobile insurance to be able to drive. So what happens is that, you know, if Allstate writes 40% of all of the standard automobile business in a state, the state will say, "Well, you also have to write 40% of the residual market business in that state," and--Amy: And the residual market is typically, like, really high-risk drivers that couldn't get insurance other ways, right?Traci: Essentially--exactly, people who are unable to get insurance through the standard market for a variety of reasons. So what Allstate might say is, "We know we have to write this business, but we really don't want to program our systems to handle this business. We don't want to hire people to handle this business that's underwritten and processed a little bit differently than our standard business, so what we're gonna do is we're gonna hire AIPSO or a company like AIPSO to handle it on our behalf." So that's probably the cleanest example I can give of what we do. There's some variations on the ways those different mechanisms work, but that's probably the clearest example. As the program lead, my responsibility is a little bit of underwriting, a little bit of program or project work. If we have to implement changes in the system, I'd be involved in the business requirements and working with the technical folks to make sure that our systems can accomodate what it is that we need to do from an underwriting and processing perspective.Amy: Thank you for that. I appreciate that. So how did you get involved in the insurance industry? Because I'm guessing, based on all of the people I've talked to in the insurance industry, that when you were 5 years old and, you know, you went to a family event and Grandma said, "And Traci, what do you want to be when you grow up?" You probably didn't say, "I want to be an insurance program lead." [both laugh]Traci: You are absolutely correct, although I do love insurance so much that I think we have to get to a point where, especially little brown boys and girls say, "We want to work in insurance." I was--I'm 54 years old. I'll be 55 in April. And when I was 16 years old, I was a teen mom, and when I was 17 years old I had another baby. So here I am, two children, college dropout, and my parents said, "You gotta get a job. You gotta do something to take care of your babies." So I got a job working at an insurance agency as a file clerk, and one day everybody was busy, the phone rang, I answered the phone, and it was a very simple call that I was able to answer because I had been listening to the people who were customer service representatives, so I just handled the call. I got promoted to customer service [?], and this was in 1984, and just worked my way up. I went from working on the agency side of the business to the company side of the business, as an assistant underwriter to an underwriter to an underwriting manager in different companies around the New York City area. In 2007, I thought I was in love, [laughs] and actually left the industry and moved from the New York City area to Rochester, New York. That relationship and the business that we were trying to build together in a different industry didn't work out, and I had to get a job, and insurance was all I knew at that point, 'cause at that point I had worked in the industry for over 20 years. So I came to Amica in Rochester, moved to Rhode Island, and, you know, Amica is an amazing place to work. I was very happy working there, but I got a call one day from a recruiter--that's what happens when, you know, people have your information out there when you're networking, and the gentleman said, "I've got this position I'm trying to fill. Do you know anyone who would be interested?" And when I looked at it, it looked like it was the perfect storm of everything that I'd learned to do in all of the different positions that I'd had in insurance. So I went on to interview and I said to myself, "Okay, I really don't want to leave Amica [?], but, you know, this is a really cool opportunity." So I had a number in my mind. I said, "Okay, if they come back at that number, that's gonna be the universe telling me that this job is for me." I interviewed on a Wednesday, and on Friday I got an offer at the exact number that I had in my mind.Amy: That's amazing. So I always tell people, "When a recruiter calls, answer, because you never know what's waiting on the other side of the phone for you," and if not for you, then someone that you know, right? You may think, "Oh, I have no interest in that whatsoever, but I know someone," and if you can connect those two people, you've just created something amazing for someone else.Traci: Exactly, which was also the relationship with that recruiter, because if you then get to the point where you legitimately are looking for a position, they're gonna remember how you helped them out when they were trying to place folks and they're gonna do their best for you.Amy: Absolutely. And sometimes you even get a little referral bonus out of it if you--[both laugh] if you, you know, send them to somebody that they can place. So I've had that work out for me too. I was never expecting it, but when it happened it was always nice. So you've already told me about the different types of positions that you've held in the industry, but, you know, you came into this industry kind of by chance, right? You just happened to get a job at an agency. What has been the biggest surprise to you about working in insurance that you didn't realize as someone from outside?Traci: This is something that I've known for a while, but I think the thing that solidfied my interest in insurance and was my "a-ha" moment was when I started studying insurance, when I started studying--I actually started studying for my CPCU, which is, as you know, a professional designation in the industry. I started studying for my designation in 1992, and in studying insurance I came to have an appreciation for first of all how important insurance is, but also how diverse the industry is. Pretty much any discipline that you would be interested in studying, there is a job for you in the insurance industry, and that is I think the coolest thing about insurance.Amy: Yeah, I had a similar experience. So I came into the insurance industry as an IT professional. That was my background. No insurance background whatsoever, but I just happened to be a consultant that got placed at an insurance company, and when I then later got hired by the insurance company, somebody told me about the CPCU designation, which--it stands for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter. It's a professional designation that requires 8 courses to complete. You have to pass some tests, which thank goodness they're multiple choice now. They used to be blue book.Traci: [laughs] Yeah, I remember the books.Amy: No, thank you. I wouldn't have done it. I would've been too scared. But anyway, I started studying because, you know, I wanted to prove myself in this industry, and I wanted to frankly get the bonus that came with getting the designation that my employer offered at that time, and I was amazed by the scope of the insurance industry and the mission of the insurance industry, and when people ask me "Why do you love insurance?" And, you know, my focus of my company is not insurance-specific, although maybe it will be someday, but I think insurance is so fascinating because it does two things. It makes all economic investment possible. There's no part of the economy that insurance is not affected by or that it affects, right? I mean, every single transaction that happens is backed somewhere by an insurer. And the other thing we do in the insurance industry is we're there when people need us most. I mean, on somebody's worst day, we're there to help in, you know, ways that we can to make them whole and get them back on their feet, and I can't even imagine a more meaningful industry than that. So if somebody who has maybe never considered the insurance industry before and wants to learn more about the kinds of jobs available and how to get in--you know, how to kind of break into this industry, where would you recommend that they go?Traci: I would recommend that they get in touch with the local chapter of CPCU. I would also recommend that they get in touch with professional insurance agents and brokers, because they have professional organizations. Depending on where they are in their career, I would, you know, for example, if they're a high school or college student who's interested in the industry, I would look at internships with companies, with insurance companies. So those would be my suggestions. I do also know that through professional organizations, those of us who are invested enough in the industry and in our careers to be a part of these organizations have a tendency to be pretty generous people, so it would be pretty easy to even get a one-on-one informal, or even formal, mentoring relationship with someone who is in the industry that could offer some guidance.Amy: That's a great idea, and I know that there are a number of formal programs, but like you said, LinkedIn is a great way to just connect with someone if you have a target company in mind and you want to learn more about it. Most people are open to a phone call or at least exchanging emails and, you know, seeing what they can do to help. That is true. So, you know, the insurance industry has a reputation--and I won't say whether I feel that this is deserved or not, and you know exactly where I'm going--but the insurance industry has this reputation for being stale, pale, and male, and it's all a bunch of old white men, and that's it, right? And I know a lot of different industries suffer from this stigma, but for people who are maybe not older or white or men, what resources have you found that can help them kind of find their place in the industry, feel connected to others, feel a sense of community so that we can retain that talent in this industry and not lose it to somebody else?Traci: For me, I think back to a company that I worked for in 1990, and that was where I really got my start as an insurance professional and learned the most about the industry, but it's also where I recognized that at that particular company, in 1990, the early '90s, if I wasn't a white man with a degree from the right school, there was a very distinct feeling on how far I was going to progress in my career, and that was why I ended up leaving the company. I think that we--you know, it's great to join organizations, but I'm a grassroots kind of chick. I think that it is important to give back to each other, whether it's women, whether it's people of color. It's, like, whatever commonality you have with someone, if you see someone that's struggling or you see someone who's where you were previously in your career, you have a responsibility to reach out to that person and to offer them guidance if they're receptive to it. I'm the type of person that I have no qualms about reaching out to other women, to women of color, to just form those informal mentoring relationships, even if it's just "Let's have lunch once a month." There's people I don't even work with anymore. It just might be, like, an email or a LinkedIn message every now and then. So I think there's great value in forming those types of relationships. Yes, it's professional, but I think that if it's sort of a little more casual where you bond with that person and feel comfortable speaking with them, they're gonna be able to really guide you in a meaningful way.Amy: So that leads me right into my next question, which is I've noticed about you that you have a very strong professional network. I mean, you know everybody it seems like. [both laugh] And not all the same kind of people. Like, you really know people up and down the hierarchy. You know people across the industry, and when we were together at a conference last year I was just so impressed by the span of the network that you have, and so I was wondering what's your approach or what are your tips to networking and how do you stay connected with so many people with such limited time?Traci: LinkedIn makes it easy, because I can be on my computer at, I don't know, 2:00 in the morning when I wake up and can't sleep, and I can pop in and see what people have posted. I don't even have to tell you I absolutely adore your content, and every single thing you post I read and I share, you know, because I just find a lot of value in what you post, and I do the same for other people who are a part of my network. As far as I guess connecting with people, my advice would be ask. It's simply to ask. There's a woman who worked at a previous company, and she was pretty high up, you know, in the food chain if you will, and we didn't really--I mean, we had casually and in passing at work spoke, but it's not like we had a relationship. She ended up leaving the company, and I had no qualms about sending her a connection request on LinkedIn. I said, "Well, the worst that could happen is that she won't accept it, and if she says no I'm no worse off than I was before." I think that everyone has something to offer, regardless of their discipline, regardless of their position or title. I think that a lot of times we don't make those connections because we pre-judge and make assumptions. So I think that you just ask. Amy: That's good advice: So I have a friend in the speaking industry who says, "Every time you ask you risk getting a yes," and I really like that, and so I tried to kind of shore up my nerve to ask more, because I would not mind risking getting a yes.Traci: Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, I tell people this. I am by nature a pretty shy and reserved person. I grew up as the kid who got teased a lot in school and, you know, that whole thing, so not a lot of self-confidence in my younger years, but when you get to a point where you've got kids to feed and you recognize that the higher you achieve in your career the more money you're gonna make, you kind of put that to the side, you put your game face on, and you make what magic happen you need to make happen, and what happens is that as you practice that, even if you say to yourself "I'm gonna try to connect with one new person this week at work," "I'm gonna try to make a connection with one person who I've not had a connection with previously." The more you do it the more comfortable it becomes and the more confident you are in doing it.Amy: That is absolutely true, and I think a lot of people see networking as something very fake and forced and inauthentic, and they don't feel good about it, right? It kind of leaves, like, an icky, like, feeling about it, and when you approach it from, you know, almost gamifying it--I've done that in the past, right? "I'm gonna meet three people today. I'm gonna help three people with something," whether it's, you know, I'm gonna carry somebody's bag or I'm gonna hold open a door and say hello. Like, something, and so I think sometimes just kind of reframing how we think about networking can make a huge difference in our behaviors and our attitudes and ultimately in our results.Traci: Right. You actually said something that I think is very important, that networking and connecting with people if you treat it as "What can you do for that person?" versus "What can I get from that person?" Because people know when you're being fake. People know when you, you know, just have your hand out or you're looking for something, but we need to first of all not undervalue ourselves and recognize that we each bring something unique, but there's only one me. Nobody else brings exactly what I bring in this combination, and we have to recognize that that has value and that other people will see that value, and if we focus on "What can we offer others, even if it's a small kindness?" You know, those things, the universe will bring those things back to you.Amy: Absolutely. So I know that in addition to your day job you also volunteer with the CPCU Society's diversity and inclusion committee, and I know what a time commitment that is because I'm on the committee as well, but can you tell me how and why you got involved?Traci: I got involved because I was asked. [?]. I was new to Rhode Island, and I actually got--I'm on the board of the local chapter [?], and I was moving to Rhode Island. I said, "I don't know anyone. I want to, you know, meet folks, so joining this organization would be a great way to make friends and immerse myself even more deeply in my industry." So my request to volunteer resulted in me being asked to be on the board, and my relationship with David resulted in him asking if I was interested in being on the diversity committee. And it's a lot of work, but I think that it is important. I think the idea of diversity and inclusion has evolved so much over the years. When a lot of people hear diversity, you know, they think racial diversity, they think gender diversity, but there are so many other types of diversity, and it really I think is about making sure that there are opportunities for everyone, but I think it's also toward being a catalyst for the mindset that needs to happen so that opportunities are there for everyone automatically. We don't have to say, you know, "Oh, we have to go out and make sure that we have a person of color," there's a person of color because we just organically created a culture and a society with people of color in our community, so of course they're gonna have a role in our company, in our organization.Amy: Absolutely. And I tell people, "If you look around and you don't see someone's group represented, it's because you've got work to do to make people feel welcome and make people feel comfortable there." The responsibility is not on others to seek you out, right? And so, you know, I'm thrilled to be a part of the diversity and inclusion committee because I see that what's coming for us in terms of our talent, right, we have so many people on the verge of retirement in the insurance industry, and we just don't have the groundswell of interest among people, you know, that we need to replace all of that knowledge and all of that talent, and so I think, you know, we're gonna have to get beyond the "certain people from certain schools" and, you know, really reach out broadly and show people what we've got and why we're such a good place to have a career.Traci: Right. I think it's about building the excitement about the industry. You know, insurance isn't sexy to most people, and I think that, you know, the work that we do, particularly with the CPCU Society and the diversity and inclusion committee, is to educate the public about the excitement. Like, it's kind of our job to get them excited about insurance and to show them what next level opportunities there are. It's not just sitting behind a desk in a blue suit and white shirt and red tie. [both laugh]Amy: Absolutely true. So I wanted to ask you too about role models. Do you have any professional role models, and if so, what about them inspires you? Traci: So there's a woman--the woman that I mentioned that used to work with me, and I consider her a role model. So a few things about her that resonated with me... first of all, she's very tall like I am. [laughs] And that's something that it took a lot of years for me to overcome, because there's a tendency when you're quite tall to not want to intimidate people, so you tend to kind of--you slump a little, you try to make yourself small. So it takes a courage to just be, to stand up and just be who you are and recognize that you're putting that in your mind about, you know, your stature intimidates people, but she had such a grace about her and just a way of connecting with people. I don't know. She just had influence. She had such presence and influence, and that is something that I admire greatly and something that I work toward emulating.Amy: That's wonderful. Thank you for sharing that. So I hear men a lot of times will talk about "tall privilege," right? So if you're a tall man, and the statistics bear this out, tall men make more money than short men. They get promoted to higher positions. Like, we revere tall men in our society. Tall women have a different set of characteristics ascribed to them, and I am--I am not blessed with height. I'm only 5'3", but I can--you know, I can imagine how that might play out and how that might affect the way you show up. And, you know, if you're trying to make yourself smaller physically, you're probably also trying to minimize your presence in a room and minimize your contribution and not call attention to yourself and not let the best of you thrive in an environment. Traci: Actually it's interesting, 'cause I had a conversation with someone probably about six weeks ago about the idea that as a very tall not petite woman of color, if I am annoyed at work or if I feel very passionately about something, I feel that I don't have the luxury of being as vocal as someone who is not of my stature and my pigmentation, because it's perceived differently. Amy: If you're vocal about a frustration, I would imagine that the word that comes back to you is "angry" or "aggressive." If I get upset about something, if I'm frustrated and I express my frustration, I'm [BLEEP], right? I'm not angry 'cause I'm white and I'm not aggressive 'cause I'm short, but I'm [BLEEP] or I'm overreacting or I'm sensitive, right? And so I think that we all kind of operate in these constraints of words that are going to be used to describe us to kind of keep us in check, 'cause I don't like it when people say that I'm being sensitive. It's like, "No, I'm not being sensitive. You're being a jerk." But--[both laugh] that's not on me. So I can understand how that would be a struggle. So what advice do you have for young people of color in navigating those kinds of interactions? Because you want people to be, I'm guessing--I mean, we want people to show up authentically, right, but we don't want to lay a trap for people who the moment they speak up and advocate for themselves they get labeled in a way that's damaging to their careers.Traci: I can tell you what's worked for me. I think--to your point, it is important that you be who you are. So I'm 5'10". I'm gonna wear my four-inch heels because that's what I want to wear. If I think that something is not right, I am going to speak up about it. What I try to do is--and I'm just gonna say it, because I don't want to suggest that anyone be manipulative, but in a business setting, okay, what I do is I say to myself, "What is it that I want to get out of this exchange?" And, you know, know who my audience is and know what I need to say and how I need to say it to get what I need out of this interaction. You know, and I'm not talking about things where, like, I don't know, I'm being discriminated against or harassed or something like that, 'cause that's a whole different--and that's, thank God, never happened to me to my knowledge, but that's a whole other kind of conversation, but just an every day--you know, your boss has said something that you didn't like, or you've been assigned something that you don't think you should have to do or something to that affect. I think that it's important to always conduct yourself professionally. I think it's also important to separate your feelings from what the situation is, because just like the other person has their biases and this whole set of ideas and backgrounds that's influencing their behavior, so do we, and we have to recognize, like, the things that we're sensitive about. We have to recognize how we might have contributed to that situation, and we need to present our case in a constructive way. And it's interesting, because I have a 25-year-old daughter who's going through this at work right now, and what I've encouraged her to do is, you know, write down what you want to say. Ask your boss for a meeting, and even if you need to have that piece of paper in front of you, make your point. You know, if you feel a certain way, rather than saying, "You, you, you, you, you make me feel, you did, you, you, you," I would turn that around and say, "When you say or do, I perceive it as," because what you're then doing is you're taking ownership of your feelings and you're very clearly drawing that path from "This is what happened, this is how I felt, and this is how I responded to it. What are we gonna do now to fix it?"Amy: Mm-hmm. And so really what you're describing is emotional intelligence, and, you know, in my experience I've found that I am the most emotionally intelligent when I am the least represented in the room, and I am probably the least emotionally intelligent when I am most represented in the room, and so I try--once I recognized that about myself, I try very hard to think about the dynamics of a meeting or the dynamics of a conversation and "Do I need to kind of practice some of those skills because I'm dominating and maybe running over someone who doesn't feel safe to speak up with me?" Right? And so I think that if we can all do our part, right, to recognize when maybe we've got a little bit more influence or a little bit more social power and kind of back off a little bit and make some space.Traci: Yeah, and there's actually power in being able to do that I think, right? I think that when your peers see you navigate let's say a contentious situation, you know, if everybody's on 15 on a scale of 1 to 10 and you're on maybe 7 and bring everybody down to where it can be resolved, then people are gonna look at you as a change agent, if you will. So I just think that that's powerful.Amy: Yeah, absolutely. And that's leadership, right? Leadership is getting everybody to a better place together. So no, I think that's great. In the time that we have left, I'd like to ask you to finish my sentence. First is "I feel included when ______."Traci: I feel included when I am able to express myself.Amy: Oh, I like that. And then the second part is "When I feel included, I ______."Traci: When I feel included, I'm able to include others.Amy: I love that. I love having people answer this, because everybody answers differently, and it's always powerful. So Traci feels included when she's allowed to express herself, and when she feels included, she is able to include others, and I don't know that there's anything more powerful than that, to be able to widen that circle and bring others in. So that's fantastic. Traci, thank you so much for your time today.Traci: Oh, it was my pleasure. I appreciate you so much.Amy: Oh, thank you very much.

On the sixty-sixth installment of Tristan's Tips, our amazing host Tristan Layfield explains why your LinkedIn profiles alone won't get recruiters or hiring managers in your inbox. He runs through a couple pieces of advice to help your LinkedIn gain some traction and really stresses the importance of being actively engaged on the platform - remember, LinkedIn is all about developing organic relationships, but you can't do that if you aren't interacting with other people's content. Looking for a coherent strategy on how to unlock the power of LinkedIn? Utilize the link in the show notes to book a suitability call with Tristan!Interested in applying for a suitability call? Find out more: https://bit.ly/35WCQSVConnect with Tristan on LinkedIn, IG, FB, and Twitter. Links in order:http://bit.ly/2G7d6HKhttp://bit.ly/2XDcp3zhttp://bit.ly/2JEbg1Rhttp://bit.ly/2JCmKTzFind out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking below.https://bit.ly/2Ug4l5KHelp food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.https://bit.ly/2WD73UkCheck out our website.https://bit.ly/living-corporateTRANSCRIPTTristan: What's going on, Living Corporate?! It's Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting, and I'm back to bring you another career tip. This week I want to talk to you about why your LinkedIn profile alone won’t get recruiters or hiring managers in your inbox.You’ve tried to utilize LinkedIn to land your next role, but it hasn’t been working for you and you don’t know why. You heard that LinkedIn was the place to be for job seekers. You've heard the stories of people landing jobs through the platform. So you updated your profile pic, copied and pasted your summary and job descriptions from your resume, added your education, and BOOM you have an "All-Star" profile which LinkedIn states can get you up to 27x more views. You then take some time to connect with quite a few people and signed off.A couple of days pass, then those days turn into weeks. You finally decide to sign back in, but you've got nothing but maybe a few connection requests from people you may or may not know. You start thinking: What is the hype all about? Why am I not getting any jobs?Well, the problem is you’re not using LinkedIn correctly. You aren't liking, commenting, sharing, and posting on the platform — yet you want to be seen. See the disconnect?LinkedIn’s algorithm prioritizes engagement, not profile completion. That 27x more views only applies to people who actively post on LinkedIn. Think about it, when you get on the platform and you start to scroll, you typically will see posts from the same people. Why is that? That’s because those people know that LinkedIn rewards value-based engagement. And what do I mean by that? I meant insightful posts, not just dropping an article without commenting. I mean taking the time to comment on others’ posts to add value and spark conversation, not just commenting great article. I mean sharing other’s people’s posts and adding insight. I mean writing articles to share your work, lessons, and takeaways that position you as a thought leader.Most people will tell me, well I don’t know what to post or I’m scared because my boss or potential employers are on the platform. But let me tell you something, you not putting yourself out there is the exact reason that potential employers can’t find you on the platform.Learn how to take what you do in your day-to-day work and incorporate it on the platform. This does one of two things. First, it keeps the process of identifying content from becoming too burdensome. Second, it also keeps your messaging on brand or on topic.The next thing you want to do is to consider how often and in what ways you are engaging with other people’s content. Remember, LinkedIn is all about developing organic relationships but you can’t do that if you aren’t interacting with other people’s content.If any of what I described resonated with you and you are looking for a coherent strategy on how to unlock the power of LinkedIn, I invite you to utilize the link in the show notes to book a suitability call with me for my new career LEVEL UP coaching program.This tip was brought to you by Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting. Check us out on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @LayfieldResume or connect with me, Tristan Layfield, on LinkedIn.

Zach has the honor of sitting down to chat with God-is Rivera, Twitter's first ever global director of culture and community, about recognizing power in digital communities. She talks about how her passion for journalism and storytelling led her to her role at Twitter and shares the ways she sees people creating a sense of community on the platform today. She also comments on the trends she sees happening in digital community building over the next year or so. Check the links in the show notes to connect with God-is!Connect with God-is on Twitter. She's also on LinkedIn and Instagram.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and okay, so look. We know Ms. Rona is out here. Not to minimize or, you know, de-emphasize the stark reality and grievous nature of this global pandemic, but we want to make sure that we're keeping our spirits and attitudes high, and so we know that it's wild out here. We know that folks whole lives are changing. We're adjusting to different types of normal, re-identifying what normal means, and, you know, you can rest assured that in the midst of all of this stuff going on that Living Corporate is gonna be here, you know what I mean? So, you know, it's interesting. I've had people, you know, send me messages and be like, you know, "This diversity and inclusion stuff, like, you shouldn't expect that your podcast, this platform, y'all's blog, the learning platform that y'all are trying to build and whatever, for that to really take precedent when we're in the middle of a pandemic," and what I've constantly had to remind people is that, look, folks on the margins will always be on the margins. Folks were on the margin before this pandemic, and they're on the margins now, and so, like, Living Corporate and the work that we're doing and the work that all equity, community, culture, belonging professionals are doing is all the more important now. And so it's with that that I'm really excited about the guest that we have today, you know? I'm not even going to read this long ol' bio. I'ma just get into it. We have God-is Rivera. God-is, welcome to the show.God-is: Hey, guys. What's up? Thanks for having me.Zach: What's up? How are you and your loved ones doing during this time?God-is: You know, we are so blessed. I am in New York, in New York City, and my immediate family, my husband, my daughter, and my mom and aunt, who kind of--we all live in Westchester County--we're okay. Everyone's been healthy. I've got grandparents between Atlanta and South Carolina and, you know, thank God they have been adhering to staying at home. I had to do a little nudging in the beginning, but, you know, them old folks is trying to get to the buffet. [laughs]Zach: We gotta have a conversation about that, right? [laughs] And it's interesting because I've talked to other black folks, right, who have these parents who have lived through all types of stuff, so they're not really concerned about some invisible illness, right? You know what I mean? They'll just take some castor oil and they'll be fine, you know?God-is: Some tussin. [both laugh] For sure.Zach: They've seen much worse. But you're right though, it's a blessing to have family members who will listen. I know my dad--you know, my dad, he and I are very similar, so I told him--and my dad is 55--so I was like, "Hey, Dad. You know, y'all staying inside, right?" He's "Oh, son. No, no, no. You ain't gotta worry about me. I'm right at the house." I said, "Okay, good." [laughs]God-is: [laughs] That's so crazy. My mom's the same exact age as your dad, and, like, she was good. She was like, "Oh, I've been in the house." Like, my mom works remote anyway, you know, normally, and so it was the grandparents I was kind of like, "Come on, now, y'all," but they got it early and they're okay.Zach: Yeah, it's definitely the grandparents. Okay, so now look, I have a lot of questions for you, but first I gotta get into your name. Can we talk about God-is?God-is: [laughs] Yes, I can. You know, it's really kind of a simple story. I know it's a different name, but the story is kind of simple. So my mom, she was a teenage mom, you know, just trying to figure it out, from the Bronx, New York. Shout-out BX. Zach: What's up? Yerp.God-is: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yerp. [both laugh] And, you know, she was trying to figure it out at the time, and she had this dream when she was about 7 months pregnant she told me, and it was just her great-grandmother who was speaking to her and kind of was like, "You have to name this child God-is," and so--actually in the dream I think she said it was "God-is-love," and she was like, "I don't know. This is so different." You know, my mom's name is Melissa, so. And she just felt like it was such a strong feeling that she just--she was like, "I have to follow this," so she went ahead and did it, and it's so interesting that, you know, having this name for over 30 years, I could never imagine my name being anything else. I never was ridiculed for it. You know, I've had a lot of conversations and great conversation starters, but it is--I've always felt so comfortable in it, and I think for me it really reminds me every day to just continue to step into my power and the amazing kind of gift that I was given just through my namesake. So it's not kind of a crazy story, but, you know, an interesting one I guess.Zach: Nah, nah. It's not crazy at all, but it is very interesting 'cause I saw it and, you know, it's also really--so I'm from the South, right, so, like, my family is, like, very churched. So I was talking to my mom about--[both laugh]--I was talking to my mom about this interview that I was going to be doing. I said, "Look, I finally got this, like, global leader. She has this incredible, like, huge profile, and I'm just really excited to interview her," and she was like, "What's her name?" I said, "Her name is God-is." She said, "God--Goddess?" I said, "No, no, not Goddess. No, God-is," and she said, "God-is?" And so I'm like, "Momma, just hold on." And so it's funny, 'cause I was like, "I gotta make sure I ask. For the culture. I need to know." Okay, so let's talk about your journey getting to Twitter. Like, how did your passion for journalism and storytelling lead you here?God-is: Hm. Okay. So that's a great question. It's really interesting to me when I think about, you know, being at Twitter now. My whole career was shaped by social media, and, you know, when I was trying to figure out, you know, Young God-is back in, you know, high school or, you know, trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, this didn't exist, you know? I think MySpace, it kind of sort of started when I got to school, and it was just one of those things that I knew that I wanted to be a journalist. I love writing, I love editorial writing, but what I wanted to do more than just, you know, kind of general journalism is I knew I wanted to work in black media. I wanted to work as a writer or an editor. I wanted to make sure that I was elevating stories and spreading awareness for the people that I felt, you know, had been silenced, which was my community, the black community, and then others. So I think just through that kind of passion I went into journalism, and I also am part of those millennials who's like, "Shout-out to the second economic recession we're coming up on!" [laughs] Because it was like, "Yo, I thought we had one in a lifetime, but oh, we doing two? Oh, okay." So, you know, getting out of school for me was right around that time, and it was just like, "Yo, I'm just trying to make my mom proud and not be unemployed," and I kind of found my way into marketing. Even though I wanted to do journalism and I continued to moonlight and really try to make that happen, I started to really become into marketing, and it was just like, "Let me just get a job." But in doing that I think, you know, I realized that marketing also tells those stories, and there's a chance to represent people and really elevate people who aren't always seen, and that's kind of what led me on that journey. And I will also say, you know, mid-2000s, 2006, 2007, when I started my career, it was always like--when it comes to social media it was like, "Who's the 23-year-old in the office?" Like, "I don't know about that Facebook," you know what I mean? "I don't know about that Twitter. I don't know about that, you know? Just tell her to do it," and that kind of attitude that of course over time become much more--brands and companies began to take it much more seriously, but that was kind of how I got my start, you know? I was a writer who could craft posts or ideas for these platforms, and I also knew how to actually post them, not like many other people in the office who were a little older than me. So that was kind of how I started my journey. So it was a little bit of serendipity, but also still me chasing this kind of passion to tell the story and represent for people who were not always able to do that.Zach: You know, and I really want to understand, like, you know, your experience in social strategy, because you're right. Like, there was a time when it was like, you know, we'd look at Facebook or we'd look at Twitter and we'd--like, we'd scoff at that. Like, I remember I had an internship where I created essentially, like, a social media--like, an ambassador program for this recruitment company, and everyone had a social media profile, and you were supposed to essentially, like, build your brand on social media, which would then drive, you know, business to the startup or whatever, right? But you're essentially building presence on Twitter. And this was, like, in 2010--God-is: Hm, those early days. [laughs]Zach: Yeah, so people were like, "What is this?" They were like, "Oh, this is cute, but this doesn't mean anything," and so I'm curious as to, like, what did it look like to take your experience in the social strategy work and, like, help it inform what you do for Twitter today? Like, can we talk a little bit about that?God-is: Yes. You know, I'm so grateful to the years that I spent really learning content strategy, learning social strategy, and I think it goes back to kind of that point about knowing that I wanted to kind of help elevate stories, and so what happened was that I really started to understand that there was a lot of power--you know how you think about in the court system it's like the prosecutor has all the power, right? In advertising creators have a lot of that power, but the story is sold and the plan comes from strategy, and I really took a liking to that. I realized that, you know, for me, what thrills me about strategy was that I have a chance to really kind of help build that story. I have a chance to figure out "Who is the people that we want to see that story? Where does it show up? How does it show up, and who is in that?" So I think for me, like, I really started to understand that there was a power in that, and then at the same time other brands realized that there is a return in this medium that was kind of a throwaway, right? There is something coming from when we post and then people around the world are talking about this instantly. And I think it was kind of two things happening at once. You had also more access to, you know, phones and technology that could help people kind of see things in an instant and, you know, thinking about campaigns that you were gonna through display or print long ago and then posting something in 90 seconds, you have, you know, celebrities in the public answering you about your product. You know, that's something that's just invaluable. So I think that's kind of what really started to help me understand that even more, and so I really became a planner, and I got to do it for, you know, both large and small brands, but what I think really kind of intrigued me the most is that what I realized about strategy is that there's always a target, right? Who do you want to see this message? Who do we want to respond to this? And also who is in this message? How does it look? How does it show up? What experience is it detailing? And I think that that, as I worked more in advertising, that was very homogeneous, you know? It was kind of the same target, the same people, over and over again, and so even me working in those positions, my own experience was left out, so I started to be really, really interested in, you know, "How are we gonna stop making this mistake? How can we stop ignoring communities that are actually shifting the culture but we're not even including them in who we're speaking to, nor their experience in what we're putting out into the world?" So I knew that through strategic direction that I could try and maybe shed a light on that, and that's really kind of where I focused. So just in thinking through audiences that matter, audiences that have been left out, as a true strategist I need that full story. I can't actually do that job well only looking at one small piece of an audience or a compelling story, and so I use kind of just that literal sense, taking the emotion out, because I'm a black woman who wanted to see that experience and I wanted to see other people's experiences as well, but you can't deny that you need a holistic kind of view to do your job well if you're speaking to the world and you're saying that's what you're doing. So that kind of interest in better understanding communities and what matters to them and how they want to be seen is kind of how I started along this path of informing the work that I do today, which is really working to connect with marginalized communities and make sure that they're amplified.Zach: So, you know, that leads me really well into the next question. So, like, I want to talk a bit about position and power, right? You sit in a global role in one of the biggest brands on the planet. God-is: Ooh, you're making me sound cool. I like it.Zach: I mean, your name is God-is. So how do you manage the responsibility that you have as a leader? Because I would imagine you have internal pressures to, like--like you said, there are things that you want to see realized and there are things that you want to achieve. There's a legacy and part of a longer term roadway that you're riding on, but then there's also external pressures I would imagine because of the intersectionality of your own identity, right? Like, you think about who you represent and what people maybe project onto you. And it's like, what does it look like to manage both sets of pressures while being one of the few in these spaces?God-is: Wow. I really appreciate that question. It often doesn't come in that way [laughs] that acknowledges some of those internal and external pressures, but I think what I love the most about that question is that--I just appreciate you using the word power. I think power is extremely important. I think that, you know, as they continue on in their career that, you know, positions can sometimes be a dime a dozen. They can come along and come and go, but they don't always include power, and I think that power affords this kind of real chance to create something new, to affect change and really challenge systems that aren't working and to actually be truly heard while you do it. So I very much am appreciative, but also just very thoughtful about how I utilize the power that I'm grateful that I've been able to have at Twitter. I really feel like a leader that is heard who's able to challenge and create in a way that is something that's supported, which I know is not always the case specifically for some of us that are kind of, like you said, one of the onlys. I'm not at Twitter, but, you know, in this industry, absolutely. So I think that that's important, and I think about the word pressure too. I don't know that I--it can get overwhelming, but I don't know that I would call it pressure as much as I would call it maybe an expectation or a commitment. So I think sometimes I get overwhelmed because just I--there's so much I want to do and get done, you know, for the communities I serve, but the way that I kind of balance myself and stay that way is that I just have to know that every single day I am working towards what I promised, right? Every day, and that my mission, my overall mission, my integrity, it stays intact every step of the way and that I know I'm not letting up any time soon, and I try and live that externally and internally so that I can say, "Look, I am continuing on this road. I know that it's important to me. There has been nothing that has, you know, taken me off course," whether it be your own ego or just kind of getting lazy. I know that I must continue on this mission, and so that's kind of the responsibility that I feel being in these spaces, that I have to continue to do this work to make things better and that I have to hold the door open for other people to do this work with me as well.Zach: You know, and let's talk about the work, right? So you're Twitter's first ever global director of culture and community. Now, let me just tell you, when I heard the title I said, "Ayo." [laughs]God-is: [laughs] I was trying to do big things. I'm trying to do big things.Zach: I said, "Yo, wait a second!" I was like... I mean, I don't know. It just--that sounds like a big title with a big, big, big bag. I was like, "Man." I mean, I was praising Him for you. I was over here [blessings come in sfx]. I was like--[both laughing]God-is: I love it, I love it. I appreciate you. Thank you.Zach: No, no, let's talk about what this means and what your responsibility is and what your team's responsibility is.God-is: Yeah, you know, and I think--you know, I would have to say, like I said before, giving some credit to Twitter, well, the credit to Twitter, for noticing that this was something that was a gap for them and that they wanted to fill. I would like to just maybe talk a little bit about how I got this job at Twitter. It wasn't the traditional kind of application way, I guess I'll say, because I think that how I got the job also speaks to literally the work that I'm doing now. And so, just as we mentioned before, my work in social strategy, I had really started to try and find examples of how I could explain and display communities that were shifting culture, that were forming together across social platforms, and then how those kind of phenomenons could be completely missed, you know, at agencies or with huge brands and how these things were formulating and happening, but because there was almost this cultural blind spot, nobody even knew what was going on. And one of the communities that I was particularly fascinated by was Black Twitter. I think that to me it was just such an incredible just example of how a historically marginalized community kind of uses their own cultural and shared experience to come together through technology and then literally shift culture, shift the narrative in a way that's very democratized, which is kind of what Twitter offers with this kind of space. And so I had started just a small presentation about that in the ad world, and it kind of made its rounds. I had done it at a couple conferences, and I had also made sure that I formed a pretty decent relationship with Twitter comms. I didn't want to get no C&D. [laughs] Like, "Who this girl think she is out here [?] telling me how to--" You know, and I want to make sure that, you know, I didn't know if they had something. I didn't want to step on any toes. And we developed a very nice working relationship, and, you know, from there they had started thinking about their first kind of all hands on deck, all-employee conference, which is called OneTeam. The first one they did was in 2018. And they actually invited me to speak about Black Twitter and do my presentation at their conference, and I was like, "Wow, you want me to do it? Okay," and so when I went I said--you know, I kind of was like, "Well, normally I do this presentation for the ad world, and at the end of my presentation I say, "And these are the people you need to be hiring. These are the people you need to be partnering with. Do not miss groups like this,"" and this is just one example of so many groups, you know, that we need to be making sure that we better pay attention to, but at Twitter, you know, I said, "Well, I want to kind of challenge them a little differently," and my challenge at the end of that presentation was how was Twitter better connecting with the voices from these groups, you know? Do they have plans for a cultural department or something that focuses on these communities in this way? And lo and behold. [laughs] So after getting off stage I was just so, you know, again, just incredibly blessed to be approached by some of the leadership there--shout-out to Jack, Leslie Berland, Lara Cohen, Nola Weinstein, who really set things in motion for me to come to the company. They just felt like, "This clicks. You get it, you get us, and this is absolutely something that we need to focus on." So again, I think just that acknowledgement of the importance of understanding these communities, the fact that it birthed literally this work and this role and this practice now, my team at Twitter, is just something I'm proud of and I think the community should be proud of as well, because I'm not talking about myself in my presentation. I'm talking about these collective voices who have literally shifted history and brought joy and accountability in ways that are just incredible. So I think that's kind of part of the story I think is important to put in context. Not everyone knows that story. I think it's important. But, you know, thinking through my own challenge now--I didn't realize at the time I was challenging myself. [laughs] It was very meta if you think about it, but I came in to solve that problem and kind of figure out what that looks like, so my team specifically focuses on building kind of these real world relationships with the voices from these marginalized communities who are active and who love and are loud on Twitter. So I wanted a team, you know, who really could help to continue to recognize the incredible power of these voices. Like I talked about before, they drive conversation, and they really shape culture on Twitter. The other piece of that is that as we look at how they use the platform, how they use their service and what they speak about, we have consistent learnings and insights. So what my team does is really kind of help our partners across the business understand how these communities both embrace and experience our service, good, bad and ugly, and so by doing that what we really hope to do is build a bridge between the service of Twitter and the people that it serves, and that's something that I think was really important to me, that we started to become this sort of connective tissue, and the goal in that is to really help empower Twitter to build the best product, but the best product that reflects the richness of the people who use it. [laughs] And so, you know, we can start to evolve how we amplify the conversations that are most important to these groups. So just really making sure that these people's experience, their conversations, what's happening, how they use it, use Twitter, that it's on the map, that it's a part of how we think about building our product, that it's a part of how we think about our marketing. It's embedded in every piece and fabric across our organization. I hope that makes sense. [laughs]Zach: It does make sense. In fact, let me go ahead and just drop this real quick. [Flex bomb sfx] A quick Flex bomb. That's how I felt as you were sharing--God-is: [laughing, imitating air horns]Zach: Oh, yeah. No, we got that--no, we got that too. [air horns sfx] For sure.God-is: Ayyy.Zach: Ayyy. So--[both laugh] No, no, it makes a lot of sense, and I 100% agree with you that--first of all, like, I wish we could just take a step back, and what I love about the work that you're doing and what you're highlighting is the meta narrative of black influence, like, just in culture period, right? Like, before Twitter we was already, like, shaking the globe. Like, we've influenced art, fashion, language, dance. Everything.God-is: Yep. We been 'bout that life.Zach: About it, and so we just so happen to be on this--anything that we jump on, like, we make it better, you know what I mean? God-is: Right, right.Zach: And so when I think about, like, Black Twitter, and I think about, you know, you're absolutely right that there's something about this community that is able to hop on, like, a platform and then suddenly, like, change narratives or, like, shift attention, and Twitter is a phenomenal tool for that. I think it's--like, it's gonna go down... this is not an ad for Twitter. Like, it's just the truth. Like, and you think about--[both laugh] But, like, when you look back... like, so my daughter is 5 weeks old. God-is: Oh, congrats. Zach: Thank you very much, yeah. She is adorable, and, like, as I've just kind of come to the reality of her being here, like, I think about the things that she's gonna learn in school, and I think about, like, "She's probably going to--" Like, when they study, like, technology that influenced generations or just different seasons of life or activism or whatever the case is, like, they're going to look at--Twitter is gonna be one of the technologies that they talk about, because it is one of the first times that we've seen, like, large-scale democratization of access and data and information and conversation and just general communication, like, across--and, like, for free. Like, relatively for free, right? You have to have Wi-Fi and stuff, but there's no direct cost to get on Twitter. Like, you just jump on it. And so I want to talk a little bit about how you see people today create a sense of community on Twitter. Like, what does that look like from your perspective?God-is: Yeah, and that's what's just been so fascinating. I share that kind of sentiment with you, and sometimes it's almost just incredible to think about, when we're kind of heads down in the office working we're like, "Oh, my God." Like, you know, "This is gonna be in the history books." Like, the work that we're doing right now, just because of where we are and what we're focused on, will be in history. I used to always say--I have an 8-year-old daughter. A little older than 5 weeks. But I always think about, "I just want to be in her history book for doing something that mattered," you know? And I think that, you know, the work that we can do here, it can be that important and impactful, and it keeps me grounded and it keeps me humble and it keeps me fighting even on days that are frustrating. And so I think also the thing that I love to see is how people create community on Twitter. I love that you said that one of our tenets is always to keep the platform free so that there can be that access for people to have these kinds of conversations and this public discourse, and so we kind of see people create community on our platform--there are kind of a couple different lenses. So, you know, there's obviously some interest-based communities where, you know, NBA Twitter is definitely out here. I mean, it's a lot going on every Sunday now with this Jordan doc, and you kind of see that happen, but that's a hugely active community, and that's around a shared passion. An interest, right?Zach: The Homecoming Twitter. Remember?God-is: Yes! Yes. Beychella Twitter. [laughs] Yeah, so we see that. We even see things that people may not even realize. Like, Plant Twitter is huge. Like, people share all types of, you know, just tips and tricks and beautiful photos of plants and flowers and so forth in their homes and gardens, and then we see--you know, there's obviously some professions that come. Academic Twitter is huge. I've learned a lot just about Education Twitter, Finance, and then there's also locations of course, and then of course we get into kind of those affinities and the allyship and the movements, and those are the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, and we see a huge coalescence around those kind of moments. And then of course, you know, kind of where we get into my work is around those identity-based communities, and that's when we think about Black Twitter, Native Twitter, you know, Differently-abled Twitter, you know, Latinx--Zach: So educational.God-is: Yeah, you know? And Latinx, LGBTQ+ Twitter, you know, there's tons of intersections and sub-communities within there, and I think that is what's so fascinating. You know, just thinking about even just those groups that I just named, they don't have equal footing, you know? Even of each other, in society, to be able to tell their stories in their voices, but on Twitter, you know, that is democratized. It was somewhat of an equal playing field when it comes to people being able to share what matters to them or their experiences. So that's kind of exactly where my team focuses. I focus the most on those--I am here to serve specifically those identity-based communities, and, you know, again, this is not something that--no one ticks a box obviously and says what they are or what community they ascribe to when they sign up for Twitter, but through inferences and understanding that there is an allyship or an affinity there or an identity through conversation is what's really important to us, and so that's why I dig into how these communities have kind of leveraged Twitter in unique ways, and what we're seeing is kind of people who have shared experiences or shared kind of identities, we're seeing them kind of just corral around subjects in different ways, and I think it's great that we're able to see even people shape when they're challenging discourse, you know? Mainstream media may report on something--I don't know, something as simple as, like, gentrification, right, where it's an article and it's about, "Oh, look at the new grocery store that's in Brooklyn, and it's great, right?" It is nice that there is a new grocery store in Brooklyn, but then we're able to also see that that displaces people who lived there for 30 years. You know, is it construction in a playground area or something? And so I think it allows people to have this kind of 360 degree conversation that they've been craving but was only kind of relegated to the way that these groups could physically meet up in spaces, in physical spaces, and now we're seeing that kind of much more decentralized. Zach: God-is, it's almost as if you talk to people all the time, 'cause you're helping me--[both laughing] you're helping me segue really well into my next question, because, and I talked about it at the top, I'm talking about it again. So the rona, or as some folks say "that rona," is actively outside, and finding meaningful connection is more important now than ever. What are trends you see happening in digital community building over the next year or so?God-is: Wow. You know, I mean, this is--I'm so tired of people saying "unprecedented." Like, Lord, we need another word, right? Like, what is another word we could use? But I think, you know, it's been so interesting. Again, as a strategist, the study of human behavior--and I often think about the work that I do is more of almost a digital anthropology, because you get to watch how behavior shifts around different ideas, different events, and of course different just huge, I guess, news stories or health crises that are affecting us like the rona. So I think one of the things that I've really seen is that I think that we're gonna continue to see people really trying to create space and find opportunity for these really important inter-community discussions around mental wellbeing and wholeness. I've seen a lot of discussions between several communities about the idea that this is the first time many people have had in most working lives to slow down, and so they're able to kind of foster these deeper connections through technology, you know? We're looking at a lot of screens now, but we're trying to make the most of it and really focus on that wellness, and so now that we have that chance to kind of slow down, it's helping more of us stay balanced, more empathetic, more connected. I hope that we see kind of how important taking a moment is and that that continues. The other thing I think--oh, boy. Rona done--it done started a lot of stuff, right? [both laugh] Zach: It has, or exposed a lot of things too.God-is: Yeah. Oh, yeah, exposed. I think, in terms of technology too, I think that this will continue. I mean, we've already seen just the type of connective creativity that's come out of people just being in the house, right? People just being relegated to having to shelter in place, and so I think that we'll see more of this kind of agile, nimble creativity, and then also amplifying and uplifting those people who are leaning into that. So I think we were kind of in this space before where we were sort of fortunate. We never had to really think about being immediately without certain spoils of society, and now we kind of all know that that can shift drastically in a nanosecond and that it also can be out of our control too. So I think that, you know, industries, companies, brands, governments and individuals will really start to think about how they can better stay agile and quickly adapt for moments like this since it's just in our psyche now and it's not leaving. So I think thinking through what are the tools--you know, even myself, I'm sitting here right now, I've got my microphone, I've got my speakers. I ordered a new desk, you know what I mean? Like, [?]--and I'm fortunate to even be able to do that, but I think people are really thinking through however best in their capability, how can they be sure that they're able to stay connected and be creative and pursue during times that are just uncertain.Zach: You know, as we think about--to your point around, like, privilege, and I'm in the same position as well. Like, my job allows me to work remotely. I'm on paternity leave. When I come back, like, there's gonna be, like, a phased return, and then--you know, like, I'm in a position where I'm being handled relatively gingerly because of just the benefits that my job provides, like, absent of this pandemic but that are particularly beneficial and helpful to me right now. I think about though the folks who don't have the same amount of access I do, right, who look like us, and I'm curious about, you know, can we think about technology and marginalized communities having a more mutually beneficial relationship, and in what ways do you think that we can help drive more access and accessibility for these communities so that they can actually be on platforms where they can be heard?God-is: Right. I mean, that's--I think about it too, you know? I saw an article recently about some people having literally, like, class guilt, you know, almost, over this shelter-in-place, because it just affects so many of us differently. I myself as well can work remotely where so many people can't, so many of the front line workers, essential workers, who have to go out and make sure that we can continue to live, even at the risk of their own health and the health of their families. I do think, you know, again, just going back to that love of strategy, like, the first thing I always do and I always say should be done is listening. I think that so many people jump into trying to figure out what to do before they actually listen to what people need, and that's why I'm really proud of kind of the structure and program that we've built at Twitter, which is the Twitter Voices program, which my team created and runs, and that's kind of just literally a program that allows to try and identify some of these powerful voices coming out of these communities and then set up a sustained kind of relationship with them. How do we check in on them? How do we even have, like, a quick meeting or a lunch? Now a virtual lunch. But creating that kind of ongoing dialogue between the people who need to be heard so that we're aware of what can be done, and I think that's really important to do, because I think that it's important for us to listen to people who need to be heard, and then they can not only get the help that they [?] but also hold us accountable as well. But I think that what's important is that we continue to give these people kind of a microphone and a podium, you know? We need to make sure that they're not being ignored, especially during a time like now. You know, I think back, maybe the early '90s--let's just say this pandemic was 1992 or something. You know, the people who were most affected, the people who are not getting those loans or the PPE, the people who are being forced to go back to work or grapple with losing unemployment even if they feel it's unsafe, we would have no mechanism to really hear them writ large, you know? We would have no mechanism to hear them, you know, their conversations and how they're affected across the country, across the world, and so I think now it's important for technology to make sure that we continue to provide that space, provide that microphone, provide that podium so that these people can be heard, and for people like myself who work in these groups, we need to continue to focus on continuing this momentum of amplifying those conversations, helping to spread awareness on why it's important to listen to these groups, and that will enable us to build better products, you know, create better systems, and honestly overall a better society that should be inclusive to all, and it also allows us to tear down what's not working, and I think that maybe if there is any small silver lining to what's happening is we're seeing so many systems just almost buckle because they were not built to truly serve everyone, and that's something I think that, while that's happening, we need to be sure that we're in partnership, we're listening to and we're rallying behind the people that need us the most.Zach: God-is, this has been an incredible conversation. God-is: Aw, thanks. This is great.Zach: No, this is super dope, and before we let you go, I just want to give you space. Where can people find you? Where can people connect with you at? And then any parting words or shout-outs?God-is: Oh, wow. So thank you so much for having me. This was awesome. This was a nice just break from the rona, [laughs] to get to wrap with you, so thank you again. Everybody can find me on Twitter of course @GodisRivera, G-O-D-I-S-R-I-V-E-R-A. I am terrible at email, so I won't even do that to y'all. [laughs] But if you hit on me Twitter I promise I'll hit you back. Also don't be afraid to slide in the DMs. And then lastly just--Zach: She does respond too. Like, not to cut you off.God-is: I do! See? [laughs]Zach: So y'all, like, months ago I tried to get God-is on the pod, and I think she was actually pretty new to the role. I didn't care, 'cause I was just like, "Yo, this is crazy!" So I slid in the DMs, and then she hit me back, and then, like, we weren't able to make it work, and I was like, "Dang, okay," and I felt like she curved me, and so I said, "Dang, okay," so then I DM'd you and I said, "Hey, you know, I'm sad that we weren't able to make it work, but hopefully we can stay in touch," and she hit me back, y'all. She said, "Yep. 'Sho will," and I said, "Oh, my gosh. Okay," and so then--and now here we are. So look, y'all. 'Cause some of y'all are [churched?] or spiritual. This is not a message to y'all to keep on. [?] So this is not me encouraging you to pester people. This is just me saying that God-is responds to DMs. All right, my bad. Please continue.God-is: No, I appreciate that. Thank you, because I know you probably cannot get me really any other way. Twitter is just where I'm at. This is even before I worked there, so it's very true. And also I think, you know, just one more shout-out to my team at Twitter. I wouldn't be able to delve into this work this way if it wasn't for the support and the consistent support that I get there, from leadership all the way down to my team. Shout-out to Culture & Community. Love you guys. Nola, an incredible leader, Leslie Berland, Jack Dorsey. You know, it's an incredible culture that allows us to be able to dig in and really do what we can to try and make a difference in the world, even if it means we make mistakes along the way. It's a really great, supportive environment, and I'm grateful for it. And just also a shout-out to the home team at home. My husband Jay, my daughter Jordan, my mom, my aunt. That's my home team that allows me to do this work the way that I do and try and serve as many people as I can. And I hope everybody out there stays safe. Thank you to all the front-line workers, the health care workers. Thank you guys so much for doing what you can for us. I hope to hold you guys down as much as you are holding us down.Zach: Wow. [round of applause sfx] Y'all, this has been Living Corporate. Look, you know what we do, right? 200+ episodes in. We're having conversations with executives, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, professors, activists, public servants, elected officials, all about what? Real talk in a corporate world. We center and amplify marginalized voices, underrepresented, underestimated, unaccounted voices in the workplace, and we do this for you every single week. Make sure you check us out. Just Google us, okay? We're all over Barack Obama's internet, right? You just Google Living Corporate, okay? So it's Living Corporate. Not Corporate Living. Corporate Living is the inverse of what I said. So you want to do Living Corporate, and, you know, if you're, like, old school and you gotta type it in the bar, you can do www.living-corporate--please say the dash--dot com. You can do livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.tv, livingcorporate.net, livingcorporate.us. We have all the livingcorporates, God-is, we just don't have livingcorporate.com. Australia owns livingcorporate.com. It's some--God-is: Dang it. [laughs]Zach: I know, right? But one day, one day the brand will be brolic enough that we will actually go and get livingcorporate.com. I'm just going to speak that. God-is: Yes, manifest it.Zach: I will manifest it, but today the vibrations and chakras are just not there. So look, y'all. Make sure you check us out. Shout-out to God-is. Shout-out to Twitter. Shout-out to your team. And then let's make sure that y'all check out all the links in the show notes. Y'all check out God-is. Please do not bombard her with DMs, okay? I can't imagine what her DMs look like, but she has offered. She has let you know that that's the way to reach her, but I'm just asking as a courtesy. Just think about what it is that you have to say, maybe share it with--you know, maybe write it down, you know, then send it, you know? Just help her help you help us, you know what I mean? 'Cause I can't imagine the nonsense you get in there. Anyway, all right, y'all. 'Til next time. This has been Zach. Peace.

On the twenty-sixth installment of The Link Up with Latesha, our incredible host Latesha Byrd, founder of Byrd Career Consulting, offers some helpful advice on how to reduce your anxiety when it comes to interviewing. She talks about the importance of practicing and preparing for an interview beforehand and breaks down the differences between both processes. Check out the show notes to read her piece on Money about how to crush your next virtual job interview!Interested in Latesha's Career Chasers Members Club? Click here for all the information. Membership will be reopening very soon, so join the waiting list!Check out Latesha's Money article on how to ace your next virtual interview.Stop by LateshaByrd.com! Click here to check out Latesha's shop, and don't forget the 60% discount code GETTHECOINS.Find out more about Latesha on the BCC website or connect with her through LinkedIn, IG, Twitter, and FB.Check out Latesha's YouTube channel.Connect with Byrd Career Consulting via LinkedIn, IG, Twitter, and FB.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTLatesha: Hey, hey. Welcome to another episode of The Link Up with Latesha. It is Saturday. I hope that it is sunny where you are and you are enjoying this warm weather. Please get out and enjoy the sun. Get you some Vitamin D. We spend 99.9% of our times up in the house, so I am planning to get out this weekend and buy some new plants, and you know what? I'm going to figure out a way to actually make grocery shopping exciting, okay? I don't know what that's going to be yet, so if you have any ideas let me know, let me know. I want to have a moment of honesty, transparency, with you all. Yesterday I had a deep, ugly cry. Have y'all ever had just a really ugly cry that was necessary? I was feeling overwhelmed, and I made a to-do list--and I do that a lot. If I ever feel overwhelmed with everything in my head, 'cause sometimes a bunch of thoughts get all jumbled and conflicting in my brain and so I have to write it out in my journal or on my whiteboard, and I was overwhelmed because I had so much to do, and I said, "You know what? Make a list, girl. That's what you always do." So I made a list, and I was reading through my list, and then Closer came on my Pandora station, you know, the "Closer to my dreams," that song, and y'all, I just started crying. [laughs] I just started crying because I was looking at the things that I had to do, and it was so impactful and rewarding. The work that I do every day as a coach, as a career coach, as a business coach, you know, as someone that really speaks and focuses on career empowerment, the work that I do is so necessary and vital to so many people, and I just had to take a second to say, "You know what? I am so thankful that these are my worries," you know? Reaching out to a coaching client, writing an article that's due, you know? Pitching myself for, you know, a committee to give back to the community. Recording this podcast episode. Like, these were the types of things that I was worried about just getting done, and I just had a moment of relief, and I feel that I--it's surreal to me, it is. I never thought that, you know, at this young age I would be where I am in life when growing up our worries was about money, you know, and paying the bills, and making, you know--I don't know how much my mother made as a bus driver, but making that money stretch month to month, and I carried a lot of that emotional weight with me into my adulthood, and so I just had a realization yesterday that "You know what? You don't have that worry anymore, and what you're doing is important, and you need to keep going." I remember the little girl that thought "Man, adulthood sucks," you know? [laughs] And I love my mother. I'm thankful for how hard she worked to raise me, but I am just overwhelmed with gratitude, that I get to wake up and do the work that I love every single day. It is not something that I take for granted, ever, and, you know, I am inspired by all of you listening to this podcast and to the Living Corporate team for allowing me to be a voice here. So if you have not, during this quarantine, it's a great time to get still and to think about the things that you are proud of, you know? We all I'm sure have things that we still want to achieve and milestones that we want to hit, but just know that your journey is your journey, and if things don't make sense right now, I promise that you they will. The struggles, the failures, the heartaches, the nos, the decline emails with these job applications, just know that it is a part of your journey, your testimony, your story, and you're going to change lives one day--if you have not already. You may already be changing lives and don't even realize it. So thank you for letting me share that. Again, just this quarantine has allowed me to be more introspective and to really think about what is important to me, and this work that I do is extremely important and necessary. So with that being said--whoo, okay, y'all. I'm trying not to cry. [laughs] But what we're talking about today is interviewing, but not just interviewing. Interviewing with a twist. For my job seekers out there, for my job hunters out there, whatever you may call yourself. I'm noticing that a lot of us get anxiety, especially when it comes to interviewing. Interviewing... I'll be honest. It is painful, right? [laughs] I have had some terrible interviews in my day, no lie, but now I get to coach people all the time on how to have great and wonderful interviews. I want to be honest with you all though. I have seen some of the most talented, the most experienced people not get jobs, not because, you know, they don't meet the qualifications, but because their anxiety takes over and they kill the interview, and I don't mean kill in a good way, okay? So I want to give you all some advice on how to reduce your anxiety when it comes to interviewing. This is important because I know that this is something we all have struggled with before. Interviewing does get easier over time though. I guarantee you that. I want to promise you that. It will get easier over time. It's one of those things that takes preparation, a whole lot of preparation, and practice. I read an article online the other day that said we should be spending four hours preparing for an interview. I know that seems like a lot, y'all, but you gotta think of it like this is your one shot and that's it. There's a show that I binge, and I really enjoy it actually, and it was a show on Netflix with T.I. and Cardi B and Chance. You know, that show where D. Smoke--D. Smoke is a really dope rapper, and he won this competition. It was a rap competition. It's kind of like an American Idol, you know, but specifically for rappers, and so it was really funny watching the first couple of episodes. So if you've watched, like, American Idol, right, it's very similar to that. So I was definitely the type of person to watch American Idol, but I would just watch, like, the first couple of episodes each season just to see the terrible auditions, like, the people that thought they could really sing and they would open their voice and it would--it just sounded awful. Y'all know what I'm talking about. [laughs] This show was dope though 'cause there were some really talented artists, but when it came to them auditioning, they would get into that audition and they would fumble. I'm talking about forgetting lyrics, being off-beat, you know? Some people just were bad, okay? [laughs] Some people were just bad, but I do think that a lot of them were super talented, but they did not perform well because the nerves got to them. So this is what happens when we interview. You can be the most talented. You can be the most ambitious, you know, but if your nerves take over, that could ruin the interview. I do want to give you all some hope here though, because you might be thinking, "Man, I ain't even applying right now because nobody's hiring. And she's talking about an interview." Listen, people reach out to me all of the time on Twitter, on Instagram, even my clients, telling me about interviews that they've landed. Companies are still hiring. I want you all to know that. Do not give up on your job search right now. Don't give up. Companies are still hiring. Companies are still interviewing, and people are out here getting job offers. So if you are in the midst of your job hunt, please continue to keep going. You need to get to that interview, but you need to do two things: you have to practice... you have to practice, [and] you have to prepare. Two totally different things. So let's talk about the difference before I get into some of these tips on reducing anxiety. Preparing for the interview is reading through the job description, seeing what skills they're looking for, seeing what experience these companies are looking for, and making sure you have clear alignment between the work that you've done, the work that you're currently doing, with what they are looking for you to do in that specific role. You have to make sure that you are speaking to your most relevant and transferable experience. So if you are applying to a job in, let's say... hm, let's say you're applying to a job in consulting, and consulting is a lot of, you know, solutions, creating solutions, innovative solutions, being able to identify what your client's problems are, creating these solutions and also delivering these solutions in a way that makes sense to them. So if you have done some type of consulting work in the past, you want to make sure that you have stories you can speak to that specifically relate to how you have helped to solve your client's problem, okay? Does that make sense? You gotta have relevant examples. So, like, let's say that you have an example that is about creating a new communications strategy. If that's not related to that particular role that you are interviewing for, that might not be the best story to go with. So you want to have hero stories. Those hero stories are stories where you have actually came in and you saved the day. Like, there has to be a clear solution at the end of your story that draws back to you creating that specific, tangible, clear result. I have a membership club, Career Chasers Membership Club. I'll link it in the show notes. I will be opening up membership for it soon. We've got a club of over 100 women where each month we have a different theme. This month's theme is on interviewing, and we are talking about the power of, or the importance of, storytelling in an interviewing. I think everyone should really learn the essence of storytelling. It'll make you a great communicator. You want to make sure you have captivating stories that your interviewers walk away with and they remember. You want to be remembered for the right things of course. All right, so storytelling. We're also talking about the importance of executive presence. Someone that has executive presence is Michelle Obama. I loved her Becoming documentary on Netflix. So she is someone that has a lot of executive presence. I mean, when she walks in the room, you just stop and you look because she--you can feel her power, you can feel that just kind of oozing out of her, and so in this membership club, you know, a lot of the ladies were just telling me, like, "I really have a lot of anxiety before I walk into an interview, even if I know I'm a good fit for the job." So I know that this is something that a lot of us deal with, so let's go ahead and hop into these tips. #1: if a recruiter calls you for an interview, give yourself some time. Give yourself some time to prepare. You don't have to drop everything that you're doing and talk to that interviewer right then and there. You don't have to drop what you're doing or reschedule your whole life to talk to the interviewer the next day. My recommendation here is to give yourself 48 hours, 48 hours to prepare, okay? That will give you enough time, hopefully, to go through the job description, pick out your hero stories, research the company, research the interviewers, and, you know, think about the questions that you actually want to ask them. One of my coaching clients during our session a couple weeks ago told me a recruiter called him and said "Hey, I see that you applied for this role. You got a couple minutes to chat?" And he said he was thinking, you know, maybe it'd be--you know, "Sure," she said. "A couple minutes? I'll give her a couple minutes," and he said it turned into a whole 45-minute conversation. It actually turned into an interview, and he said he didn't want to be rude, you know, and he didn't want to lose out on getting this opportunity because she had called him. I don't want you all to put yourself in that type of situation, and so, you know, him and I just kind of talked through "Here's what to do if this happens again." #1: You tell them "Thank you so much for the opportunity. I'm extremely excited. I'm bogged down with work at the moment. You know, I have this really big project that I'm working on." Gas yourself up a little bit when you're talking to a recruiter and ask them, you know, "Is there another time that you and I can connect?" Schedule it in advance. If you can, try not to schedule it for the next day. 9 times out of 10 the interviewer doesn't need to interview you right then and there, and if you're a good candidate for the role, then you showing a commitment to your current job, despite the fact that you are looking for other opportunities, should make a good impression on the recruiter, and it also shows that you are valuable to your organization, because you can't just drop what you're doing and talk to him or her. The work you're doing is too important. So don't think you need to rush into interviewing with these recruiters, because I know how they can be sometimes. I used to be a recruiter, y'all. [laughs] I know how we can be, and I think it's so important to make sure that you are protective of your schedule, especially as we are going through a pandemic. So again, tell 'em "Thank you. I'm working on a really big project at work right now. My team needs me. Can we set up another time to connect so I can dedicate myself fully to our conversation?" Don't think that interviewing sooner or ASAP is going to make you a stronger candidate. What's going to make you a stronger candidate is being prepared. So that's my first tip. #2: Make sure you are reviewing Glassdoor. Glassdoor is life. Glassdoor has company reviews, they have reviews about interviews. If you are not familiar with Glassdoor, that basically is a site where people that have worked at these organizations, where they've interviewed with these companies, are basically going in and submitting their own personal experiences with the company. Whenever I interview coach a client, we always, always always research Glassdoor before an interview coaching session. That is going to give you some real life experience. And I've asked the ladies in my membership club, "Are you all using Glassdoor?" And they said, "Well, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't." So make sure every single time you are using Glassdoor. If you have connections at these companies, you want to connect to them prior to your interview. And again, this is why you need 48 hours. If you can get a little bit more, you know, like, 72, do it. [laughs] You need to have conversations with people that work at the company and ask them for advice on interviewing. So make sure that you are finding some connections, getting some advice, and they can tell you, "Oh, okay. You're interviewing--" Depending on how small the company is, right? If you're interviewing with a large company like a Wells Fargo, a Facebook, Netflix, like, the person that you know or know of that works there, they may not know that specific person that you are interviewing with, but they can at least give you their feedback on their experience interviewing with the company. So make sure that you are taking time to reach out to people, okay? Oh, the show. The Netflix show is Rhythm + Flow. Rhythm + Flow, y'all. It just came to me. So the next tip here is that all interviews are virtual right now. With that being said, you have got to really understand the essence of virtually interviewing well, especially if you're a charmer, you're a people person. You know, when you get in front of someone in person, oh, you can win them over, but virtual interviewing is a whole different game. I actually wrote an article with Money Magazine on how to virtually interview well. I'll drop that in the show notes as well for you guys, so check that out. And I think that virtual interviews are going to be a thing for a while, I really do. So with that being said, you have no reason to not have a cheat sheet. I know they said you're not supposed to cheat, [laughs] like, in college and, you know, high school and all that, but hey, you can have a little, you know, something handy next to you when you're interviewing. What I actually do is whenever I have a media interview, whenever I have a virtual speaking engagement, I have a whiteboard in my office that's actually facing me, and I have an outline of the things that I want to speak to, you know? Just as a reminder. So whatever works for you, you know? Have a cheat sheet there with you. You don't have to, you know, read it verbatim, but just little things to remember to speak to this skill set, this specific hero story. I want to make sure I speak on this job. So make it easier for you to interview well virtually. So then my next tip is if you get to a second round interview, third round interview, you want to always go back to the recruiter, the person that you interviewed with first, and you want to ask them for tips on the next round. If you've made it to the next round, that means that that person that interviewed you hopefully thought really highly of you and they want to see you do well in that process, so don't be afraid to reach back out to them and ask them for advice. You want to make it as conversational as possible, so if you can, ask the interviewer questions. And don't wait until the end to ask questions, ask them questions throughout the interview. For example, if the interviewer asks you why you're interested in the company, share why of course and then ask them, "How has your experience been here working for this company? What do you like most about working here?" You know? Ask questions at the beginning. Have a little small talk at the beginning. If you can, try to find some common ground, you know? Talk about the weather, you know? Again, just figure out ways to let your personality shine through. It is a two-way street, so make sure you're interviewing these companies just as much as they are interviewing you. Make sure that you are taking some time to breath during the interview. If you need to on your resume, cheat sheet or whatever you decide to use, remind yourself to take deep breaths throughout the interview. I actually was reading something online that said, you know, you can sigh, you know, if you need to really catch your breath. Just let out a sigh, and it won't be as obvious as you taking a deep breath. So just remind yourself to breathe. Sometimes I'll write little reminders on sticky notes and put them beside, you know, or hang them up on my monitor here as little reminders that I need to help me during the day. Other things to do is make sure you listen to things that make you feel good before the interview to really get your energy in the right place and in the right space. Listen to a good playlist to boost your confidence. You know, Beyonce, Meg thee Stallion, whatever [laughs] you listen to that makes you feel good, or find funny videos. TikTok is pretty entertaining. Find things to help you with taking the nerves off a little bit. So I wish you all the best of luck with interviewing. Like I said, keep applying, keep looking. These jobs are out here and they need what you have to offer. All right, y'all, and like I said, I'll link some information on the membership club. Stay tuned for details about that, and y'all have a wonderful, wonderful weekend. Peace.

On the sixty-fifth entry of Tristan's Tips, our amazing host Tristan Layfield is back with some career advice geared around taking back control of your job search. Listen to the full tip to hear what Tristan believes to be the key to doing so, and if you’re tired of going through the same old process to get the same results and you want a cohesive and coherent job search strategy that will guarantee you 3x more interviews, apply for a suitability call using the link in the show notes!Interested in applying for a suitability call? Find out more by clicking below:https://bit.ly/35WCQSVConnect with Tristan on LinkedIn, IG, FB, and Twitter.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Check out our website.TRANSCRIPTTristan: What's going on, Living Corporate?! It's Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting, and I'm back to bring you another career tip. This week I want to talk to you about taking back control of your job search.With the average person changing jobs nearly 12 times over the course of their career, job hunting is a survival skill. Unfortunately, many of us were never taught how to search for a job appropriately, especially Black and Brown people. When I started my career I had no clue what I was doing. I knew I needed a resume and to apply for jobs but I honestly had no idea how to go after the roles I wanted. I knew I had the skills, I knew I could do the job, but I didn’t know how to adequately convey that in my resume, while networking, or during my interviews.I would apply for TONS of jobs, sometimes multiple jobs at the same company. I would sit and I would wait to hear back, but you and I both know how that worked out. Most of them, beyond the confirmation that I applied, never even responded. My job search used to drag on for months and eventually I would get desperate… which is a bad thing because employers can smell that and they prey on it.There was a point where I took a job in retail as a temporary solution while I was searching for another job. 3 months passed, then 6 months passed, next thing I know I looked up and it had been a year I was still in that job and had only gone on a handful of interviews for jobs I was in no way, shape, or form interested in. I got tired of waiting for these employers and letting fate decide my future so I decided that it was time to take matters into my own hands.I learned that I needed to get really clear on the type of role I wanted. This allowed me to understand the transferrable skills and the value I could bring to the position. Then I could convey that in a results-driven resume and in my optimized LinkedIn profile and utilize both of those to build a network of career boosters. That, my friend, is the key. Your network is going to help you get to where you’re trying to go. 80% of recruiters and hiring managers agree that a referral is the best way to find a qualified candidate. So you want to build a network of career boosters who are going to help you get to that next step and potentially even give you the referral that you need to get the role that you want. If you’re tired of doing the same process to get the same results and you want a cohesive and coherent job search strategy that will guarantee you 3x more interviews, I suggest you apply for a suitability call using the link in the show notes so we can talk about where your job search process currently is and where we can take it to.This tip was brought to you by Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting. Check us out on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @LayfieldResume or connect with me, Tristan Layfield, on LinkedIn.

Zach has the honor of speaking to Debra Gore-Mann, president and CEO of The Greenlining Institute, about tackling systemic equity. She graciously shares her unique career journey with us and talks a bit about what it looks like to manage the wide array of philosophies, motivations and personalities she engages with in an effort to shift and create systemic change. Check out the show notes to connect with Debra and for more information on The Greenlining Institute!Connect with Debra on LinkedIn and Instagram.Interested in learning more about The Greenlining Institute? Check out their website.They're also on social media - follow them on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.Read Debra's piece mentioned in the episode by clicking here.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate. Man, really exciting times. I mean, exciting is a word for it, right? Like, got some concerns with the coronavirus, people working from home, new ways of working impacting marginalized folks in different ways, so definitely expect for our content to shift a little bit. So we're talking about and sharing tips on working from home and how to work from home, dealing with managers, leading teams if you're working from home and also dealing with managers who maybe have never had to manage you as you work from home. But all of that to say we continue to roll with the punches, y'all, and look, it's Tuesday. We're having another conversation, real talk in a corporate world. We do this, right? Like, we sit down with black and brown entrepreneurs, executives, CEOs--who are also executives, but you know what I mean--advocates, allies, public servants, elected officials, and look, today is no different. Like, we have a great guest, Debra Gore-Mann. Debra is the president and CEO of The Greenlining Institute, a policy, research, organizing and leadership institute working for racial and economic justice. Whoo, justice. That's a heavy word in these diversity & inclusion streets, and here they are, and here we go. Debra, welcome to the show, ma'am. How are you doing?Debra: Hi, Zach. Thanks so much for inviting me. I too am sitting in, you know, troubling times in that I am a decision maker on whether to work from home or whether to continue to bring folks into work, so I hear you on your opening.Zach: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, to your point about being a decision maker, I'd love to talk about your journey, right? Like, you've held a variety of different roles, from investment banking to being in athletics to being a chief development officer. Like, I'd love to hear more about your path. Like, as Living Corporate, and I think as we all continue to have these conversations, we've been blessed to talk to people with really unique journeys, right, and it seems as if honestly the people that are making the most impact have some of the most, initially on the outset, just curious paths to getting there. I'd love to hear more about just your story.Debra: Absolutely, and I think my journey is--you know, I used to think that is that it was unique, but the more that I've shared it the more I've realized that there were just some pivotal moments that happened, that happened to me. So in my journey, you know, I'm biracial. My mother is Japanese and my father is black, and he was in the military. And I know for some folks when you say "the military" it means--you know, it's a significant sort of life experience to have a parent who was in the military. So he meets my mother in Japan, and so, you know, she comes to the United States. So she was an immigrant, so I kind of speak that space. And our house was very much a bicultural home. We ate as much Japanese food as we ate soul food. So it was nothing for us to have sushi and collard greens.Zach: Y'all mixed it--y'all mixed it together?Debra: Yeah, totally. My mom just, like, just did both, just did both. Zach: Word? Hm.Debra: But the one thing that was sort of emphasized in our house was education, and equally from my father's side, you know, black household, as the Asian side. I did have a bit of a tiger mom, so people might know what that means, [laughs] you know? And education was important, and so, you know, really kind of overachieved in that space, and here was one of these critical, pivotal moments, right? So finishing high school I'm literally the number two in my class--I think they call it the salutorian--my best friend was the number three person in the class, and I'm going to apply for colleges, and the story she gets--and she's German but white, and the story I get when we compare notes are completely different. I'm told to go to a community college. My family can't afford to send me to college, but this would be a good stepping stone. I mean, it was a very positive conversation, and then I compared with my friend Lilly and she's like, "She told me that I should apply to some of the best schools on the West Coast," but in particular, 'cause I'm originally from Seattle-Tacoma, the University of Washington or the University of Oregon. Totally different story. And so, you know, we're sort of going, "Yeah, this is because you're black." [laughs] And I'm like, "Yeah, it is," but, you know, I didn't know. I hadn't gone to college. My sister--I had an older sister, and she went because, through the PSATs, somebody offered her a full scholarship, so I thought that's how it happened. Well, lo and behold, her brother had gone to MIT. He comes home during that winter break and he says, "Oh, no, you guys--you're #2? You're #3 in the class? You guys are applying to ivy leagues." And we're like, "What's an ivy league school?" 'Cause our counselor didn't tell us anything like that. And so I end up applying to Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Cal Tech, the University of Michigan, right? Sort of high technical schools, high academic schools. She applies to Yale, Harvard. We still apply to our local school, the University of Washington. I also applied basketball, so that's gonna come in here. So I had some athletic scholarships as well, and ended up we got into I want to say 9 out of 10 of the schools we applied to. She ends up going to Yale and I end up going to Stanford, and that in and of itself--so if you're in an Asian household, you know, for the daughters to leave the home is sort of "bad daughter, disobedient," so my mother was like, "You're not--" She doesn't know Stanford from anything else. She's like, "You're not going to California? You're a bad daughter." So my first courageous step was to say, "I'm gonna go to this school. It's in California," because of my good friend's brother who was like, "This is one of the top schools in the country. You need to go." So that's my first sort of, you know, accidental but intentional advice that I got, and then, you know, going to Stanford really kind of changed my life from there, opened up a whole new dialogue, really started to understand my biracialness. Now we have a term, intersectionality. At the time intersectionality was not necessarily as bright and clear, but I really started to understand that and, you know, had an engineering degree. I worked at a tech company, a material science tech company, when I graduated, then I went back to graduate school--back to Stanford--and got my MBA, and at that time I gotta be honest, you know, I was really motivated by money. We were a lower middle-class. You know, my dad was in the military. My mother worked as a domestic housekeeper, so I was cleaning houses, helping her clean houses from a very early age, so I can clean a mean bathroom now to this day. [laughs] Zach: To this day. [laughs]Debra: To this day, you know? You don't want me to come visit your house.Zach: [laughs] I might. [laughs]Debra: "I need to clean this bathroom!" [laughs] And so it was really kind of important for me to sort of maximize my value, so I went to Wall Street, you know? I went to work at an investment bank, and even realized--well, let me take a step back. Another circumstance that happened, when I went to graduate school, I ended up being the only black female in that class. And this is, you know, 1987. But what happened--and I went to admissions and I was like, "How can I be the only black woman in my class?" There was about 25 to 28 of us who had applied, but we all applied at very competitive--so Wharton, Harvard, you know, Princeton. You know, top business schools. Wharton, Northwestern, and the rest, the other 24, went to all the other schools. I was the only one that year that picked Stanford. [laughs] So here I'm in a class, you know, where I'm the only sort of black female voice, and so in, like, every class it's like, "Well, what does Debbie think?" Zach: You become the representative.Debra: I'm the representative, I'm, like, the sole representative, but I'm still identifying as biracial. I'm like, "Why don't y'all care about my Japanese lineage?" But in any case, right, so I land squarely in that, and what really helped me navigate that was that I played basketball, and we would have these pickup games, and I would, you know, be ballin' with the rest of the white guys who are now, you know, running companies, running venture capital, but sports was my translator and my equalizer, and so I've always very much leaned into sports vernacular and ability, and I think that has served me well, frankly, in my corporate leadership and everything, to be able to talk sports--and I mean, like, really talk sports--has really helped.Zach: And what position did you play? Not to cut you off.Debra: I was a point guard. I was a point guard.Zach: Okay, so now how would you characterize your game? Were you, like, a combo? Or were you, like, a facilitator?Debra: Yeah. So I was definitely a floor general. I didn't shoot as much, but, you know, a lot of assists, played all 40 minutes, you know? Started as a freshman, all four years, last two years team captain, so I think the leadership stuff kind of developed there. Played a lot with men. I think that's a common thread with women who really sort of want to elevate their game, you know, playing against people who are bigger, quicker, and stronger really gets your game up there. But, you know, so I'll make analogies--I was actually talking to a coalition person, and, you know, they have a very strong coalition, and I said, "Well, you know, here's my analogy. I'm like Kevin Durant coming to the Warriors after you guys won a couple." [both laugh] And that frames it, right? Like, "Oh, yeah. We're balling," but look, I've got some skills, and I can come and, please, let's just try to win some more championships. So sometimes those sports analogies, like, you know, people are like, "Oh, I get what you're talking about."Zach: They put it together, yeah.Debra: Yeah, and then you also don't sound--you know, it's pretty arrogant to say, like, "I'm Kevin Durant." Like, I'm not Kevin Durant, but people understand that there's a skill set coming into the game. And so I tend to do that. So anyways, I go to Wall Street, and that was yet another environment where I'm, you know, very few--let's see, in that cohort I was the only African-American in that cohort, and then Wall Street is, you know, definitely--I always tell people "Until you make some money, you can walk away from money," so I was able to, you know, buy a home, help my family. You know, my father had passed, so I was able to help my mom with her house. I had a portfolio of investments and could, you know, really speak money and capital and understanding that, but, you know, after I made some money I was like, "Wow, this is not very fulfilling. This is "What have you done for me lately? What's your last transaction?"" And, you know, you're constantly just pushing the rock up the hill. So at that point then I stayed in the private sector and I used my engineering degree with my finance, and in the Bay Area there's a company called Bechtel, who is a large engineering infrastructure company, family-owned, and they have an in-house boutique financial arm, and because I had engineering and I had finance I went to work for that in-house boutique bank, and the beauty of that is it's a global company, so I had a passport and for, you know, five years I worked out of the country. China was opening up in some of their enterprise zones a lot in Latin America, South America, and did these large, large structured finance in foreign currency. So good multi-tasking, you know? The language, the currency. It was sort of complicated transactions, and I loved that work. Like, loved, loved, loved that work, and then the big pivot was I got married and I had a child.Zach: Congratulations, congratulations.Debra: And for women that's a big deal. Even for me at the time, you know, I had worked on a big, multi-billion dollar deal in Mexico, and they weren't gonna let me have maternity leave. They didn't have maternity leave actually. So we crafted--you know, I had accelerated some deals that I had done, so I killed myself working 100 hours so that I could take three to four months off. There wasn't--so when people talk about maternity leave and FMLA, I was like, "Yes! Where do I sign up?" This is some of the policy work, right, that now I'm all in because I lived through a time when women didn't have that. No matter how big my deal was, you know? I could be straight ballin' and it's like, "There's no maternity leave." And the big fear was that I wasn't gonna come back to work, that I was gonna love motherhood, and I was like, "Maybe." Like, I didn't know. I hadn't had a child. So sure enough I get my four months off and really missed working, so to the women who listen to your podcast, you know, I think that will resonate. It's like either, you know, the maternal part is like, "Oh, I love being at home," and I loved that too, but I really had this desire to keep working, and for me at that time then I couldn't just get on an airplane, be gone two or three weeks, 'cause I'd come back and my daughter was, you know, talking or rolling over. I was like, "No, no, no." So I always--I don't know how much space or people have talked to you about, you know, "Your network is your net worth," so I leaned into my network and I said, "Look, y'all. I need a job in the United States. Let's keep it simple, but if it could be in California all the better," and different kinds of, you know, opportunities came in, and it was, you know, someone in my network that said, "Hey, you went to Stanford twice, and the athletic department's looking for a CFO," and I had done enough structured deals, right, that we had some development companies and I had served as the financial officers in some devcos, so, you know, I said, "Okay, let me interview." Okay, so you'll love this, Zach. So I go into this interview. The athletic director was Ted Leland, who was probably one of the top five athletic directors in the country. The faculty athletic rep was Jerry Porras, and he had co-written the book "Built to Last," which was a best seller, with Jim Collins, who then wrote "Good to Great." He's the faculty athletic rep, and then the provost is this--you know, this black professor who's up and coming named Condy Rice.Zach: What?Debra: So I'm interviewing--at the time though... come on, now, we're in the '90s. At the time I'm like, "Okay, athletic director, sports, small field," right? I had been doing global deals. My deals were in the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. I'm like, "[?] He's an athletic director." Now, Jerry Porras, Jerry Porras I'm like, "Okay, you're kinda ballin'. You're writing best sellers. You're Latin. First of all, you're a Latino male who's a tenured professor at Stanford." So I got a white male who went to community college and now is the athletic director at Stanford. I have a Latino male and then this African-American professor, Russian studies. I was like, "Oh." So, you know, think about the diversity of that right there. Think of the diversity. Black woman, Latino male, white man, and they are gonna be the nucleus. So they say--you know, I talk the talk about "Okay, this is how I would do the athletic department as the CFO and how I'd run it," and they were like, "This is great. We'd like to offer you the job." And I was like, "Great. What's the pay?" It was, like, a 50% pay cut, and I was like, "Oh, yeah, no." Remember, even when I was an undergrad I was like, "Yeah, I gotta make some money, and I'm taking care of my family," and then at this point I'm now sandwiched. I'm taking care of both, right, my own family and then my mother's. So we're kind of that sandwiched generation. So I'm like, "Thank you so much. Here's my dilemma: I can't take the pay cut. It's too much of a pay cut," and I thought it was done, right? So I'm, like, moving on. I'm interviewing other places. I almost went into consulting. I get a call back from Ted that says, "We want you to interview one more person," and I was like, "But I--" And he said, "No, just go to one more interview," and I end up interviewing with the vice president of finance, and they're thinking that--the athletic department reported to the position in the finance office, and so he interviews me and he says, "Look, I'm gonna give you this job and this job," so when I joined Stanford I held the position in the athletic department and then I held a position in the University, which allowed them to basically double my salary and keep me whole. So I was just like, "Wow," you know? So another pivotal kind of--and that's the transition. Like, the transition--I think a lot of people might have to take a pay cut or whatever, but I kind of feel like, "Well, my tool box was pretty robust. I could speak the sports language. I had been speaking the sports language through my whole financial--" So when it came to interviewing in this completely different industry, I was able to translate and transfer those skills, and then, you know, got into--so that's my pivot into college sports and my real first exposure into sort of diversity of thought, you know, equity, what does that look like for women of color. There was a real commitment to Title IX. Stanford was one of the first schools--and I was that first generation that got the title. Literally those scholarships came out in '81, so I'm dating myself now, and I was the first generation to get Title IX scholarship, a full scholarship. So I've been in this space, right? I've been in this equity, justice, racial, just living it, and so, you know, just fast forward. I did, you know, sort of run the gamut in athletics, and when this opportunity at The Greenlining Institute opened up, it is the single place where I have been able to unapologetically, openly talk about racial equity in all forms, and my work is to remove those barriers and to provide economic opportunity. So I'm still true to my message of "Okay, we gotta develop personal wealth, community wealth, and then remove the racial barriers," and it's full-stop, you know, redlining, community development, all of the things that are--you know, affordable housing, health care, all of the intersections now, and I just do it full-throated. So there I go. There it is, Zach. There's the journey. [both laugh]Zach: That's incredible, and you know what's interesting? 'Cause, you know, you talked about dating yourself, but what I hear in that though is the fact that you've really lived this life and you're doing this work, like, beyond the buzzwords of today, right? So, you know, today when we talk about diversity and inclusion or we talk about equity in a corporate context, you know, we don't really mean making people whole, driving for just--like, creating paths to justice or, like, systemic change, right? Like, we're not really talking about that. Like, not really, not in the average diversity, equity and inclusion conversations. We're typically talking about some type of training and some communications, and so what I'm really excited about as we kind of get into this interview is, like, more about the work and where you see The Greenlining Institute going. And to that end, in a piece that you wrote for The Greenlining Institute announcing your arrival to the organization you said--a portion of what you wrote, I'm gonna read it here, quote "People would argue that a focus on the building of a nation through a specific lens of color and race only hinders progress. They are the people who often claim to not see race and who replaced the slogan "Black Lives Matter" with "All Lives Matter." I'm not one of those people." So let me keep it 100 with you. When I read this, right--and I recognize you work for The Greenlining Institute, and I recognize that, you know, you've been in places where you've practically drove and you've strived for creating equity for your constituents or stakeholders or whoever the people that you're serving are. I'm gonna still say I still don't see a lot of black executives who boldly engage topics of race, like, be it from a position of self-preservation or a lack of personal range, but, you know, I think about Howard Bryant of ESPN and NPR. He was on the show a while back, and he said "To advocate for black people is to put your whole career in jeopardy," and so I'm just really curious, like, when did you make a decision to not only discuss black equity in these, like, theoretical frames, but leverage your own capital and labor to help solve for it and have, you know, in your career, have you had colleagues discourage you from pursuing this type of work?Debra: So I totally understand what Howard Bryant is saying when he says "Black people have to put their career in jeopardy." No doubt, right? It's the judgment against Michael Jordan that he didn't know political advocacy, but now, you know, a generation later, like, it's fine for LeBron James to do it actually, and, you know, even Steph Curry or Steve Kerr. I mean, they're openly in this space now. So I think it is the times that you live in that affect it. I constantly had people who discouraged me if I wanted to have my career ascend or be eligible for large bonuses. There was a bit of impostor syndrome that, you know, you had to perpetrate. So the people usually who were discouraging of speaking boldly into race and gender and the intersectionality that I survive in were mostly white people, right? And so they were making it clear to me of the risks. Like, "You could do it, Debbie. You can talk about this, you can talk about that, but I'm just gonna tell you what may be the consequences of it." So I think there is some truth for sure to what Howard Bryant is saying. The flip side is so when do you have the courage then to go ahead and put my career on the line? Like, you know, "I don't give an F. Here we go." [both laugh] And this is what's gonna just trip you out, Zach. So the moments that I've been able to do that most boldly was when I was encouraged and had the support of mentors who, you know, the Condy Rices or the Ted Lelands or, you know, I could name two or three people who were mentors who said, "Look, go ahead, speak your truth, and I got your back on this one." So for example, when I was at Stanford--I had been there maybe four or five years, you know, and I had done the first big Nike deal--they had never done a big Nike deal--and got one of the largest campus deals ever. Pepsi, at that time the soda wars were happening in your facility, so we negotiated that. I had negotiated two very high profile coaches contracts. So my credibility on campus was pretty legit, and this new dean of the medical school really wanted to have the orthopedics department sort of be a partner with the athletic department, because think about it. The athletes, you know, at that time, Tiger Woods, John Elway. Like, we had some--and they still have some very high profile athletes there. So I had met with the chief of orthopedics and I was like, "Oh, it was a great meeting." Very white male, very, very white. So I'm code-switching and I'm doing all the things that I do to make sure that he's comfortable, and after that meeting he goes back to the dean and says, you know, "I think she's gonna be a problem," or something to that affect. So then two of our medical doctors who had been doing all of our surgeries--knees, shoulder, elbows--came back, and one who I trusted--we had a very... obviously if you're dealing with young people's bodies and those families, so I tended to be the person who talked to the family and said, "Hey, this is our expert." He came to me and he told me. He said, "So this dean, they have some concerns about the relationship," and I said, "This isn't about the relationship. This is about me. This is this white guy who's not comfortable," and I sat there and I was fuming, and I went to the athletic director and I went to the faculty athletic rep and they were like, "Oh, no. We're going all in," right? But they had to--I probably would not have had I not had their voices behind me, and so we did. We met with the dean, and I asked some very, you know, pointed questions. You know, "Where was this concern coming from?" You know, I had the faith of the coaches, the head coaches, and the faculty athletic rep and, you know, X, Y, and Z, and where was this voice coming from? And he was just sort of, "Well, I kind of heard you--" "Did I say that?" "No, but, you know, it was--" And so I was just like, "I think this is racial. I think it's both racial and gender." Men with influence, this is important to your career that you sign this athletic department and, you know, it was immediately--you know, he was apologetic, and "That's not what I meant," and I was like, "You know, that's fine. I'm just telling you how you're presenting yourself and what that means to me and my career." But, you know, I don't know that I would have stepped out on that branch on my own, you know? I think if I had just walked that my career might have been at risk, but knowing that I had, you know, two very senior people say, "We got you on this," was important, was important. And so the advice that I do tend to give now is that, you know, everybody, a young professional, a mid-year professional, I think everybody should have an advisory council where you have somewhere between three and five people that you have literally asked to be a mentor or who has some sort of credibility and clout who can advise you on when to make these very hard decisions. I've had an advisory council ever since, you know, and it's changed depending on the industry that I'm in--and I tend to have three. I used to have five. And you want an odd number in case there's a tie, you know? [laughs] If you have one say yes and the other say no, you need that third one to say yes or no to break the tie. But then that'll help you temper, you know, your career advice with the steps you need to take when you have to fight the good fight. And I know now that--you know, I don't know where he is in his career, but I guarantee you he will never--he'll think twice, you know, about "Oh, am I doing this because I have some gender bias? Because I have some racial bias?" Like, he had been comfortable in that space and he had done his thing, and he probably had run over a bunch of black people, and he finally ran into somebody who said, "This ain't right," and then had other people sit in the room with me and say, "You're not right," you know? So those moments are, you know, sort of life-changing, but they're done with courage for sure. My voice was quivering. My knees were shaking. But I was like, "I'm going all in. I'm going all in on this one."Zach: And I bet you felt all the better for it after the conversation too.Debra: Oh, absolutely, yeah, and it made the next conversation easier, you know? Once you do it you realize that the house didn't fall in, [laughs] or that your career didn't implode. Now, you know, had it imploded maybe I'd have a different [?], but then, you know, now I'm able to sit in a room and say, "Well, you know, are you sure that's what you mean? You know, I kind of hear--" and "I feel like you have some bias here," and, you know, now I'm that voice for the whole community. I'm like, "Look, you are racial washing. You are equity washing right now, people of color and affordable housing. This is about segregation. Let's call it what it is. They don't want to put affordable housing on [?] in Lafayette a lot of white people live there and they want us living in segregated communities. Come on." So I can just speak it now and say, you know, to policy makers or banks or corporations or city hall, say, "Look, I disaggregated this. We have disaggregated this. Here is the bias that still lives. What are you gonna do?" And "Here's how we're gonna help you do it." So we have a whole framework that we say, "Okay, this is how you dismantle it, and this is how we're gonna build it back up."Zach: I think that work--it's just the work itself is so incredible, because, you know, even if you just look, like, from a historical perspective, right? So like, what, black folks have had the same rights on paper for, like, 54, 56 years, and so I think about the fact that 1. that's not even a whole lifetime, right, but then on top of that, like, because of that fact, Gen X is, like, the first generation of people who were born into this country with all of their rights, and really even millennials are--still today, like, a lot of these people, myself included, are first-generation corporate professionals, and I've thought about that side a lot. Like, the fact that a lot of black and brown folks, this is their first time really even being in these spaces, but what I haven't thought about until recently, Debra, is that for white people, this is their first time dealing with black people in these spaces, and when they go home and they talk to their colleagues or their older mentors, they don't really--I mean, they're not going to get a perspective that isn't within a context that is formalized anti-blackness, right? So you think about, like, let's just say if I wasn't a first-generation professional. I talked to my uncle. He can give me context on just working in majority-white spaces, he could do that, but if I was white and I'm dealing with you in this space and I go and talk to my uncle, he's not gonna--he very well likely is not gonna have anything to teach me or tell me about, like "Oh, well, this is how you need to be self-aware, and this is how these cultures work," you know? So I find that really curious, and you kind of--you answered one of my questions, but I want to ask this one though, 'cause you kind of touched on it a little bit. What does it look like, right, to build relationships across the various types of circles that you have to engage in? I think about the fact that when you're talking about policy and you're talking about shifting and creating systemic change, like, you have--I would imagine there's some grassroots folks that you have to engage and endear, but then there's also corporate entities who influence the actual policies, right? Like, I would imagine you're talking to some billionaires, but then you're also having conversations with activists, and you're also talking to folks in the government. Like, what does it look like to manage that wide array of philosophies, motivations and personalities? Like, how does that practically show up?Debra: Hm. I do think there has to be this consistency in philosophy. Like, you have to really be grounded in your values, because once people start challenging you, right--so if you truly believe that there's systemic racism, and not just in the policy but in the cultural diatribe of "Pull yourself up from the bootstraps. Poor people are poor because they're lazy." Like, that's a whole capitalistic trope, and if you want to really dismantle the conversation, then you have to have clarity that that is what's happening, because it is so easy to get on the "You can make money if you just pull yourself up by your bootstraps." You know, the Christian, Protestant work ethic. Look, that is a construct to keep the segregation as status quo. So when you're, you know, either the corporate office or even the Capitol, you start to have this conversation about "Where are your values?" So if a person is leading with "I believe you can pull yourself up from the bootstraps," I know that they have completely--they have such a long way to go before they can even have a conversation about racial equity. Like, that foundational conversation, so I start there. I start there. So, you know, let's say--even now. So if you're a digital [?] and you've been sort of, you know, raised that you probably, you know, think "Okay, I have all these online tools, and [?] are non-biased." Okay, let's just disaggregate that. Right now there's more loans that are--let's just say your car loan, right, or your home loan, it used to be about 4-5% done online. It's darn near 35% online now. And that information shows that there is so much racial bias. Black and brown people pay 100 to 200 [?] points more. Their loan interests are higher. So the algorithm, which has been written by white men who are in that space, that algorithm has bias. "No, it's neutral." "No, it's based on zip code. It's based on spending habits. It's based on--" You know, 'cause now they have all this big data tracking you. All of that is racially biased because it's founded in this language of "If you work hard and you get educated, then you deserve it."Zach: Yeah, this idea of meritocracy.Debra: And that is the racial construct. So we are now having this conversation about "Okay, what does wealth mean?" Okay, wealth. You know, mostly we think, "What's in my bank account? I have a house." Wealth is "I have the freedom to take a vacation. I have the ability to take a week off if my family is sick. I have the ability to cover a bill if it's, you know, a health bill, an automobile breakdown or a home thing." Like, that is wealth. So if you say--and people say, "Oh, yeah. Everybody should have the right to do that." "You should have the right to be able to visit family," or "You should have the right to be able--" Okay, so then you say "What does that policy look like to allow us to do that?" So I don't really actually have to talk race. I don't. I need to talk about a culture, a narrative. Like, we have to take command of a narrative, which is coming. This whole political race, presidential race, pivoted on South Carolina and black folk voting. Like, change the landscape. And for the first time, you know, Ta-Nehisi Coates testified with Danny Glover around reparations. Like, people are willing to say, "Wait, what is this?" And we have video now of police abuse, you know, and we're unpacking the criminal justice system. Like, there's an opportunity for us to walk into this space, which at the end of the day will affect your corporate life and will allow you to show up authentically, and all the data shows that a business decision made with diverse voices in the room, diverse ethnicities in the room, are going to get you better business decisions. So I can even talk to you on--if you just want to talk pure capitalism, like, "Hey, this system that, you know, your white boys built is breaking down, so you at least gotta admit you gotta consider another system." [laughs] Like, you gotta figure out, just even from an economic basis, that what we have now is not going to persist. It's just--it's not. It's collapsing on itself, and now, you know, we have--and it might happen in a generation, that we're going to create a new landscape of what wealth and economic opportunity looks like.Zach: I mean... you know, typically we do sound effects during the show. Like, right here I just want to drop, like, a Flex bomb. Boooooom. Sound Man, he's gonna put it in this. Put it in right here. Boom. I mean, it's just incredible. You're absolutely right, and I'm really curious, like, kind of continuing along the last part that you said, you know, in January you wrote something called "The Many Reasons to Impeach Trump," right?Debra: The many. [laughs] Not the three they landed on.Zach: Yeah. Not the couple. Not the few. The many. [laughs] And you wrote, "For communities of color, Trump has long since violated our public trust, and we know that a multitude of possible articles were excluded." So, you know, we're in an election year, right? Like, if Trump is elected for a second term, how do you anticipate Trump's policies practically impacting the efforts of The Greenlining Institute's goals? Debra: Actually, the Trump administration has emboldened the political conversation. We are in more demand now because of the contrast. Before there wasn't as much contrast. It was everybody was kind of in the grey. We were kind of all getting along.Zach: We got a black president. There's no more racism.Debra: Right. You know, we had arrived, and now the contrast is so stark that, you know, everybody kind of knows "This doesn't feel right." And so it's like, "So what does right feel like?" And we feel like we need to occupy that space of "Okay, here is what, you know, racial equality looks like. Here is what right feels like, and let's redefine--" He's offering you a model. This is what the model looks like. "I talk crazy. I put down whoever I feel like putting down. It always is racialized. I'm a model. Look at me. I'm an economic model." And understand, it is an economic model. He does not stand on any values. He does not stand on any religious--it's, like, transactional. "Here's how much." "I just got a couple billion dollars from Israel. I just got a billion here, a billion there." That's the model. So what do you offer in contrast to that economic model, right? And so I get that, okay, there's this hardcore 38, 40% that's like, "Yes, I believe that economic model," and then there's the "Okay, we want to be a kinder, gentler kind of space," that I feel like Biden's kind of walking into, but at some point you're gonna have to have a conversation about what is that? What is wealth? What is community wealth? What does economic wealth look like? 'Cause he's offering you a model, you know, and it just happens to be this very racialized model, but man, we're comfortable with that. Let me just say we're comfortable with that racialized model, and it's just--Zach: And we have been, right?Debra: Yeah, and in the absence of it I'm scared. It's like, "Wait, but I understand that one. I can be a poor white--"Zach: "I get this though."Debra: Yeah. "I'm a poor white person and I'm voting against my own interests because I believe if I pull myself up by the bootstraps," and I'm like, "No. You've been disenfranchised."Zach: For multiple generations.Debra: And you're still voting for your guy. So I think that, you know, the contrast is what's allowing our work to actually, like, accelerate. We have so much work that we cannot even get to. Like, right before this meeting we were triaging which--and I was working with my health equity person--which health equity bills could we support with our limited amount of energy and resources that we have? Because we are prioritizing how much work there is to do. There is just so much work to do, yeah. So in terms of framing what happens to our goals, I think, you know, we stay very--we're okay, we're solid in our goals. The work has just been multiplied and amplified.Zach: That's a blessing. And, you know, what I'm hearing also--and something that we don't discuss enough, again, when we talk about, like, really creating and driving for equity, we're talking about, like, really shifting and engaging systems. Like, a lot of times, like, these conversations, they start and stop at individuals, and, like, then we get lost in, like, the distraction of intentions. It's like, "Okay," and, you know, if bias are conscious or unconscious. We don't talk about impact. We don't talk about, again, like, the models by which these things are really, like, placed in, and how they drive inequity and disenfranchisement, so that's incredible. We're coming up close to the end of the interview. I want to give you a little bit of space to talk a little bit more about The Greenlining Institute, what you're excited about over the next, like, you know, let's say over the next year, and then I'd like to give you some space to just, like, any shout-outs or parting words you got for us.Debra: Oh, okay. [laughs] So the next year there is a deep conversation happening nationally about readdressing segregation, that if we continue to live in segregated communities in that, you know, what do they say, on any given Sunday we're the most segregated country in the world. There's a deep conversation about that and about community wealth, and I'm seeing both in the academy, where, you know, a lot of research is being done, to the policy makers, to bankers. There's a conversation about now how do we really address supportability, homelessness, because they're all intertwined. Like, you can't have a conversation about affordable housing without talking about health equities and social determinants of health, and you can't talk about that without talking about access to broadband, technology, that's moving so quickly, but almost everything--I don't know about you, but I don't know the last time I went to a bank. I do it all online.Zach: My bank is on my phone, yeah, and just to that point, like, I think about--so I have the privilege of having a decent-paying job, right, so I don't have issues with, like, using my data. I have unlimited data. I don't have issues with my Wi-Fi most of the time, and if I do have issues, then I have the privilege of picking up a phone, demanding someone come and fix this so I can get back to going and doing it. [laughs] But when you talk about this next generation of work, and, like, we talk about the workforce of the future and we talk about this digital age, there continues to be studies showing that black and brown communities, economically-distressed communities, are gonna be left out of this age because we don't have the access to enter, right?Debra: Yeah. So we have technology equity in our shop, and one of our biggest campaigns right now is Broadband for All, and then another big pillar for us is algorithm bias, and that cuts across not just financial institutions but medical bias in the algorithms that are, you know, based on research on cancer. Well, guess what that research was done around. You know, middle-class white families. So, you know, the next 12 months, I think this conversation is going to start to coalesce. There are going to be some common themes on how we can change the narrative on an economic sort of wealth, redefinition of wealth. I think that's really coming in the short term. I think the presidential outcome in November will also lay the ground for sort of that next level of work that's happening. So, you know, 12 months, we're running hard for sure, grinding, and then we'll see if, Heaven forbid, Trump gets reelected or not, because that will require some activism. I think we are all--we're gonna have to be that generation that really, you know, takes to the streets, you know, walks on the Capitol, boycotts, because if nothing else, you know, you can imagine if we all decided one day to pull our money out of the banks... Zach: Whoo...Debra: That's trillions of dollars. That's trillions of dollars.Zach: Yeah.Debra: Yeah, and so we might have--the activism may have to become real in the next 12 to 18 months if Trump is reelected. If not, I do think that the conversation, there's gonna be some--there will still be a conversation about "Okay, what does affordability look like?" 'Cause the homelessness is not going away. You know, we're one of the wealthiest states and we are so troubled by it. So I think that that conversation will continue, and we might as well grab hold of what we think wealth looks like. And like I said, it's the freedom to do a lot of things that you otherwise couldn't do. Call up your cable man or your repair man. [laughs] Yeah, and I actually think that's gonna then build community, right, in that if I know my mom is taken care of or my dad can retire comfortably, or my daughter, who does not have the American dream of buying a house--like, that's not... she's like, "What?"Zach: Definitely not in California. No way.Debra: Well, it's not even a part of the dream, right? She's more aspirational. "Maybe starting my own company or, you know, traveling globally." And I was like, "Wow," because that reality is not there for her. So to buy a home, it's not aspirational because it's not achievable.Zach: Well, and when you think about, like--I 100% hear you. The reason why I reacted when you said pull out the money from the banks was like, you know, this is not, like, "It's a Wonderful Life," right? Like, you know, nobody's gonna be like, "Well, your money's at Ted's house, at Bill's house." Like, no. The money--if that was the type of protest, if that happened, like, oh, my gosh. I mean, we gotta have you back on and just talk about, like, even the concept of protest, because--anyway, this has been a profound conversation, Debra. Thank you so much. Y'all, this has been Living Corporate. You know what we do. We're having intentional, authentic, transparent conversations every day. Again, I really want to emphasize, what I really enjoyed about this conversation and what I really hope our listeners are grasping and understanding is that shifting and creating equity and really having authentic conversations about diversity, equity and inclusion has to involve engaging and tackling systems, y'all. If we're not talking about engaging systems, we're not doing the work. Right? So I know a lot of us, there are people who listen to this show who are, like, diversity, equity and inclusion consultants, and there are people who listen in who are trying to figure out and trying to get the secret sauce on, like, this next generation, the workforce of the future. Like, y'all, if we're not willing to tackle and dismantle, or rebuild and, like, really think about these systems that are in play, we're not making change, y'all. Look, you can check us out on social media. @LivingCorp_Pod, on Instagram @LivingCorporate, and then look, we're all over Al Gore's internet, right? For those of us who are blessed to have digital access, you just type in Living Corporate on Google and we'll pop up, but we have all of the different domains, okay? So let me just rattle them off real fast, okay? You've got livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.tv, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.net, livingcorporate.us. We have all the livingcorporates except livingcorporate.com, okay, but we have living-corporate--please say the dash--dot com, all right? Now, we're all over the place, and again, we're coming at y'all every week with this stuff. Today was a super dope conversation with the new CEO, Debra Gore-Mann, of The Greenlining Institute, a policy, research, organizing and leadership institute working for racial and economic justice. Make sure y'all check out the information in the show notes. 'Til next time, y'all. Peace.

On the twelfth entry of our See It to Be It podcast series, Amy C. Waninger speaks with OJ Gordon about his entering the real estate industry from the insurance industry and the unique role he's taking on in doing so. OJ also suggests that people interested in getting started or learning more about the industry look into getting involved with the local chapter of their National Real Estate Investors Association (REIA). Check out the show notes to find out more!Click here to find your local National REIA chapter.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate. Now, look, every now and then we try to mix it up for y'all. So look, dependency and consistency is really important, but even within those lanes of consistency, you gotta have a little bit of variety, you know what I mean? You don't come home and just eat the same thing every day, or even if you do--you know, you got a meal prep thing--maybe sometimes you put a little red sauce. Maybe sometimes you put a little green sauce. You know, you gotta just, you know, mix it up from time to time. Maybe sometimes you grill it. Maybe sometimes you saute. Maybe sometimes you rotisserie. You gotta just--am I hungry? Yes, I'm hungry, y'all. My bad. Listen, check it out. We have another entry for y'all from our See It to Be It series. Amy C. Waninger, CEO of Lead at Any Level as well as the author of Network Beyond Bias, she's actually been a member of the team for a while now, so shout-out to you, Amy. Yes, thank you very much for all of your work here. And part of her work has been in driving this series called See It to Be It, and the purpose of the series is to actually highlight black and brown professionals in these prestigious roles, like, within industries that maybe we--and when I say we I mean black and brown folks, I see y'all--may not even know exist or envision ourselves in, hence the name of the series, right? So check this out. We're gonna go ahead and transition from here. The next thing you're gonna hear is an interview with Amy C. Waninger and a super dope professional. I know y'all are gonna love it. Catch y'all next time. Peace.Amy: Hi, OJ. Thank you so much for joining me today.OJ: Hey, thank you for having me. Glad to be here.Amy: Oh, it's great talking to you again. So you're one of my Network Beyond Bias success stories because you and I met at my very first ever industry conference when we were both in Hawaii for the CPCU conference, and you were part of my "I'm gonna talk to three people today if it kills me" program, and we were both sitting front and center at a big session, and I think I turned to you and said, "Hi, you're sitting front and center too. We should probably talk," or something really dorky like that, and then we became friends from that. So you were one of the people that I kind of collected at that conference just because I forced myself to talk, and I'm so glad I did.OJ: And I'm glad you did as well, absolutely.Amy: Well, thank you. So we're gonna talk today about your entering the real estate industry--and the role that you're taking on is a little unique from what most people think of in terms of real estate, so can you tell me first what it is that you do, who you help and how you help them?OJ: Sure, absolutely. So my primary focus is helping people who have real estate problems. So folks who have repairs that they can't make at their home. They have code liens, tax liens, debt that they can't pay off, or for whatever reason they need to get out of the home that they're in and they don't have a solution that traditional real estate can help [?]. So for whatever reason they can't put this house up on the market. They can't make a profit selling that house on the market. Planning unique solutions to help them get to where they want to be.Amy: And so this is--like I said, it's kind of a special situation that you're creating, a special opportunity that you're creating for yourself. Can you tell me how you got involved in this and sort of what about it appealed to you?OJ: Yeah, absolutely. So as you know I work in insurance, and there are many times where you run into a situation where there's something not covered by a policy, and that could be a $10,000, $15,000, $100,000 problem, and when someone has an issue like that and they're not able to get financing or fix the problem, you know, it becomes a safety issue where they're living in a home that's potentially unsafe, they're living in a situation where, you know, no one should be living, and I got into insurance because I wanted to help people, and for the most part we can. There are tons of things that are covered, but in those situations where something isn't covered and, you know, there are people who feel helpless, they don't know what to do, and I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to [?]. So I started looking into different solutions, and I actually met a couple real estate investors who were like, "What? That's exactly what we're looking for." I was like, "Why would you want this house that has, you know, $30,000 worth of damage? There's a mortgage on it. There's all these issues," and they were like, "This is exactly the situation that we're looking for. We want to help people who are in these situations, because we want to get them living somewhere safe, and we want to take that home and put in a position where someone can live in it again." So it just really appealed to me. You get the opportunity to help people. You kind of get to be thrifty and take something that was broken and fix it, and just, for those reasons, this industry really appeals to me.Amy: That's fantastic. So I recently moved into a new home about three years ago, and it had a lot of problems that we weren't anticipating. You know, we knew it would need a new roof for example. We didn't know that within the first year of ownership we were gonna lose our water heater, our HVAC system, our sump pump, you know, and have problems with some other things, and so I can see how very easily, even without, like, a traditional insurable loss--like, you know, there was no fire, there was no flood, right, it was just wear and tear on a house that had not been maintained for 20 years--and, you know, it was expensive, and we were already sort of maxed out on the mortgage, and so, you know, we had to kind of take out a second mortgage. It's really embarrassing to say, but we had to take out a second mortgage to pay for, you know, several thousands of dollars worth of repairs to a house so we could live in it, 'cause you can't live in a house in Indiana without heat, right? You can't live in a house in Indiana, you know, that's leaking carbon dioxide into your house. So, like, we had real problems, and people don't have a lot of reserves. A lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck. I know that's been my situation for most of my life. You know, it's really easy to get upside down really fast, not just in your mortgage but in your monthly expenses, and then to have somebody who can come in and say, "Hey, I can help with this." You know, "You're not gonna be homeless. You're not gonna lose money on your house." I can see where that would be a really welcome message for folks who are struggling or who are concerned about those things, because I can see how, you know, just a lot of people are just a few thousand dollars from disaster. I know I've been there many times in my life.OJ: Absolutely.Amy: So it's wonderful what you're doing. So what's something--I know you have already alluded to this a little bit, but what's been the biggest surprise to you about this industry? Something that you weren't expecting when you first got into it?OJ: So actually, the thing that surprised me most was, you know, you hear about real estate investors and you're like, "Oh, they're these slimy people and, you know they're just trying to make a quick buck and, you know, they're gonna offer you way less than what your house is worth," and that's kind of the stigma, and there are a few bad people who do those kinds of things, but for the most part everyone I've come across has really just wanted to help people. You know, whether it was me first getting into the industry and wanting to learn, people were willing to take the time out of their day to explain things to me, to walk me through processes. Their main focus is not how much money I've made, it's how many people did I help, and I think when you can go to bed at night knowing that your main focus is how many people we can help, you can sleep well, and it really kind of changed this thing in my mind. I was thinking, "Oh, man, I'm gonna be one of these slimy real estate investors," and really it's not that. You know, there are many times where a person doesn't need a real estate investor. They just need a real estate agent or, you know, they don't need either one of those things. They need help managing their cash flows, right? They're just spending too much on their discretionary spending, and that's taking away from their needs. And just being able to have those conversations--like, I went and got my real estate license also so that I could help those folks who need, you know, a traditional solution. And, you know, I partnered with some credit repair and some budgeting specialists who can talk to people about money management and focusing on taking care of their needs before going out and, you know, spending on things that they want, and that's really been able to help people, and it's just an amazing feeling knowing, "Hey, you know, I might not have made any money today doing this real estate investing, but I've helped someone, and this thing that I've done is gonna benefit them and it's gonna benefit their kids for years to come."Amy: That is wonderful. And it's always a shame to me when somebody says, "I was surprised by how nice people are," or how much people want to help, because we--I think so many industries have a bad reputation, right, that people are only out for themselves, you know, they're snakes in the grass and they're just waiting to attack, you know, and I have found too, as I've shifted my career a few times now, that there are always people willing to help. If your heart's in the right place--and you do have to be careful about it, right? Because there are some people who are out there looking to take advantage, but I would say probably 99% of the people that I've met at different stages of my career, when I'm ready to take on something new or make a jump or learn about something new, 99% of the people I meet are genuinely helpful, genuinely want to have a positive impact and, you know, show me something that will help me move forward. OJ: Right, and I've been fortunate to come across those people and really--in the real estate industry you kind of hear, you know, it's cutthroat, and I have not encountered that. I'm really--maybe I've been lucky. Maybe this is just the norm. But I've been fortunate to meet people who are genuinely interested in helping me to develop, helping me to learn what I needed to know so that I could help more people.Amy: That's fantastic. So if somebody's not in real estate today and they're interested in getting started or learning more, what resources are available to them or where would you suggest that they start?OJ: Sure. I would suggest find the local chapter of the National REIA. Here in Orlando there's CFRI, Central Florida Real Estate Investors. It's a nonprofit group that focuses on real estate investment education, you know? There's an ethics course that you have to go through, and it's really designed to help real estate investors who are starting off in the business start making the right decisions for the right reasons and to be well-informed, and it's a great way to just network and meet with people who have been in the industry for a very long time, meet people who have just started, and kind of be able to pick their brains and partner with them and figure out how you can come together to find solutions for folks. So definitely get involved with the local chapter of your national REIA.Amy: And REIA is a Real Estate Investors Association? REIA.OJ: Right. Correct.Amy: Okay. And so just to be clear about this, you didn't take--I'm gonna pick on Trump University. You didn't take a Trump University $30,000 real estate course to figure out how to do this, right? You went and talked to people who were really doing this every day who are in it for the right reasons, who are highly ethical and willing to help you without thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in investment. Is that correct?OJ: Absolutely correct, and don't think that you have nothing to offer, right? So my background is in insurance, right? Well, if you're buying homes you need insurance, so knowing about the insurance industry--and, you know, I've been an adjuster and I've been writing estimates, so I have, you know, building [trades?] knowledge, and, you know, bringing whatever you have from whatever it is you do can benefit you, right? Like if you're an accountant, well, you're gonna need to be able to keep track of a lot of moving parts and a lot of numbers, so that's a skill that's needed. You know, if you work with your hands--if you're an electrician or a plumber or a carpenter, these are skills that are needed to get these homes up to code and make them safe for people. So, you know, having that trade knowledge is something that's tremendously beneficial. So this isn't limited to, you know, white collar jobs, blue collar jobs, anyone can do this. Amy: That's excellent, and I love that message, that you bring what you have and you find a way to contribute and people are there to help you and guide you and partner with you along the way.OJ: Absolutely. Amy: And, you know, that builds such a sense of community in an industry, when you know that you can't know everything, right? The accountant is probably not gonna be the plumbing guy also or, you know, vice versa. So I think that's a wonderful message, and I think it's important for people to realize that so many skills are transferable from one industry to another, and it sounds like this is an industry where maybe more than usual skills are transferable in.OJ: Absolutely. Amy: That's wonderful. So what are your thoughts on where this is headed in the future? Is this industry gonna need more people, or do you see this as a short-term set of problems that maybe in five to ten years will sort of take care of itself? Like, what do you see as the talent needs going forward? OJ: So just like the market is cyclical, the real estate investing needs are cyclical, and so this isn't something that's going away. People need to live somewhere. Anyone can come across a real estate problem. Like, when I bought this house, Matthew hit in Florida and destroyed, you know, pretty much everything in my backyard, and I did not realize how expensive fencing could be.Amy: And you're an insurance guy. You should know how expensive fencing can be, OJ. Come on! [laughs]OJ: And so I had a huge lot, right--the house sits on a third of an acre, and most of it is the backyard, so I was actually deployed helping folks who had damages at their home and I find out "Hey, you know, your fence is down," and I have a pool so I can't leave holes in the fence because that is a huge liability issue. So I called around to get some folks to kind of get me an estimate, and the first guy called back and said, "You have 321 linear feet of fence and two gates," and I just knew. I was like, "Oh, man. This is terrible," and, you know, he quoted me a price, and, you know, if it hadn't been a catastrophe, that was not something that I would have been able to do. And so, you know, I know how real these problems are, these things that come up are. And the policy I had didn't have a ton of adjacent structures coverage, and so, you know, the policy was only gonna cover a small portion of it anyway, so I had to pay for that fence out of pocket, and if I had to charge that to a credit card and make those payments, that would have been tough for me. And so I realized just how tough it is when those unexpected events happen, and sometimes your insurance can't help you or, you know, the things that you were counting on just don't work out for whatever reason, and it's, again, just something that isn't going away. This is an industry that will be here. As the market changes the needs change, and so we'll be here finding solutions for folks.Amy: So I want to take a step back for a minute because, you know, insurance--and I've worked in insurance for 10, 12 years now, right, insurance is one of those things that people hate paying for and they hate using it, right? Because if you're using your insurance it means something horrible has happened, and it's something that we think, "Okay, I want my premium as low as possible because the threat of having a claim is a remote possibility that we don't really know how to calculate," right? We don't know how to calculate that risk. What are the odds that I'm going to use this? We're afraid to use it sometimes if it's, you know, a minor thing. Who can people--let's talk about prevention for just a second. Who's the best person for someone to talk to when they purchase a house or even if they're renting about what kind of coverage they need and what they should be paying for coverage? Because that sounds like a first step to preventing getting yourself into this sort of a financial crisis to begin with, right?OJ: Right, and so if you have a financial planner, that's someone who you should talk to. There are agents everywhere. Go talk to an agent. You know, I sold insurance when I first got into insurance, and the way I look at insurance is you pay me your premium and I give you peace of mind, right? So I need to make sure that this policy that you're purchasing is going to give you that peace of mind, and so when you're purchasing insurance you shouldn't start off with how much premium you want to pay. You should start off with "How much coverage do I need to have peace of mind?" Right? So if you have a home that would cost $300,000 to rebuild if there was a total loss, total fire, and you only have $50,000 of insurance, you do not have peace of mind. You are not going to be able to rebuild that home, right? And so you just want to talk to your agent and talk to your financial planner. Understand the costs, you know? You don't have to become a builder, right, but understand the costs associated with rebuilding a home or, you know, if you're getting an auto policy, right, if you cause an accident, right, there are financial implications. You could end up liable for thousands of thousands of dollars of someone's medical bills, lost wages. You could be hurt and not be able to work, right? And so these are situations that your agents and your claims professionals come across every day, and, you know, I've been on the liability side, and I've seen where someone, you know, got hit by an uninsured driver and had $10,000 of uninsured motorist coverage but $50,000 worth of medical bills, and, you know, they were trying to keep their premium low, and you're not doing yourself a justice by saving $20 in premium when that $20 in premium is tens of thousands of dollars of additional coverage, and you don't know when you're gonna have an accident. That's why people call them accidents. You don't know when you're gonna have a fire. You don't know when these unexpected events are gonna come. If you're purchasing a policy, don't do it because a state says you have to do it. Don't do it because, you know, your mortgage company is saying you have to do it. Do it because you understand that this policy is gonna provide peace of mind in a time where you need peace of mind. The stress of going through these things, right, is overwhelming sometimes, right? And just having, you know, a professional on the other end who can say, you know, "Hey, I know what you're going through. These are the things that are gonna happen and, you know, here's how we can help," is tremendously beneficial.Amy: Absolutely. And, you know, higher premiums don't mean better coverage. OJ: Right. Read your policy. [laughs]Amy: Read your policy, but not just that. Shop it around, right? Because I had--so when we moved into our house I went through the insurer that I had on our old house, and I won't name names, but we'll call them Company A, and Company A, my premiums on my new house were about $4,000 a year, and my coverage was I want to say about four... no, it was about $500 worth of coverage on just the house, and about a year later I decided I was gonna shop it just to see because it was coming up for renewal, and I got coverage through Company B, and Company B was $1,300 a year, and they estimated the rebuild cost of my house at over $700,000, and that's what they insured me at. So I was paying a lot more--I was paying three times the amount that I could have been for about half of the coverage with the first company versus the second, and it's all about how much do they know about your area, how much do they know about the kind of house that they're insuring, how much do they know about the risks and the likelihood of risk where you live, and how good is their math, right, when they're running those numbers, and so I think it really pays for people to talk to different companies and find out, because if I thought when I bought myself--I didn't pay $700,000 for my house, but if I had thought when I bought my house I needed $700,000 for the replacement cost coverage, I would not have insured it for $450 or $500,000, right? Because the other thing that happens that people don't know--and I don't want to go off on a big insurance thing, but the other thing that happens that people don't know is if you do have a total loss and you're under-insured, you don't get all the money your insurance company promised you at the beginning.OJ: Right. So there's that [?] percent co-insurance and [?] the cash value. Right.Amy: Right, so if you have a $200,000 house, let's say, and you have $100,000 worth of coverage on it, and you have a total loss, your insurance company will say, "Well, you know what, it's a lot more common to have a $100,000 loss on a $200,000 house than it is to have a $100,000 loss on a $100,000 house," right? "So we're only gonna pay 50% of your policy payout, or 80% of your policy payout, because you weren't insured to the full amount of your home." And so not only are you not getting the full value of your home, you're not even getting the full value of your policy at that point. You really want to make sure you've got full replacement cost on your home.OJ: Right. So, again, start with the amount of coverage that you need and then shop based on the coverage that you need. So compare apples to apples, right? 'Cause one company, like you said, could offer you--like, let's say Company A offered you $400,000 worth of coverage for the same $700,000, right, and then Company B said, "Hey, we'll offer you, you know, $700,000 worth of coverage for $1,000," right, you're getting the same coverage, right, but if Company A was saying, "Hey, $1,300 a year for $700,000 worth of coverage," and Company B said, "$1,000 for $400,000 worth of coverage," you're paying a lower premium, but you're also getting less out of the transaction, definitely. Your starting point should be "How much coverage do I need?" And then shop around, and always say "Hey, these are the limits that I want. This is the coverage that I need. How much are you charging for that amount of coverage?"Amy: Yep. Absolutely. Thank you, OJ, so much. That is so helpful, and I see several spinoff topics on this conversation, because I think it is important, and I think people really don't understand this. Insurance is kind of a black box, right? I pay a premium and then I pray I never use it, and we need to be more educated consumers about that, definitely. So I wanted to ask you a little bit, any other recommendations for our listeners about what they might want to learn about this industry or where they might go, you know? Articles or places that they might just show up and read or listen to learn more.OJ: Sure, sure. So there are tons of podcasts out there about real estate investing. There are seminars that happen throughout the year, but some of those seminars are thousands and thousands of dollars. I wouldn't recommend that you pay thousands and thousands of dollars starting off, especially not knowing if you're gonna dive in full-time, right? You don't want to spend $30,000 on something that might be a hobby, right? But just definitely reach out to folks. So if you get involved in your national REIA there are Facebook groups, and just reach out to folks who are in the industry and talk to them. I mean, the best value that I've gotten is just conversations with folks and learning things that I never would have thought about, right? I remember one conversation I was having with a guy named Bill Cook, who's a really successful real estate investor, and we were talking about mobile homes, and it was like, "Well, why would anyone want to buy a mobile home," right? And he shared with me that during the recession that was the best investment that he could make, because people were calling him and saying, "Hey, I need somewhere to rent, and I can't spend $700 or $800 a month. Do you have anything for $450?" And his phone is just ringing and ringing and ringing, and he had nothing in his inventory that he could rent for $700 or $850 a month, and then he got into investing in mobile homes, and he was able to now provide clean, safe housing for folks who couldn't afford $700 or $800 a month, but they could afford $450, and it was a smaller investment for him, right? Instead of buying a stick-built home you buy a mobile home, right, the costs are way different, and so he could make that work in his business model and help folks out who needed somewhere to live. And so, like, just having those conversations and understanding that, you know, you might have a preconception or you might be thinking of something in a way that is gonna prevent you from helping people, and just really having those conversations and being open-minded.Amy: That's fantastic. I would like to ask you to finish this sentence. "I feel included when ________."OJ: The people around me are laughing.Amy: Well, OJ, I can tell you that I am so happy to have you in my network and count you among my friends. I have so much fun talking to you, and I think the world of you. I think that you are on just this meteoric rise, and I expect great things from you. You're somebody that I want to, from the moment I met you I wanted to invest in you personally, because I wanted to see what you would become and what you would do in the world, and so I want to thank you for letting me be a part of your journey and thank you for joining me today.OJ: And I want to thank you for having me. It has been truly amazing getting to know you and seeing all of the wonderful things that you're doing and all of the value that you're bringing and all of the awareness that you're bringing just on the side. We had a conversation about intersectionality, and there was a talk on intersectionality here in Orlando, and I went, and, you know, I figured "I'm a person of color. I kind of understand other folks," and it was astounding how much I didn't know, right? And so just kind of--that conversation with you kind of inspired me to kind of go and learn about different groups and, you know, I actually had a mentor who identifies as a gay man, and I had no idea, and we were having a conversation surrounding intersectionality, and he confided in me, "Hey, you know, I've been a gay man for my whole life, and I don't share that with people because I've been ostracized." And, you know, here's a guy who's, you know, in his 50s, right, who doesn't feel comfortable being himself or expressing himself. And I had known him for quite a while and didn't know this about him, and it was kind of humbling to have him share that with me and realize that, you know, while I may have had my struggles, there are other people who are experiencing different struggles, and, you know, there are conversations that need to be had so that those people are empowered, right? And it was at that talk about intersectionality that, you know, we kind of talked about identity privilege, and I didn't realize how much identity privilege I experienced, and it was really eye-opening that, you know, here I am as a minority, but I experience identity privilege, and there are things that I need to do to empower those who don't have the same identity privilege that I do, and so I want to thank you for just bringing awareness to me and inspiring me to kind of go out and learn more, because it really is important.Amy: Thank you so much for saying that. I think one of those most powerful things that we can do as people, right, not as managers, not as coworkers, not as in whatever role but just as people, is ask questions and give each other the space to share, because it's in those spaces where we learn and we grow and we really build connection. And, you know, in the talks that I give I always tell people, "Look, if you think no one in your inner circle is LGBTQ, there's a really good chance you're wrong about that. And it's not that they're not there, it's that they're not comfortable talking to you about it." And the same goes for a lot of other identities too, right? You know, I know a lot of white people who will say, "Oh, I'm friends with--you know, I have lots of black friends," which is always a sign that they don't of course, but when you ask, like, "Who?" You know, it's usually somebody at work that they kinda sorta know, and, like, "Have you ever talked to them about their experience being black in the workplace?" "Well, no." I'm like, "Well, you're not a very good friend, are you?" [laughs] Wouldn't you want to know what that experience is like for your friend? So no, thank you so much for opening yourself up to those conversations and for sharing so much of yourself with me. I'm just honored to know you, OJ. I really am.OJ: Thank you. The feeling is very mutual, Amy.

On the sixty-fourth installment of Tristan's Tips, our amazing host Tristan Layfield discusses how we can prepare for the pandemic-related questions we may get during job interviews. He breaks down four different questions you could be asked relating to COVID-19 and shares how he would answer them if he were in our shoes. Since the onset of the coronavirus, the pandemic has made a cameo in the majority of conversations that we’ve had. With that being the case, there’s no reason to think that our job interview won’t be another area where it will rear its head!Connect with Tristan on LinkedIn, IG, FB, and Twitter.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTTristan: What's going on, Living Corporate?! It's Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting, and I'm back to bring you another career tip. This week I want to talk to you about how you can prepare for pandemic-related questions you may get during interviews.Since the onset of the coronavirus, the pandemic has made a cameo in the majority of conversations that we’ve had. With that being the case, there’s no reason to think that our job interview won’t be another area where Ms. Rona will rear her head. A news editor named Andrew Seaman reached out to the LinkedIn community to understand what type of questions may be asked in interviews in the near future and how to answer them. I want to take a moment to share some of that information with you all.So the first question you may receive is, “What have you learned about yourself during the pandemic?” This could be a follow-up question to the dreaded “Tell me about yourself.” If an interviewer asks this question, they are usually trying to gauging your emotional intelligence. They want to know how you handle a crisis and the emotions that come with those situations. If I were to answer this I would probably say something along the lines of ‘The pandemic taught me that during highly stressful times, building solid routines not only decreased my anxiety but made it easier for me to get into the work I need to do and be more productive.” The next question might be “Can you do the job while working from home?” Since the majority of companies are still required to do work remotely it’s likely that any new people they offer positions to would have to be onboarded virtually. Since this will become part of the new normal, they want to know you have not only the capabilities but the resources to work from home. Let them know if you have a dedicated workspace, if you have experience working from home, or what steps you’ve taken to be able to ensure you can complete a normal workday while being at home.Then we have the question of “Are you willing to work from an office when the pandemic is over?” Since many company work-from-home policies are temporary, you should definitely be prepared for this question. If you aren’t looking to go back into the office, I’d suggest looking for roles clearly advertised as “remote.”The last question they discussed is “How have you been spending your time?” I’m personally not a fan of this question because I think we are all experiencing a stressful historical event and many of us have consciously or unconsciously moved into a space of survival. But seeing as how many companies and organizations fail to recognize the humanity in that, they will ask this question to get an idea of how you deal with stress and if can still operate to provide value to the company during that time. They are looking to see if you’ve been volunteering, taking online classes, or learning new skills. If you haven’t, please don’t beat yourself up too bad. Talk about how you’ve been really targeted in your job search and getting focused on what you want from the next step in your career.This tip was brought to you by Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting. Check us out on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @LayfieldResume or connect with me, Tristan Layfield, on LinkedIn.

Our very own Amy C. Waninger has the honor of chatting with Arlan Hamilton, founder and managing partner of Backstage Capital and author of "It's About Damn Time," which was released TODAY! Arlan went from homeless in three years to running Backstage Capital, a venture capital firm that solely invests in companies founded by women, people of color and LGBTQ entrepreneurs. She graciously shares a bit about why she started her fund and wrote her book, talks about what it is about under-estimated talent that she thinks makes them a great bet in business, and she tells us how she gets herself into the right mindset to walk in and own really intimidating rooms. Check the show notes to find out more about her book!Interested in her new book? Check out ItsAboutDamnTime.com.Connect with Arlan on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. You can find out more about Backstage Capital on their website. They're also on FB, IG, and Twitter. Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and listen. Really excited to bring the episode that we have for y'all today. For those of y'all who are in the know, when you talk about venture capital, when you talk about inclusion and equity within the venture capital space, you know who Arlan Hamilton is, okay? So I'm not gonna steal any of Amy C. Waninger's thunder, but I just want to do, like, a quick thank you and shout-out to Arlan for being on Living Corporate, and really excited for y'all to check out the episode, because the next thing you hear, they're gonna get right into it, so I just wanted to make sure I gave a little bit of context that you're gonna be listening to Arlan Hamilton and her talking about her latest book as well as her company, Backstage Capital. 'Til next time, y'all. Peace.Amy: Arlan, thank you so much for joining me. How are you today?Arlan: I'm doing pretty good. How about you?Amy: I'm doing well. So we're recording this kind of in the midst of all of this coronavirus craziness, and the episode will be released on your book launch day, on May 5th, and so if you can, just project forward to book launch. How are you feeling?Arlan: Well, I'm probably feeling the same way I'm feeling today, which is just a few days prior, which is incredibly excited and honored that I have the opportunity to even have a book coming out and coming out on a publisher, and it's just been a really great experience so far. I heard so many different stories from different authors of, like, how their experiences have gone in the past, from indie to published, and mine has just been really great.Amy: That is fantastic. And the book is wonderful. I got to read an advance copy as part of your launch team. I enjoyed it so much. And a lot of the questions I normally ask in this series you've covered in your book, and so I want to make sure people go there, but one question I did want to ask you about is what has surprised you the most about the venture capital space? Now that you're on the other side of it.Arlan: I don't know if it surprised me, but it's been kind of reinforced that there's just--money is a tool, you know? There's no one who is more important than the next person. And yes, there are some people who have a little bit more power, a little bit more strategically have placed them in places with more authority, but really there's an equality that I still believe in, and it drives me to do what I do, and it's why I started my fund. It's why I wrote the book "It's About Damn Time," because it felt like--one of the things was it was about damn time everybody realizes that we're all on this spinning rock together and that just because you're a venture capitalist doesn't make you any better than the next person.Amy: Definitely. And you talk about in your book the statistic that's jarring to me, that while white men make up about 30% of the population in the country, they get about 90% of capital investment. And your fund is a step in the direction to kind of undo that math and to make the playing field a little bit more equitable. How is that going? Like, do you feel like you're at the point where it's starting to shift, or do you think that there's opportunity for more people to come in and do what you're doing and build this space a whole lot bigger? Arlan: I think both. I think there has been absolute change in the last five years, four and a half years since I started Backstage Capital. It was a completely different playing field back then, and that was only a few years ago. So I absolutely see change. Obviously it's not fast enough. It's not enough. So there's plenty of room for better change and for more change, and that's where I'm excited about the future and about--one of the things in my book is about empowering other people to understand that they can join, you know? They can still join this technical revolution and all of that, because there's just so much more left to do. There's so many people who are doing it too. I don't want to ever say that it's only me. I mean, there are plenty of people who are black or brown [and?] women, who are investors, who are trying to change those statistics for the better. But yeah, I think if I hadn't seen some change for the better I wouldn't have been able to keep going, and so I've seen it. Most of it has come from individuals taking the reins and saying, "Look, I'm not going to wait for something to come save me. I'm going to put this into my own hands, and I'm going to start a company or continue a company that perhaps is bootstrapped or that has more revenue [and that?] employs people, and I'm not gonna only count on these few select guys who have a bunch of money.Amy: You know, it's interesting because right now--and I know that you just recently interviewed Mark Cuban and he said now's a great time to start a business, 'cause when people panic you double down, and when people are comfortable, that's when you should panic, right? What industries do you see right now in the midst of what we're dealing with with coronavirus, what industries do you see picking up a lot of innovation right now?Arlan: Well, of course the ones that are for the moment, right? So for instance companies that are selling products that are really helpful right now. We have products in our portfolio that when we first signed up them to our accelerator last year people laughed. They said, "Why do you have a toilet paper company in your portfolio? Aren't you a venture capitalist?" But we saw that they were doing things in a more sustainable way. They were saving tons and tons, literally, of trees every year, and they were fun and they had a great marketing strategy, and today they can't keep up with the demand, and they're doing it in a way that's more sustainable, which is really fantastic. So you have companies like that. We have a company in our portfolio also from the accelerator called Tambua Health that allows doctors to test for lung diseases using a smartphone. And of course last year we just thought, "This is really amazing, and we want to see what it can do," and today now it's of course going to be very helpful during the age of coronavirus. So I think, like, you're seeing a lot of health tech companies that are gonna do well if they can revamp. You're seeing companies that are manufacturing other things, that are now saying, "Let me manufacture some PPE," some personal protective gear for health care workers and essential workers, but right now and in the future I think you're gonna see a lot more education companies, things that are content-driven online, and then the infrastructure to make that easier for people to get to and to see it. And of course people are talking about "What's the future of work going to look like?" And I don't know if we know yet. I don't know if the last four weeks or six weeks or three months can tell us what the future of work will look like. What we do know is that it will be different from what we came to be used to in the past.Amy: Yes. I think that we're seeing, you know, right now a lot of accessibility that was built--infrastructure for accessibility that was built for people from the disability community that is benefiting all of us now, and I am hopeful, to your point that the future that we're building is more accessible by design and not by legislation.Arlan: Absolutely, and there are so many people who can take that into their own hands today, and I hope that that happens too, because honestly, we can't wait around for someone to make things right. We have to do things ourselves, and things are better--you know, they say, "Let me just do it myself." You know, "If I want it done right, I'll do it myself." Let's do that. I like that vibe, you know? Let's do it ourselves.Amy: You said in your book several times when you're looking at founders you pattern match for grit. And I wanted to ask you, because, you know, knowing your background, that you started this fund when, you know, you didn't really have a place to live. I mean, you were experiencing homelessness at the time. You know, grit is just all there for you. I mean, you have built something from nothing more times than I could count in the book, and I'm wondering, what is it about under-estimated talent you think that makes them gritty or that makes folks a better bet in business? Arlan: They're a great bet. We're a great bet. I think if you are someone who is underrepresented and underestimated, it doesn't seem weird or out there or strange to you to figure things out, to get yourself out of a bad situation, to get creative when you're facing for instance, like, the rent is due and you're like, "Okay, well, what can I do to make a couple extra hundred dollars that's legal and that is, you know, a little bit--" So can I use this other talent that I have? But in the world of Silicon Valley, if you think about that same story, one of the biggest stories that ever came out of Silicon Valley--and I remember reading about when it when I was homeless and just starting out. I read about Airbnb, and I read about these three guys who had this amazing idea to put a blow-up bed on a floor and charge people for a conference to come in and have bed and breakfast. And on top of that, when they were looking for money and they didn't have it, they created--because they were designers by trade--they created these cereal boxes that looked like Obama and John McCain, and they sold those, and they sold, like, $50,000 worth. And I remember reading that and people were losing their minds over how ingenious it was, how absolutely nothing--they had seen nothing like that, and I thought, "I've done that at least five times in a major way in the last 10 years of my adult life." Like, I've at least done it five times in a major way so I could avoid bankruptcy, avoid being on the street, avoid all these things, and I just think we as women, people of color, LGBTQ, disabled, I think we all have to, on a day-to-day basis, have to figure out a survival mode for ourselves because we are faced with so many things, whether they be big things that are easy to point out or the papercuts that I talk about, which is you get a papercut, you don't go around screaming about it, you know? But it hurts like hell. And it happens to you. It can happen to you and people don't necessarily believe it, but it's happening to you. It's this oppression that's given to us in papercuts, and so I just think because we're already built to figure things out--I mean, it's not like it's a great thing. I'm not happy that we have been so put into these corners where we have to find our way out, but we have. So that manifests itself in some really great ways sometimes. Sometimes it's negative. Sometimes we feel like we have to do things that are not okay, that are not legal, that are not moral, et cetera, et cetera, but more times than that, most of the time, you just see some really highly creative things. You ever met someone who gets in trouble a lot and you just say, "If they could just apply that to this other thing, they would save so much time and heartache, because they would probably be, like, the Hacker of the Year in Silicon Valley." That's how I feel about most people.Amy: Yeah, that's how I tell my kids. I'm like, "Use your powers for good. Stop getting into trouble."Arlan: Yeah, exactly.Amy: So one of the things about grit that you note in your book, you talk about hustle culture and how pervasive it is, and I know you've made some decisions now that--and I don't want to say that you're on the other side because I know there are always more places that you want to go and, you know, you're always wanting to take your work to the next level, but you've gotten to a place where you're not as hungry maybe as you were, you know, early on, and you're taking some time to evaluate your priorities and scale back some of your commitments and really focus on self-care, and I'm wondering, if you were talking to the you of the early days of Backstage Capital--which was only a few years ago--would you have the same advice of "Step back and, you know, let go of some of the hustle," or would you tell 5-Years-Ago-Arlan "No, keep going." You know, you don't--Arlan: Well, let me answer that. I don't know if I can answer that question exactly because I don't look at it that way. I do more today than I've ever done in my life when it comes to work, and that says a lot. What I tried to get across in the book and what I've tried to get across for the past year or so is that I'm not doing less, I'm working smarter. So I absolutely would tell the person five years ago and ten years ago to take better care of myself, for sure, and that's what I'm doing, but when it comes to the stakes, when it comes to the responsibility, the pressure, what's at stake here is the highest it's ever been, so I just don't know if I can answer that question as it was stated because I don't feel like I have kind of pulled back. What I've done is recalibrated and repurposed, and I've said instead of me knowing exactly how much a stack of paper from Office Depot costs us, I am going to spend that extra 7 minutes that I would have taken to learn that to put into a phone call with one of our portfolios. Maybe it's the 20th phone call of the week with a portfolio company, but it's one more that I may be able to make a right introduction or think about stuff. And I spend a lot of time thinking and strategizing. I've been doing that from very early on. I think it's important. I think it's part of our jobs as leaders to take a breath and strategize. So on one hand I absolutely feel like I'm doing the most, especially with even more going on now and a smaller team now, unfortunately, because of the coronavirus, but on the other hand I'm always gonna advocate for taking good care of yourself and looking at it from a bird's eye view and saying "What do I need to be doing, and what am I doing right now? And do they match?" And if they don't match, something's wrong. We have a mantra right now at my fund that I started just a few weeks ago when things got really scary. I said, "If it's stressful, we're doing it wrong," and that--you think about it and that's so simple, but that's helped us, like, make a lot of decisions. "Wait, is this stressful? 'Cause we have enough stress in our lives right now as a world and as a country. Are we gonna add stress that we don't need to?" So it's helped us to say no to certain phone calls and to a lot of responsibilities that we don't need to have on our plate right now.Amy: It probably also helps with how you allocate the work within your team. I think a lot of leaders struggle with that, to realize that just because they find a task odious or draining, there may be somebody on their team that, you know, they live for that kind of work.Arlan: Exactly, yeah, and it's an art, not a science, and it's something that I'm working on still, but I've gotten much better over time at delegating, and I think--you think as a leader you have to figure everything out and you have to be the smartest person, you have to lead your tribe into the fight. Hey, I mean, you're not--Ursula Burns, who used to be the CEO of Xerox, the first black woman to be at a Fortune 500 as a CEO. Worked her way up from secretary, I believe. She told me in a phone call last year when I was really stressed out--she yelled at me. I mean, she was not doing tough love. It was just tough. She said, "If you are the only person that's generating revenue for your whole team, you've effed it up. You are doing it wrong. Figure out a way that everybody pulls their own weight," and "You are doing a bad job." She said that to me. "You're doing a bad job if you're this stressed out. It's not something to be excited about and proud of. You're doing a bad job if you're this stressed out." So that just, like, slapped me around and I was like, "Wow, okay. On it." Amy: Yeah. That had to be hard to hear but very relieving at the same time.Arlan: Both, yeah. I just took it because I love the source, you know? I look at the source when people are giving me advice. If it's somebody who is anonymous online who's cussing me out and saying I'm doing a terrible job, I just don't give it any weight. If it's someone like what I just described to you, I give it some weight and I say, "Okay, let me think about why she said that to me and why she gave me her time to say it."Amy: That's very good advice. One of the points that you make in your book is that we all have the right to be in any room we want to be in, and that's a very difficult thing for some of us to internalize because we've been told our whole lives, you know, "Sit down. Be quiet. Be nice. Don't be pushy. Don't be aggressive." What's something for you that fortifies you before you walk into some of these really intimidating--what would be intimidating for most of us--rooms, right? How do you get yourself into the right mindset to walk in and own that room?Arlan: I do two things. One is I think about the people that, like, being successful in the room would positively affect. I make it more about them than me. Once I do that, that's a really great way to walk into a room. The best way of ever--like, I have learned over almost 40 years--this is it, this is the secret right here... you have to be okay with the outcome that you don't win the negotiation. So if you have something that you're going in for that's really, really something that you want really badly, if you tell yourself--and I do this all the time--if you say to yourself, "Okay, it's okay if I don't get this. It's truly okay. I'll have a backup plan. I'll have some other thing I'll do. It's okay if they say no." You've completely taken control of the situation. So you go in caring. You go in trying, but you also go in where their no doesn't knock you to your knees, and there's something about that in a negotiation where I've been able to talk to millionaires and billionaires and get what I want because what I want because I'm okay with "losing," quote-unquote, the deal. Amy: Fabulous. And if you can do that with the number of zeroes after the deals that you're looking at, the rest of us can probably do it with the number of zeroes in the deals that we're looking at, right? [laughs]Arlan: Yeah, it's powerful. It's very powerful.Amy: It is. Arlan Hamilton, author of "It's About Damn Time" and venture capitalist and just Twitter queen, thank you so much. This interview will just be the highlight of my podcasting career. I have so enjoyed talking to you. Arlan: Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. You're very good at it, and I appreciate you, and I hope that your listeners will pick up the hard cover at ItsAboutDamnTime.com. You can pick up the audio, which I read, or the e-book. Whichever, whatever tickles your fancy. It's all there.Amy: Get them all, because you're gonna want that audio-book in the car on the way to the negotiation, and you're gonna want the hard cover by the bed so you can read from it at night and get it into your subconscious before you go to sleep, and you're gonna want it on your Kindle too because that's where you can highlight everything and go find your notes later.Arlan: Well, there you go. You're hired. [laughs]Amy: All right, sounds good. [laughs] Thanks, Arlan, so much, and congratulations on your launch. This is huge.Arlan: Thank you so much. Appreciate you.

Zach welcomes Dr. Brian Williams back to the platform on this special Saturday show themed around equity and COVID-19. He graciously shares his perspective on the reality of young black and brown folks continuing to be susceptible to this disease and discusses several sobering statistics that illustrate clear long-standing inequity.Connect with Dr. Williams via LinkedIn or Twitter, and check out his personal website by clicking here.Read his Chicago Tribune op-ed titled "COVID-19 and gun violence are devastating black Chicagoans".Interested in his podcast Race, Violence & Medicine? Follow this link to listen on a variety of platforms.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and man, you know, I know that this is just a really unique time--extraordinary times, strange, different times, and, you know, we want to make sure that, you know, typically you know that we post evergreen content, right? Like, we're typically talking about navigating the workplace, but if you've looked around you would know that the workplace has been irreparably changed, right? And every day, like, we're dealing with something new and shifting because of this pandemic, and we would be remiss if we did not continue to try to talk about it more directly. And so with that being said, I'm really excited because we actually have Dr. Williams back on the show. Dr. Williams, how are you doing?Dr. Williams: I'm doing well, Zach. Thanks for having me back on the show again. Always a pleasure.Zach: First of all, you know, the pleasure is ours and the honor is ours. Really thankful and excited that you're here. You know, a lot has changed, right, since the last time that you were on the platform, since you were on Living Corporate. First of all I just want to check in with you. How are you doing?Dr. Williams: I'm doing--I'm doing well, you know? It's a busy team. It's an [exciting?] time for health care and for society. I'm sure people are very well aware of the challenges within the health care community right now dealing with the coronavirus, particularly in some hot spots currently, like New York City, Washington state, Louisiana. But where I'm at in Chicago we are certainly seeing an influx of patients, but we are within our capacity still, and more importantly the morale is still high amongst those of us on the front lines. So that especially inspires me every day, to know that, you know, even though [?] fear conditions, we are still in this together and morale is still high.Zach: You know, it's scary, because I remember when the news first came out, right, it was almost presented like, "Hey, this is gonna be something that really primarily just seriously impacts older--" I mean, like, senior citizens in this country, and frankly older senior citizens, right, and then as data continued to come in we started seeing young--like, first of all, more folks were falling victim to this disease than was initially reported and that the victims of this disease continued to get younger and younger AND that black and brown folks are more at risk to not only catch but die from this disease, and so--you know, you and I have had conversations before, last time you were on this podcast and then also of course offline, we've talked about healthcare inequity, and I'm curious to know and get your perspective on that, on the reality of black and brown folks, young black and brown folks, continuing to be susceptible to this disease.Dr. Williams: Yeah, Zach. What you just said--I'm listening to you talk, and, you know, it seems like a lifetime ago when all that was happening, when they said--you know, I use "they" in air quotes--that it was just gonna be elderly people and sick people that were dying from this disease. There's been so much that has happened in just the past few months that I had forgotten that's where we began, when coronavirus--you know, we talked about it hitting the U.S. shores. So, you know, I'm going back through my--you know, rewinding the tape in my head about this evolution, and I remember that. Even someone like me, who works in health care and has training and, you know, a specialized skill set, reviewing information that was coming out of Italy and Spain and China to be prepared for it coming to the U.S., and I remember that narrative that it was elderly people, that it was people who had pre-existing conditions, and in the US what we're finding out--just within the past couple of weeks really--is the profound impact it is having on black communities across the country, and intuitively I knew that black Americans would suffer from this disease. What I found distressing was when the numbers started coming out of certain locations. Louisiana reported a death rate of--70% of the deaths from coronavirus were black Americans. In my city of Chicago, despite representing 30% of the population, [70%?] of the deaths were black Americans. Where else? I think Milwaukee had a 70% death rate as well, Michigan. So all of these places were showing, like, [?] the general population, black Americans were overrepresented in the deaths from coronavirus, but until that point, if you didn't know that or weren't looking at that, you would have thought that the face of the disease was not black. People who were getting infected and dying were not black. The people in health care who were on the front lines and caring for these patients were not black. But I still--I knew better. You know, I'm sure [?]. I'm like, "Look, black people are getting affected also. Black folks are dying. In fact, they're dying at a rate that exceeds the general population, and there are black health care workers in this fight as well," and that did not--I feel did not become a part of the wider narrative [?] a few weeks ago. Now the question is why is that? For me the answer is obvious, right, that we've had this systemic inequity that is long-standing, and it is so strongly rooted into our society that of course when there is a crisis that happens individuals already living on the margins are going to suffer greatly, and in this country black Americans are represented in that group that are living on the margins in so many different ways. Health care, education, income inequality, and the list goes on and on, but they're all intersecting right now with the coronavirus because it has impacted so many sectors of society. So now with this crisis we have so many sick black Americans and so many that are dying. We can't not look at ourselves in the mirror as a country and say, "What are we going to do next?" Not say "Why is this happening?" Because we know why, right? We've known this for a long time. What are we going to do with this opportunity to close the gaps in our society that are allowing so many black Americans to suffer right now during this pandemic? And that's what really keeps me awake at night, is "Okay, post-pandemic, what can I do to help close those gaps to ensure this doesn't happen again? I recognize I'm a doctor, I'm treating patients, but I'm looking beyond that. I'm like, "Okay, I've got to take my experience and expertise to do something that impacts larger populations in a positive way so we stop having to have this discussion every time that there is a national or even, you know, regional crisis that impacts large populations of Americans."Zach: You know, it's heartbreaking too. Like you were just talking about, those death rates being that high, and I'm reminded of your op-ed and just the fact that, like you said, there's a 70% death rate in Chicago as well as in New Orleans and Milwaukee as well. Like, in these areas we're just overrepresented when it comes to those who have fallen victim to this virus, and I'm curious to know, what thoughts do you have or points of advice today do you have for black and brown folks, especially black--I mean, this impacts black and brown folks at work too, right? Like, in fact, the black and brown folks who are susceptible to--[?] the folks who are considered essential workers who don't have the privilege to stay at home, but I can also say that I have colleagues and friends who have caught coronavirus and none of them have passed away, so thank God for that, but, you know, who have gotten these symptoms, and they're on the mend, but I would imagine a lot of these companies, even for some of the companies for folks that are allowing some of their employees to work at home, I would imagine that those statistics aren't exclusive to the folks who are having to go outside, right? Like, I would imagine that there are companies if when they--when all this is said and done and companies look at their employees who caught coronavirus, that they're gonna see that that data, that trend, continues, even within their respective companies. I'm curious to know what advice do you have for black and brown employees to continue to make sure that they stay safe?Dr. Williams: Well, the first thing is--regarding the statistics that we have, let's pause, 'cause you said some things there that I think are very important to [tease?] out. You mentioned--some of the statistics you mentioned were in regards to cities and some were about states. So what we do not have is comprehensive, national demographic data about what is happening with coronavirus. Is Chicago representative of the state of Illinois? We do not know. You know, you mentioned Louisiana, but we actually have the entire state of Louisiana. They reported their state-wide number. Is New York City representative of New York state? We do not know. We can make some assumptions, but really, as scientists, we want to be driven by the science. We want to be driven by the numbers that we can point to and say, "Yes, this is what's happening." So we do not have that data. Secondly, the data we do have is based upon inadequate testing, right? We do not have enough tests to test segments of the population that we want to test. So where you are in Dallas, I think the last--I saw that they're testing 1,000 people a day [?]. So I mean, we're in a country of 355 million people. So we're just, you know, barely scratching the surface of who we can test. So we can not really know who out there is infected with coronavirus. We do not have comprehensive data about who has died from coronavirus. You know, many people have died from coronavirus who we didn't even know they had coronavirus. We just had a story coming out of California that they've identified their first coronavirus death, and it was a couple weeks earlier than what they thought. So those numbers that we keep talking about, we have to get better comprehensive national data. So you have [?] actually happening now. You talked about things we can do. There are short-term goals and then there are long-term goals. So in the short-term, it is "What can we do to protect public health in the midst of this crisis and save as many lives as possible?" From a public health standpoint, which will in turn have an economic impact. What can we do about that? And you got to start with having the information we as health care workers and public health experts can use to deploy our resources in the most efficient manner, to ensure that we can provide the greatest number of goods to the greatest number of patients, to ensure that we can minimize the death toll from this disease. That's short-term. Like, we're in it right now. [?] we can deploy resources to win the current battle. In the long-term, it's taking that same information, taking our results and the things we did, and learning from our experience and moving forward and saying, "Okay, what are we going to do now with what we've learned to close these gaps in society or address these inquities that fueled this impact on communities of color," you know? Black Americans, brown Americans, and, you know, Native Americans as well. There's some data trickling out right now about the impact on Native Americans. And I don't pretend to be the expert on all marginalized communities as far as individual suffering. I don't compare and contrast, but the reality is that we are all united by this virus. It has shown that it has zero respect for your race, your ethnicity, your social status. We've had heads of state that have been infected. We've had homeless people who were infected. It doesn't care what county you live in, what state. I mean, it is impacting everyone in some way, directly or indirectly. So we can [?]--look, we are all more alike than we are different in many ways, and we can come together to ensure that even our most vulnerable people can weather a crisis like this. There's no reason why we cannot do that. I feel we have the resources in the country, but also it's a moral imperative for us to manifest all these ideals that are professed in the U.S. Constitution about life and liberty, you know? So let's look at this crisis and say, "Yes, this is a horrible time. We got here due to policies that were intentional about marginalizing and separating communities of color. Let's rework our society to be inclusive of everyone, because it impacts everyone in some form," like I said, directly or indirectly.Zach: Dr. Williams, you know it's always a pleasure to have you on. You know, before I let you go, I just want to thank you.Dr. Williams: That was it? [?] I'm just getting worked up! [both laugh]Zach: No, listen. I know that you're running, and I want to respect your time. I want to respect all of the effort and hard work that you're doing, you and all of the health care workers are doing, day in and day out to make sure that we stay safe, you know, every day. You know, I'm reading in the news--we're all seeing in the news about health care workers, physicians, nurses, talking about losing their patients or just the 12-hour shifts that they've been running and just being just completely exhausted, and so I don't take it lightly that you took the time to be on Living Corporate. You know, I personally--I pray for you, that you continue to stay safe, and I just want to thank you again. Thank you so much.Dr. Williams: Zach, it was a pleasure being on, and I'm always happy to come back any time you want me. And I appreciate the prayers and the well wishes. Yes, we are. We are tired, but rest assured that--at least where I'm at--the morale is still high. People are working together. We're all committed to serving humanity for the [rest?] of this crisis, and we appreciate the accolades.Zach: Awesome. Well, look, we're gonna catch you soon. Let's make sure that--I definitely want to have you back. Let's see if maybe we can do a post-check, you know, a little bit later as we continue, but, you know, you're our resident--you're our resident on a lot of things, but we need you.Dr. Williams: Can I tell your folks where to reach me?Zach: Yeah.Dr. Williams: If they want, they can--I'm most active on Twitter @BHWilliamsMD, but you can also go to my website BrianWilliamsMD.com, and that has email and all that, social media tags, but I'm happy to interact with anybody.Zach: That's awesome. So what we're gonna make sure to do is we're gonna put your latest op-ed in the Chicago Tribune talking about systemic health care inequity in Chicago. We're gonna make sure to put your email and your social media handle and all of the information in the show notes, and we'll catch you next time.Dr. Williams: Perfect. All right, Zach. Stay safe. This is far from over. Good luck to you and your family.Zach: Yes, sir. Thank you. Same to you. Bye-bye.Dr. Williams: Bye.

On the sixty-third entry of Tristan's Tips, our amazing host Tristan Layfield talks to us about what to do if we get laid off. Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, over 26.5 million Americans have filed for unemployment. We are seeing numbers that we haven't seen since the Great Depression. Losing your job is never an easy thing to go through, but remember that there is nothing to be ashamed about. This is only a small part of your story and it won't last forever!Connect with Tristan on LinkedIn, IG, FB, and Twitter.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTTristan: What's going on, Living Corporate?! It's Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting, and I'm back to bring you another career tip. This week I want to talk to you about what to do if you get laid off.Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic over 26.5 million Americans have filed for unemployment. We are seeing numbers that we haven't seen since the Great Depression. To some degree, we all knew that companies could eliminate our positions, but this has become a reality for far too many people who didn't expect it. So let's discuss the steps you should take if you have been or get laid off.First, grieve and take a moment to deal with your emotions. We're human; we're going to feel some type of way after we've been laid off. If you don't take some time to feel your feels, they will come back to bite you at some point.Second, file for unemployment and deal with your finances. Some people may cringe at this, but in times like these, we have to let go of our egos and do what's best to keep us on our feet. Though it's not a full paycheck, it will help you keep some money in your account while you search for the next opportunity. Plus right now in the US, you will get an extra $600 per week in unemployment due to the pandemic. Also, be sure to take a look at your bills to see what you can but back on like different subscription services. When it comes to utilities and other bills, make sure to call companies because many of them are waiving or delaying payments with no penalty at this time.Third, do some market reach to understand what companies are hiring and what type of roles are out there. I know it may not seem like it, but there are still tons of employers who need the talent and skillsets you will bring to the table. This will also help you figure out what next step you might want to make in your career. Doing this research upfront will help you with some of the other tasks as well.Next, update your resume and LinkedIn. Really focus on your transferrable skillsets that relate to the roles you identified in the step before. Also, be sure to highlight your ability to leverage and adapt to new technology as this is something most companies are contending with right now. On your LinkedIn profile, be sure to turn on the job-seeking settings including "Open for New Opportunities." This can help you be seen by recruiters and hiring managers on the platform.Then I'd suggest you start building your network. Of course, you want to do this virtually now utilizing LinkedIn, email, Zoom, and other tools. But this step is essential. Even though more companies will be turning to their job postings to help fill roles, those will be very competitive and we know that referrals are the most proven way to land a role. Do some research and target people one to two levels above where you want to go because they're going to be the decision-makers. Make sure while you're cultivating these relationships that you stay focused on where you can provide value to the person that you want to help you.After that, start acquiring new skills. Once we get on the other side of this pandemic, there will be an influx of new opportunities. Prepare yourself by taking some online courses or certifications so you can ensure you will be considered as a highly qualified candidate.Lastly, try your hardest to maintain a positive mindset and attitude. I know it's easier said than done, but stress and anxiety not only have a negative effect on your health but also your job search. So make sure you're taking care of yourself and doing things that bring you joy. Reach out and talk to someone. And remember to be patient with yourself and the process.Losing your job is never an easy thing to go through, but remember that there is nothing to be ashamed about. This is only a small part of your story and it won't last forever.This tip was brought to you by Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting. Check us out on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @LayfieldResume or connect with me, Tristan Layfield, on LinkedIn.

Zach sits down to chat with Dr. Richard Orbé-Austin, a psychologist and a partner of Dynamic Transitions Psychological Consulting, LLP, about the psychology of impostor syndrome. Dr. Orbé-Austin breaks down the concept of impostor syndrome itself and talks a bit about how gaslighting can tie into and even exacerbate it. He also shares several practical ways impostor syndrome manifests in the workplace. Listen to the full show to learn a handful of methods to combat it on a personal level.Connect with Dr. Orbé-Austin on LinkedIn and Twitter.Check out DTPC's website by clicking here.Follow DTPC on social media. They're on LinkedIn and Facebook.Interested in Lisa and Richard's book? Find out more about it on Amazon.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and look, man, you know what it is. And I always start with "Look, man, you know what it is," and I apologize for being gendered in my introduction, so let me start over. What's up, y'all? Y'all know what it is. It's Zach with Living Corporate, and we have real talk with real people in a corporate world, and this real talk is doing what? Centering and amplifying underrepresented voices at work, and man, we have a great guest. We have a great guest, really excited to have Dr. Richard Orbe-Austin. Now, is that right? Is it Orbe?Dr. Orbé-Austin: Yes. Yes, like sorbet.Zach: Aye. Haha. "Smooth Like Sorbet" Orbe, what's up? Bars. Dr. Orbe-Austin is a psychologist--I don't know why I started off like that. Dr. Richard Orbé-Austin is a psychologist and a partner of Dynamic Transitions Psychological Consulting, a career and executive coaching consultancy in New York City. Dr. Orbé-Austin has worked in the field of career and executive coaching for over 15 years, and was the founding director of NYU’s Graduate Student Career Development Center. In this capacity, he developed the strategic vision and led a team responsible for managing the career needs of over 14,000 graduate students in over 100 different disciplines. Prior to his tenure at NYU, Dr. Orbé-Austin served in a variety of leadership roles, including as the chief diversity officer at Baruch College-City University of New York and as president of the NY Association of Black Psychologists. Okay, so he's certified. Again, see, people come on this--you know what I'm saying, people, you know, will subversely kind of ask me, like, "Well, who do you even have on your podcast?" Y'all be trying to talk to me--you know, it's really a function of colonialist white supremacy, but we ain't gonna talk about it right now, how y'all try to come and challenge the credos of this show, but, you know what I'm saying, we have real ones over here, so don't test us, okay? Do not test us, mess around and, you know what I'm saying, pull your card. Don't play. [ow sfx] Dr. Orbé-Austin’s opinions and writings have appeared in a variety of publications, including Forbes, Fast Company, Diversity Executive, and ThriveGlobal. He earned his PhD in counseling psychology from Fordham University’s Graduate School of Education and his BA in psychology from NYU. His book, Own Your Greatness: Overcome Impostor Syndrome, Beat Self-Doubt, and Succeed in Life, published by Ulysses Press [and] co-authored by his partner Dr. Lisa Orbe-Austin, will be released in April 2020. The goal of this book is to provide a systematic way to eradicate impostor syndrome and help readers find their power so they can utilize it for their own goals and lead a more balanced life. What a bio. I feel like I gotta drop some air horns just for the fact that that was very, very dense and all very substantive and impressive. What's up? Come on. Drop 'em right here. [Flex bomb, then air horn sfx] Come on, let's go. How are you doing, Dr. Austin? Dr. Orbe-Austin, excuse me.Dr. Orbé-Austin: I am wonderful, Zach. It's a pleasure to meet with you and your wonderful audience, so I'm thrilled to be chatting with you today.Zach: Now, look, I don't want to spill too much tea, but I know your cousin, right, and his name is not Orbe-Austin, it's just Austin. Can you talk a little bit about the last name?Dr. Orbé-Austin: So yes, I want to always tell the story about--any time my wife and I go and present anywhere and we introduce ourselves people kind of give a look, and then I have to start by saying, "Look, just to get it out of the way, we're not brother and sister. We're actually husband and wife." So when we got married I actually took my wife's name. So her name was Lisa Orbe and my name was Richard Austin, and as we joined our families we joined our names. And so I think it's not traditional, I think, for a lot of people in society to see a man do that, so I think it throws people off, so I'm always kind of thrilled to talk about, you know, equity and equality and really being able to join families in that way.Zach: You know what? And shout-out to you, you knwo what I mean? Because, you know, you're rejecting patriarchy one bold move at a time. It's interesting how we normalize the idea that women's last names are just erased, you know what I mean? You know, it's not really cool, you knwo what I'm saying? Now, look, did my wife take my last name? Yes, okay? Would I hyphenate? Probably not because I'm not really that strong. I'm pretty insecure as a man, you know what I'm saying? But look, it takes a real man to, you know, admit that. Because it's funny, you know, I can come on this podcast and I can talk about rejecting patriarchal systems and all these kinds of things, but then if you ask me, you know, to supplant any privilege that I may have, I'm over here like, [hold on a minute there playa sfx]. You know, wait a second. We ain't gonna just--you know, I'm not giving up. Nah, but all jokes aside, that's awesome. I love that, and I was very curious about it from the beginning, and yes, definitely shout-out to Mrs. Orbe-Austin, your partner in crime and business and life, what's up? Let's talk about your journey though and why you got into psychology. Like, what was the path there?Dr. Orbé-Austin: The first reason I got into psychology is a pretty simplistic notion of psychology. So about eighth grade I always remember developing this advice column for my classmates called Ask Dr. Rich. So at the time I thought being a psychologist meant telling people what to do, and so, you know, as an eighth-grader with all the knowledge that I had at that time--Zach: All the answers.Dr. Orbé-Austin: Right, so why not, you know, do that? So I really enjoyed being able--and, you know, at that time it was usually relationship issues that people were writing in about, and I had my little column, and again, not that I had that great of experience in relationships, but I felt like I could provide something enough for people to seek my assistance. And then as I got a better understanding of what it meant to be a psychologist I came to realize that I could make a contribution down that path in terms of really being able to help people be their best selves. And so the background that I typically give is I'm a son of Haitian immigrants, so that automatically means that I was destined to be a medical doctor, right? [laughs] So for a long time I thought I was gonna be a psychiatrist, right, 'cause that fills both the medical doctor side and then my desire to work on behavior. Thankfully enough my sister became a pediatrician, my oldest sister, so I think she gave me some room to navigate and negotiate the reality that "Hm, maybe I'm not actually gonna go down that path of medicine but continue to pursue my dream of going into psychology." And so through college I was pre-med. I thought I was going down that path. I [?] all the things to really shape the direction of going into medical school, but then I began to know and understand when I took an internship after my junior year at Columbia University and I had the good fortune to work with a black male psychologist, who at the time to me was, like, a unicorn. So I had never actually met a psychologist in person, let alone a black male psychologist, and began to really know and understand that 1. it's possible to go down that route, 2. that I would have mentorship to really be able to know and understand how to navigate that path and negotiate it. So I had to have that hard conversation one day with my parents that I was not going to pursue medicine, but I was still gonna be a doctor, and it was just going to be a psychologist. So ultimately that's the path I took. I pursued, you know, my counseling psychology degree and really along the way understood that that was the best fit for me.Zach: Can we talk a little bit about--so you talked about it, you know, that seeing yourself represented is what then gave you the gumption to then pursue it yourself, but can we talk a little bit more about black representation in mental health and, recognizing that you are a child of immigrants, Haitian immigrants, but I'm curious about what have you seen in your presence as a black man make with your black and brown patients and students in perspective or hopeful psychologists and psychiatrists?Dr. Orbé-Austin: One of the particular missions that I've always had is to really increase the representation of black mental health practitioners, I'll say, in general in the field. So when we look at the numbers right now they're abysmal. Less than 4% of psychologists are black, and I'd say less than 2% of psychologists are black males. And it's typically across the board you see those similar numbers in psychiatry and social work, so the people that tend to engage clinically with our folks are not the people that look like them, right? And so over 86% for instance of psychologists in the U.S. are white. So what I was able to know and recognize as I said before 1. is to be able to see individuals who look like me pursuing the same profession as I wanted to pursue was very inspirational to me, but they also were able to provide me guidance and a home to talk about some of the challenges of being the only one in a lot of these spaces. So when I started my doctorate program I was the only black male there. I often times was primarily the only male in a lot of these rooms, and so, you know, the running joke in my program is that they would have one black male, like, every four, five years, and so I would meet--you know, I met the person who came on before me who was the black male for that time, and subsequently I knew I needed to join organizations and connect with professionals in the field, so I was able to be exposed to the Association of Black Psychologists very early on in my career, so I felt like I had an opportunity to engage with other folks doing this work. And then I saw it full center when I was able to do some of my training. One of the stories that I always talk about when we talk about things coming full circle as a child of Haitian immigrants, I had an opportunity to do an internship at King's County Hospital out in Brooklyn, New York, and I had the opportunity to actually work with this Haitian psychiatrist who had created a special clinic for Haitian patients, Haitian-American patients, and one of the things that he did as a psychiatrist primarily was to provide medication, but he recognized that a lot of these folks needed some more support, and so he was able to collaborate with me to start, like, a psychology clinic where I would do therapy with some of these folks, and the fact that I could speak their language, the fact that I knew their culture, the fact that, again, I looked like them, I think was so helpful in 1. helping them to not be afraid of the journey that they were taking through the mental health landscape, and then 2. it really enabled them to feel like they were being heard, understood, respected, and seen in ways that they probably may have never felt that they had been seen before, especially as many of them had recently immigrated to the U.S. and were trying to find their way.Zach: And so, you know, it's interesting to your earliest point around, like, the representation in the space being abysmal, like, it's challenging too, like, as someone who has, at various points in their life, like, pursued psychiatry or therapy or, like, just talking to somebody, right, it's not only, like, finding somebody, but, like, that small pool then limits some of the flexibility that I've heard my white counterparts have where it's like, "Okay, I have this psychiatrist, but we don't really click, so I'm gonna go and try to find somebody else, right?" Like, they'll shop around. Like, for me, you know, it's kind of like, "Well, dang. I mean, he and I don't really vibe on this level," or "She and I don't really agree about this," or whatever the case may be, but "She looks at me, and she at least empathizes with the bulk reality of my experience. So don't let me be picky. I'm just gonna stay here."Dr. Orbé-Austin: Yeah, and it becomes a challenge, especially when folks reach out to me and say that they're looking for some level of support and they say, "Hey, I want an African-American therapist." And typically, you know, I do say to shop around to find a fit, right? And so I want to give them as many options as possible. I end up being able to give, hopefully on the better end, three to four options, and then if they go to the first one and they feel like, "Okay, there's not a connection there," they may or may not actually then move forward on it, right? So I know that by the time someone gets to a point of really wanting to go to therapy, it's a major step for them to make that call, right? And so I always want to honor that and honor that, you know, effort to really make sure that they link with someone as soon as possible, and someone that they can vibe with, right? 'Cause yes, someone can look like you, but if you don't feel comfortable enough to be open and vulnerable to them, then it's just not gonna work, right? So that's the thing that I talk about, 'cause, you know, we can all feel like, "Hey, you know, they look like us," but if we don't connect, whether it's a co-worker or, you know, other person, we're like, "Yeah, they're black, but, you know, I'm not really feeling 'em in that way."Zach: All skinfolk ain't kinfolk.Dr. Orbé-Austin: Right? So it is a dilemma in helping people to feel like they have options and, you know, it's all right to kind of go to one or two to get the best fit.Zach: So you're a black man. You are in a highly--like, a very white academic space, and I'm really curious about what--like, what do micro-aggressions and just straight on aggressions look like for you, right? And I'm looking at your profile picture. I would imagine, you know, you're not catfishing anybody. You probably look a lot like your profile picture. So you look--like, you present... you don't present, like, a child, but you don't, like, present a very old man. Like, you present moderately young, right? And so I'm really curious as to, like, what does it look like just being you in these spaces, and, like, what do micro-aggressions look like, what do actual aggressions look like, how do you navigate that? What are some maybe patterns of behavior that you see operating as who you are in these spaces?Dr. Orbé-Austin: Sure. So I'm glad that you raised my picture, right, and how young I look. I appreciate the compliment. [both laugh] But that was one of the big ones, right, when I started out in either doing clinical work or in teaching - for a while I used to teach at the collegiate level, and I would get always, "Well, you look really young to be a professor," or "You look really young to be a therapist," right? And sure, on one hand it could be about age, but I think after a while if you still keep getting that same thing--and my white colleagues who were just as young as me were not getting that--then it made me begin to think about, "Well, what does that necessarily mean in terms of credibility, being authentic? How do I then recognize how to be seen for who I am?" So that was one, and then the other piece of it, you know, often times that would come up is the typical "Wow, you're very articulate," right? Whether it's, you know, giving a speech to a group of faculty members, whether it's, you know, being able to do a case presentation at a [?] conference. So often times there would be these underlying micro-aggressions that were really racially and, you know, gender-based. So if, for instance, you know, sometimes people would say, "Oh, you know, don't dress in a particular manner because, you know, it might be intimidating to the students. Just dress down," right? So for me it's like--you know, I wear a suit to work, right? That's my style. But to be told--I'll never forget this--to be told by a supervisor, "Well, you know, like, you may not want to do that. It might just be intimidating," and again, in that moment I didn't necessarily feel like, "Oh, okay. Well, this is clearly a micro-aggression," and that's the nature of micro-aggressions, right? That in the moment it kind of catches you a little off-guard. It's not so direct, but then when you sit and think about it for a little bit, then you recognize that, "Okay, my white male colleague wears a suit and a tie every day and is a little older than me, and I'm not imagining, you know, he was told the same thing," right? So it's managing and navigating that path. And then on the other path, you know, some of the work that I do as a consultant going into these different spaces, corporate spaces or, you know, academic institutions and people being surprised, right, they may not necessarily see my picture. They may have a conversation with me, but then when I show up in the room, you know, you get that sense of "Oh." You know, my name sounds a little bit generic, you know, especially when it was Richard Austin, right? So sometimes they're not expecting me to show up as the person that I am, and so they do a little double-take, right, and then they catch themselves, right? And so I get that, right? But now I've always said, to be quite honest, that my PhD has provided me access to many spaces that I otherwise wouldn't have had because of who I am, right? That those three little letters enable me to step into rooms that otherwise I'd be shut out of, and when I'm in those rooms I can then [?] my power, even though there is some level of pushback against it.Zach: And so, you know, it's interesting, 'cause I've spoken with folks--we have some mutual connections, and some of them also have, like, some really prestigious degrees, and so the conversation that I'll have with some of those folks is something like, you know, "My education and my profile can, like, preemptively trigger fragility and insecurity with my peers because they see the additional letters after my name," but I'm curious, like, have you ever experienced that yourself, or do you think that that's a bit more masked because of the fact that you're in, like, more formal academic spaces?Dr. Orbé-Austin: Well, not always am I in these spaces, right? So for instance, one of the types of consulting I do is diversity, equity and inclusion work, and in those spaces, particularly when I'm in corporate rooms where, yes, they can get that, you know, I have those three letters, but there is pushback, you know, against some of the things that I may have to offer, I think, because of, you know, who I am and what I may represent, right? And so we, you know, go into some of these spaces knowing that people might talk about wanting to do the work, but when it's time to do the work and when the work that's being guided by a black male is not what you want, then there can be a particular level of backlash or, you know, aggressive pushback that needs to be navigated and negotiated. Zach: And so then, you know, I think that leads us well into--you know what? No, I'ma pause on this actually, because, like, we have not formally talked about this on the podcast, but I think it leads well into, like, the main topic that we're gonna get into today, which is impostor syndrome. Can we talk a little bit about, like, gaslighting, and, like, what that is? And then perhaps how gaslighting can tie into impostor syndrome or exacerbating impostor syndrome.Dr. Orbé-Austin: Mm-hmm, yeah. I mean, I think that that's a great segue, because when we talk about gaslighting, in essence it's trying to convince you that what you're experiencing, seeing, listening to, is not your experience, right? That if someone makes a clearly racist, sexist, homophobic comment, clearly has done something offensive and they say to you, "Well, you know, you're reading too much into that," right? Or, you know, "I don't really understand how you came to that conclusion," right? And in the workspace, again, it's very difficult, especially one if there's a power disparity, right? Like, if the person doing the gaslighting is a supervisor or a senior peer, it's difficult to feel confident and comfortable enough to push back. And then two it's ultimately hard to then feel like you can win, right? Because if someone is in their particular stance, it's very difficult to argue with unless you have, you know, video recordings and you play it back and you're like, "Yeah," because they can say, "Well, I don't remember saying that," or "No, that's not what I said," right, and then you're left to kind of say, "No, this is my experience. This is what I heard," and if you don't have the "data," so to speak, they may just dismiss it, right? Say that you're just being sensitive or you're playing the race card or you're doing this, and then you're left totally powerless to really be able to make your argument stick.Zach: Or situations where they say, "Well, you know," to the point around race cards, like, "Maybe it's the fact that you're just not good enough, and so now you're leaning back on this as an excuse." Dr. Orbé-Austin: Mm-hmm, yeah.Zach: Well, let's talk about this. Let's talk about the concept of impostor syndrome. Like, in Season 1, it was, like, one of our first episodes actually, we were talking about impostor syndrome, but we really didn't get into, like, the science of it. We more so talked about, like, believing in yourself and, you know, knowing who you are and not trying to be fake, right, being authentic, but we didn't get into the neuroscience and, like, the genuine psychology of impostor syndrome and how it relates specifically to black and brown people. Can we talk a little bit just about what impostor syndrome is as a concept and how you would define it medically?Dr. Orbé-Austin: Sure. So first off I will say that impostor syndrome is not a diagnosable disorder, right? So it was first coined by two psychologists, Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, in actually 1978, and at the time they were studying very successful female students and faculty members at an academic institution, and what they noticed was that these women, who seemingly were high achievers, did not feel as such, right? They felt that they were frauds. They felt that they were going to be exposed as not smart enough, not good enough. They, again, thought that they were impostors, so they coined that term to really speak about this phenomenon when people have difficulty internalizing their accomplishments, their skills and their experiences. They're constantly in fear of being exposed as a fraud, and as a result of that they tend to overwork to compensate for their perceived lack of ability. So when we talk about impostor syndrome, it's really that experience that someone may have that isn't necessarily a medical or mental health, you know, disorder, but it tends to be something that impacts people who, again, 70% of the population have talked about experiencing impostor feelings, and so it often though impacts people who are high achievers, because that level of success they do not attribute to their own smarts or intelligence. They attribute it to luck. They attribute it to, you know, key relationships, and so they're constantly haunted by this feeling of being a fraud.Zach: And so then, you know, what are some practical ways that impostor syndrome shows up at work?Dr. Orbé-Austin: So when we talk about impostor syndrome in general, we can talk about the fact that a lot of what we call impostor-triggering workplaces exist nowadays where in people are always feeling like they need to prove themselves over and over again, that they're never good enough, and when we talk about black and brown folks especially, they have a double burden to bear. So on the external end they're actually dealing with lies and discrimination and people and systems that are telling them that they're not good enough, that they don't belong, that somehow or another they did not earn their spot, and then they're dealing with their own internal voices that also tell them that and make them feel like, "All right, well, maybe I shouldn't be here. Maybe they are right. Maybe I was lucky. Maybe they made a mistake," and it leaves you then feeling like you don't necessarily deserve more. So at work it means you might not ask for a raise. You might not take on a key project because you fear that you'll finally be exposed if you take up that key project, which could actually give you more visibility and access, but you're concerned that it will be a house of cards and you'll finally be found out. It makes you feel often times stuck in trying to really look for a better position, either within or outside the organization, because again of this notion of "Well, I'm just lucky to be here. I shouldn't ask for too much." And it comes up when your boss or peers will say to you, "Oh, well, you made a mistake on that one thing," or "Oh, that didn't go that well," or you beat yourself up as well, because one of the key elements that goes hand in hand with impostor syndrome is perfectionism, right? Because if you feel that the only way you deserve to be anywhere is to be perfect and to overwork to strive for that perfection, then you can work yourself to the levels of burnout, and if you make any simple mistake you will beat yourself up over it and not allow yourself to really grow, learn from it and move forward.Zach: And so then what are ways that you think that organizations--'cause you talked about organizations that exacerbate impostor syndrome, right? What do you think are some ways that organizations exacerbate impostor syndrome for everybody, and then what are ways that you believe that organizations exacerbate impostor syndrome particularly for black and brown folks?Dr. Orbé-Austin: Sure. So I talk about some of the triggers in today's work culture. One of them is this notion of performance, right? When I talk to [?] organizations and ask them what their performance is and some of them will give me blank looks or they'll report back that "Oh, you know, it changes, and, you know, it's constantly shifting." If people don't have an understanding of what good performance is, right, like, what they're striving to do, then they'll feel like they're not hitting their targets and they feel, again, that they have to keep proving themselves. And so on the organization's end they may feel like "Well, that's great 'cause it's gonna drive productivity," right? But ultimately it may drive people out of the organization. It may drive people to burnout, as seen through absenteeism, as seen through, you know, different ways of not necessarily being at the level of production that people want. So the first thing I tell organizations to do is to really make sure that you have a legitimate performance process, typically not just once a year, because again, if someone doesn't know either that she's doing well or that there's room for improvement, she's just gonna keep working working working until burnout, right? So that's the first way that organizations can really address and reduce impostor syndrome. The other thing is the manager is one of the key people to deliver the message for the organization. So, you know, management needs to be trained to know and understand how to provide appropriate feedback. So you have some managers who feel like "Well, I don't give praise at all. I don't give positive feedback because people don't really deserve it. They'd have to do something great, and no one really does anything great. You know, by me giving negative feedback, it helps them to keep moving forward and get better," and that has not proven to be the case. Research does not support that notion, that the more negative feedback that you give without any positive feedback the better people will perform. So it's helping people to really understand what constructive feedback is. Again, often times people who rise to the level of manager were great individual contributors, so they don't know and haven't mastered the skill sets needed to be a good manager. To be a good manager is to really develop people, to help people grow and learn, and if you don't have that lens you will continue to make some of the same mistakes that drive impostor syndrome and sustain it, especially when we talk about black and brown folk. It's helping them to feel that they actually belong, that they're not given the projects that nobody else wants, that if they're on the team they're given some the lower level types of projects, that you actually help them to know and understand that "You deserve to be here, we respect and value your skill sets, your expertise and your experience, and we're invested in keeping you and helping you to grow," right? So often times, you know, these notions of belonging and psychological safety that I talk about tend to be overlooked by organizations because, again, for them it's just about their bottom line. They want to make sure that people are producing at the levels that they need them to, but they don't necessarily think about the cost to those individuals, and so they end up marginalizing certain people, and when those people leave, then it's this self-fulfilling prophecy of "Oh. Well, yeah, they didn't belong here anyway," and they don't really learn and understand that, well, maybe it was the organization that didn't create a welcoming enough space for them to actually excel.Zach: You know, and it's interesting when you talk about, like, performance and, like, being really clear with, like, you know, what does good look like, I think it's challenging as work continues to become less transactional, and, like, high-paying jobs become more quote-unquote "strategic" and "qualitative" and "subjective." I think, like, with that comes a danger, or at least more opportunity, to have ambiguity in terms of what good performance looks like, and it gives managers space, unconsciously, consciously, maliciously or otherwise, to create hierarchies in their mind, like, outside of whatever system you want to use to grade something. Because if work is super subjective--like, one thing about consulting, right, like, so much of consulting has to do with relationships and, like, the work itself, because you're not making X amount of widgets a day. You're putting together a PowerPoint or you're writing a paragraph, and so much of those things are again, like, just inherently subjective. Like, PowerPoint design, I mean--and I know there's plenty of folks who hate PowerPoint, but, you know, there's some PowerPoints that look great to some folks and look terrible to others. There's some people who love the way that you run a meeting and there's people who think it's the worst thing in the world, right? So it's like--I guess my question to you, as we continue to think about the future of work and we think about the more [soft?] skills are gonna be needed to do the type of work that's gonna be left when you think about what automation is gonna pick up and kind of, like, what we're going to pick up after automation digs through the rubble of work. What are ways do you think that we can still create some norms, some performance standard or expectation norms, that don't exacerbate or create, like, impostor organizations?Dr. Orbé-Austin: I think that's a great question. One of the things that immediately comes to mind is 1. being able to acknowledge just the level of inherent bias in the process as a whole, right, that we as humans, and we as machines, tend to have bias, right? So a lot of organizations are really all about technology and AI, and AI ultimately will reduce bias and discrimination, and then when we look at, you know, some of these apps that, you know, when you take a picture they can't recognize black faces or they recognize them as monkeys. We know that people make these particular programs and artificial intelligences, so being able to constantly understand, be on the lookout, for the level of bias that exists in performance reviews. So one of the things that my wife and I talk about, we do some work around gender bias, and one of the presentations we talk about is that women tend to get more vague feedback, feedback that does not allow them to, again, think about ways to improve. So, you know, you said this term "strategic" before, and that's something I will say to you that comes up a lot, that women will be like, "Well, you need to be more strategic," and I always say to my female clients, "Ask them what that means," right? What does that look like, right? Men tend to get much more tangible, concrete feedback about how to improve, so it enables them to clearly know and understand what they're striving for, right? And, you know, I think it's some of the same type of challenges with professionals of color where if they get any feedback it may not necessarily be substantial or substantive enough to help them understand how to grow. It may just be punitive. You know, I was reading this article the other day about a hiring process where different black candidates were coming in to the process, and one of the, you know, committee members kept asking and talking about, you know, dress and timeliness to the black candidates, but to the white candidates that never came up. And thankfully there was someone else on the committee who noticed that and said, "You know, I have a question for you. Like, why is it that you're asking questions about timeliness and dress to, you know, certain candidates and not others, and why is it that the candidates that you're asking it about are the black candidates?" And the woman, you know, was able to [?] enough say, "Well, you know, I used to supervise this black woman, and she used to come in late all the time, and, you know, I wasn't really happy about that, so I really wanted to kind of, you know, make sure that that was talked about," right? And so you see that she was able to even pinpoint it, right, that this was not even unconscious bias. It was a conscious bias of saying, "Hey, this is something that is not acceptable," and then we have the issues related to, like, hair discrimination now, which is a big thing that, you know, in 2020 we're still talking about how people wear their hair as a means of, you know, determining whether or not they belong is just unfathomable to me. So organizations have to be honest with the bias in their processes and in the leadership norms and culture and continue to attack it, that it's a life-long learning process, that it's not this "Okay, we're good now. We did some diversity, equity and inclusion work, and we got our certificate, so we're good to go for the next fifty years," right? It's really institutionalizing that process. It's really saying "How are we enabling all of the different people who come into our organization to feel that they belong, that they're psychologically safe, that there is room for them here?"Zach: So you said a phrase and I'm gonna follow up on that, but before I get there, you know, you talk about--and again, I'm excited because I have someone in the space, so I want to--and I've continued to say when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion work, I wish that--if there was a way I could've still got the bag, Richard, if I could have still gotten the bag and gotten into psychology, but I just couldn't see myself, like, getting the bag, not getting into that whatever, but I really am intrigued by the why behind the things that people do, right? So when you talk about giving feedback to black and brown employees, to people of color, do you think there's any role that, like, self-preservation or fragility plays into not giving into the type of feedback that black and brown folks receive? Like, in the ambiguity of the feedback as well as, like, the subjectivity of the feedback, and maybe even, like, the lack of substance in the feedback itself. Like, do you think that fragility or self-preservation plays into that?Dr. Orbe-Austin: Yes, definitely, because giving feedback is a very difficult, uncomfortable thing to do, and you can be called out when you're giving the feedback as to the things you're lacking and doing, right? So if you are a manager who doesn't feel secure in managing, right, 1. you tend to not give any kind of feedback until you have to in that year-end review, that one-time process, and there's some level of fear and anxiety, especially if you find black and brown folks more threatening, that if you give them feedback that may be upsetting that it may either come back to you in the form of them saying, "Hey, well, I also want to be able to give you some constructive feedback," and 2. if you believe that "Oh, well, they're just gonna be angry," then you will refrain from doing anything until, you know, again, you have to, and then ultimately if you don't feel that they actually belong in the organization consciously or unconsciously, it is a way for you to facilitate an exit, right? So I had another opportunity with an organization to talk about some of their challenges within their retention process, and one of the things that they raised was the reality that when they looked at the individuals who were on tips, they were consistently black employees, and the HR person, you know, thankfully said to the managers, well, "Why is that? I noticed this, and what does this mean?" Right? And it's the same way I used to talk about in schools that black males and suspended and expelled at higher rates than their white counterparts even though they may have the same levels and types of infractions, right, that some of the danger, you know, due to the fragility is "Okay, black and brown bodies are threatening to me, so therefore I have to find ways to protect myself and to punish them, either in the professional space or the academic space." So there was a case the other day where a young black male had the police called on him in his collegiate classroom because he refused to move his seat, and his white male professor decided that the way he was going to negotiate it was through punishment and to call the police to remove the young man rather than 1. recognizing that, you know, the reason he didn't want to move his seat is he had already come in, he had sat down, but the professor was trying to tell him he needed to come to the front, right? And again, like, would he have done that with a white student? Probably not.Zach: Well, you know, it's interesting too. I think that also speaks to, like, just the bizarre ways that, like, punishment for black and brown bodies, like, escalates so fast. It's like, "Wait, I went from not talking to anybody, there not being any issue, to now I'm talking to, like, someone with a huge difference in power than I have. Where did this come from? Like, how did we get here so fast?"Dr. Orbe-Austin: Yeah, it escalates. And I will say to you, you know, we talk about this issue of micro-aggressions and straight up aggressions. I remember one of the first jobs that I had, you know, while I was in graduate school was working in this college office, and again, only black male, primarily white women working in the space. It was a job to actually help, you know, primarily black and Latino students who had gotten kicked out of a four-year college--this was a community college--helping them to get back academically to a space to be able to return. So it was an advising position. I was focused on doing the work relative to helping these students. So I come in, go to my office, close my door, see my students and go, and that was not acceptable to my white female supervisor. So she decided that she needed to watch me or kind of know and understand what it was that I was doing, and chance would have it, you know, that this is where I actually met my wife, the other Dr. Orbe-Austin. She came on board, and when she came on board this woman said to her, "Well, can you watch him?" Like, you know, "'Cause you're another person of color. Can you watch him and see, like, what he's up to?" Now, mind you, this woman and her other colleagues, all her other direct reports, were white women, would go out to these long lunches, go to Lohman's, go shopping and do all these other things. I was in, you know, my office seeing these students, but I was the one who was suspect, and it got to a turning point where, you know, again I was able to connect with my wife [?], and she told me, "Yeah, I was sent to kind of surveil you," right? And it's unbelievable, right? At that stage of my life and my career that, you know, that level of micro-aggression is like, "Okay, he's doing his work, but I can't see him 'cause his door's closed." Well, my door's closed 'cause I'm talking to students and I'm dealing with them in that way, right? So that's some of the hidden ways, 'cause had my wife and I not connected and she then was like, "Oh, yeah. I'm gonna watch him and report back," then it would just be "Oh, he's lazy. He's not doing his job."Zach: Yeah. "I don't know what he's really doing. He says he's doing this, but I don't see that."Dr. Orbe-Austin: Right, and so when we talk about this issue of privilege, you know, I often talk about the fact that white privilege means that you're given the benefit of the doubt relative to competence, relative to innocence, and you just have a higher trust point, right, that people will tend to believe you and give you the benefit of the doubt even if you're not doing anything right. So that's the heavier burder that we carry, and it's not--you know, it's not playing the race card. It's not an excuse. It's the reality. It's what the data shows. It's what time and again the numbers show from a wide variety of vantage points.Zach: It's interesting, like, your point around being at work and you're a credentialed professional, right? You're doing your job, and yet there are these informal hierarchies, right, that are forming around you. You know, I've experienced that myself. Like, I've been in situations where, you know, I have people who are supposed to be junior to me or at peer level to me, but again, people are typically not as slick as they think they are, right? Like, the reality is black and brown people have to be extraordinarily vigilant in just paying attention, which we're gonna get into psychological safety in a minute, but it's just interesting because I've been in those situations more than a few times where I'll be, you know, on paper supposed to be this title, but then there's folks around and, like, I'm noticing they're kind of checking on me or they're asking a bunch of questions or they're--they feel empowered to try to coach me or tell me what I'm not doing or ask me what I'm doing or, you know, say, "Well, I talked to So-and-so, and we think you should be doing--" And it's like, "Well, who is we? You're not my boss." Okay, so again, what we're talking about and what I'm hearing, frankly I'm getting stressed just, like, re-thinking about those things and hearing you describe your experience. What are ways that leaders can create higher degrees of psychological safety so that employees, particularly black and brown ones, can work more effectively?Dr. Orbe-Austin: So one of the things I talk about, and this comes up a good deal when I do some DEI work, is psychological safety, at the end of the day, is telling someone or someone having the feeling that they can show up at work and be their true selves without fear of negative consequence, right, that they can really talk about their experiences, kind of share their beliefs and not be silenced, and a culture has to be developed in order for someone to feel that, right? And what that means on the leadership end is being able to really allow room for differing viewpoints one, not punishing people if they don't necessarily agree with what the leaders with, two really actually listening to people instead of just waiting to talk next after someone else is talking and being able to understand and have a certain level of empathy for someone else's experience. Being able to be vulnerable yourself as a leader and sharing some of the things that you may be experiencing to let people know that you're not just superhuman or perfect, that you do make mistakes. Take accountability when you do make mistakes as well to again demonstrate that it's all right for you to not have everything in order, but that, you know, it's really adopting a growth mindset of saying that, you know, we're here to do good work." At the same time, we still are striving to learn and grow in those ways, right? So creating these spaces to be able to have people have a voice is one of the easiest ways for honestly organizations to develop psychological safety, right? So it's having access to the leadership. When I meet with people and I talk about "Well, how often do you talk to even your manager?" And they're like, "Oh, you know, we meet maybe once every two or three months," and my mouth is like totally, like, open... like, yeah, that's not good, right? Like, you have to be able to build relationships with your manager. Your manager has to be able to know who you are, not just, again, as someone filling a space and making widgets, but what are your aspirations? What are your hopes and dreams? What are your plans for being in this organization? And because so much management training is lacking or is not as in-depth as it needs to be, a good deal of managers feel ill-equipped to have some of these conversations, and so they just have very much transactional types of engagements with their direct reports where in they're just wanting to know "Okay, did you do X project? Let's do a check-off," rather than really taking the role as coach/mentor/growth agent. Zach: What can individuals do to combat impostor syndrome, right? So we talked about it at the organizational level, but what can individuals do?Dr. Orbe-Austin: So we talk about in our book this model that we created called the 3 C's model, which stands for Clarify, Choose, Create, and it starts with really clarifying your impostor origin story. So we all have origin stories, and some of us are better at really being honest with it than others, but it's being able to know and recognize "Well, what may have triggered or started this impostor journey?" Often times it might be because you were labeled in your family early on as, you know, either the super smart one who makes no mistakes and so you just feel like you have to be perfect and if you make a mistake, then that means you're an impostor, or on the other hand you were labeled as the social one and another sibling or family member was labeled as the smart one, right, so then you didn't feel like, "Oh, there's room for me to be smart and social." So recognizing that the origin. Not to again blame anyone, but to know and understand where that comes from. And then the other part of Clarify is to know what your triggers are. So for a lot of people with impostor syndrome, new experiences are a trigger point. So a new job, new project, meeting new people, may help them begin to feel increasingly anxious about being found out, that "Oh, this is gonna be the job I fall apart. This is gonna be the project where I'm exposed as a fraud. This person is gonna see right through me." So knowing and understanding that and then really being able to get support for that. So the last part of clarify is to change your narrative, right? Like, we all have a particular story that we tell ourselves, and people with impostor syndrome typically have a very negative narrative about who they are and what they've accomplished and how they've accomplished it. So being able to honestly look at and own your accomplishments, really being able to say, "I really earned that because of my effort and some of the actual skill that I have." And then we go to Choose, where it's speaking your truth. So the reason often times impostor syndrome tends to be sustained is because people suffer in silence, right? Like, they feel that they're ashamed to even raise it, right? Like, if you're a senior VP, you know, everyone around you looks like--you know, all of your family members feel like "Oh, you made it," then you might be afraid to say, "Well, I'm actually not happy, and I actually feel like I'm an impostor." So there's this fear that people will ridicule you for doing that. So being able to say it out loud can be freeing to begin the process of healing that. And a part of healing it is changing not only the narrative but some of these automatic negative thoughts you may have about what people think about you, how you label yourself and how you unfairly compare yourself to others. So being able to create what we call a positive [?] instead of these immediate when something goes wrong the automatic negative thought is "Oh, I'm a failure," or "Here we go again, I'm an impostor." And then in the midst of all this it's really taking care of yourself, really being able to make self-care a key priority for yourself in choosing, and then finally, you know, the last piece of the puzzle is trying on and creating. When we talk about Create, it's experimenting with new roles. So a lot of people with impostor syndrome tend to be the helpers, the go-to person in their friend/family network, so they don't have the room to ask for support or assistance or feel ashamed to do it, to actually taking on the role of asking for help and feeling like it doesn't expose you to being weak or not being able to do things, making sure you build your dream team of support, getting a coach, getting a mentor, you know, getting people who will support you in your impostor syndrome-defeating journey, and then finally understanding that impostor syndrome can be triggered at any point in your life. So when we talk about defeating impostor syndrome, we don't talk about it as an end-all and be-all cure. We talk about it as decreasing the frequency and intensity of those feelings and that when they do occur again understanding and identifying the conditions for your optimal performance, right, which is the self-care, which is the dream team, which is changing your narrative.Zach: Man, Dr. Orbe-Austin, this is incredible. I want to make sure I give you space to plug your book, to talk about where people can learn more about you, where they can find you, all of that.Dr. Orbe-Austin: Sure. So again, I appreciate this opportunity. It's been a pleasure to chat with you. If people want to know more about the work that I do, they can go to my website, DynamicTransitionsLLP.com. So my wife and I, our consultancy is called Dynamic Transitions Psychological Consulting, LLP, so you can go online, and it will have information about the work that we do. It will have information about the book, which will come out in April. So we're really excited about that. Again, the name of the book is Own Your Greatness: Overcome Impostor Syndrome, Beat Self-Doubt, and Succeed in Life, and, you know, one of the things we felt was important when we wrote the book was to have it be something dynamic and alive, so a part of it talks about, you know, the experience of impostor syndrome, but it also then has activities for you to do to really help in overcoming impostor syndrome. So it's not necessarily solely just an academic guide to things. It's actually some practical tips and applied types of activities that will enable you to move forward in living your best life.Zach: I love it, I love it. Man, it's just been great. I'm just so excited, because I do believe--and my goal, our collective goal at Living Corporate, is to get more psychologists and psychiatrists on our platform, because when it comes to really making sure that we are centering and amplifying black and brown voices and, like, effectively empathizing with them, I think it's important to have people on who have some of the academic background and knowledge and, like, formal understanding, not only for our own sake because a lot of us can't afford or for a variety of reasons, you know, don't have those resources, but maybe this will encourage us to go seek help that we desperately need just as an output of being a part of an oppressive capitalistic patriarchal system. But I also think it's important that we have folks like you on for the folks who are not black and brown who listen to our platform, because so often times education is used as a barrier to not listen to black people, black and brown people, or hear our stories. This, like, Euro-centric, like, demand for quantitative data and research that in itself is inherently biased, but whatever. So I'm just thankful that you're here, that's what I'm trying to say, okay? I appreciate you.Dr. Orbe-Austin: Well, I appreciate you creating this platform, because when I heard about it I was so excited to kind of engage with you, because as I've talked about many times, a lot of our folks, particularly in these corporate spaces, are suffering in silence and may feel like they're the only ones having some of these struggles, and I think you present a space for them to not feel that they need to go through it alone, and you provide a certain level of hope and strategies for them to really be able to free themselves from some of the things that may be more corrosive to their quality of life and really being able to help them believe they can live their best lives.Zach: Man, I mean... [applause sfx] You know, that's claps for both of us, you know what I mean? We're both celebrating right now. All right, y'all, look. This has been Living Corporate, okay? Really glad that y'all were able to stop by. You heard Dr. Orbe-Austin and all of the information. Make sure you check it out in the show notes. Make sure you check us out at living-corporate--please say the dash--dot com. If you want to check us on the social media, we all over the place. Just Google Living Corporate and we'll pop up. Until next time, y'all. Peace.

On the twenty-fifth installment of The Link Up with Latesha, our incredible host Latesha Byrd, founder of Byrd Career Consulting, speaks on the topic of recovering from career crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic. Remember, jobs may be lost, but hope is not! Be sure to utilize Latesha's advice, and don't forget to check out the Forbes article she mentions to learn about 10 career growth questions you probably aren't asking yourself. Click here to read "10 Career Growth Questions You Probably Aren't Asking Yourself" on Forbes.You can refer back to Latesha's episode regarding building a career toolkit by clicking here.Stop by LateshaByrd.com! Click here to check out Latesha's shop, and don't forget the 60% discount code GETTHECOINS.Find out more about Latesha on the BCC website or connect with her through LinkedIn, IG, Twitter, and FB.Check out Latesha's YouTube channel.Connect with Byrd Career Consulting via LinkedIn, IG, Twitter, and FB.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTLatesha: Hey, hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Link Up with Latesha. Happy Saturday, guys. I'm so glad that it is the weekend, although things don't really feel the same, you know? I'm wondering if you all are even looking forward to the weekends just given the times that we are in. It's been really challenging for many of us that may be navigating new waters as it relates to their career, working from home, taking care of children that are now doing virtual learning. Some of you may be dealing with sick family members. This is a very trying time, and I want to focus today's episode all about how to bounce back if you have lost your job through this pandemic or if you were furloughed, and I want to give you all some hope. So jobs may be lost, but hope is not. If you don't remember anything from today's episode, I want you to repeat that with me: jobs may be lost, but hope is not. Now, what I'm going to be sharing on today's episode is just ten tips that I want you to think about and I want you to definitely implement if you can if you have lost your job, if you feel that your career has been put on hold. For some of you you may have been let go like I said. So today is all about how do you recover from this madness so that you can get back on track, so that you can take that power back, that control back over your career and over your life. I know that some of you may have been able to make that transition smoothly from working in the office to working from home, but for some of you maybe it didn't go that way, right, because your job could be dependent upon you actually having to physically be there. As a career coach, as you all know, I have a company, Byrd Career Consulting. We provide resume makeovers, LinkedIn makeovers, interview coaching and career coaching. I've been having a lot of conversations with my coaching clients, with potential prospective clients, about the job market right now and how hard things are. I want you to know that I see you, I hear you, I feel you. It's hard right now. I know that, and we are going to get through this. What my goal is as your favorite career coach I hope [laughs] is to be a light. There are too many people out here right now unemployed for career coaches like myself and others to not make sure that we are using our voice in the most value-adding way. So before I get into the ten tips that I want to share, I also want to share an article I was reading from Fortune Magazine. It's saying that over 20% Americans are unemployed. Well, it's saying there's an unemployment rate of 20.6%. That would be the highest level since 1934. In the past five weeks, over 26.5 million workers have already filed for unemployment. Y'all, that is crazy. Literally ridiculous. So if you have experienced that, if maybe your company's going through layoffs and you just want to make sure you are prepared, this is the episode I want you to make sure that you are listening to because this is definitely going to help you to get on track, all right? So ten tips. #1: I want you to understand that this is not your fault. If you were let go, if you were furloughed, this is not your fault, okay? This is not dependent upon your skill set. This is not dependent on your experience, how dope you are, how much value you contribute, how smart, ambitious you are. This has nothing to do with that, okay? There are impeding external factors going on with this pandemic that has affected the economy, that has affected consumer spending power, which in turn has led to job loss. So if you have lost your job, I want you to not take responsibility. A lot of times we feel guilt for things that we should not feel guilty for, okay? That's #1. This is not your fault. #2: You are not stuck. Your career is not over. So I want you to be mindful and careful of the words that you're speaking over your career, over yourself, over what you bring to the table and over your life. And this is a really important time to build mental toughness. I know the strongest people in my circle that are really feeling emotionally fatigued and drained and are going through it in levels that I haven't really seen or experienced before, and so our emotional wellbeing and our mental health is extremely crucial right now. If you've never really truly focused on that, if you've never really sat still with yourself and paid attention to the thoughts and the words that you're speaking, I encourage you to do that now. And don't say things like, "My career is over," or "I'm stuck right now." You are not stuck. There is always another way. There is always an alternative. This won't last forever. So I want you to start practicing career affirmations, writing those down and reading them and saying them aloud and aloud, career affirmations such as "My job, my career, is on its way, and it's going to find me," or "I deserve to be employed with a company that is going to pay me the value that I bring to the table." I want you to make sure that you are building yourself up, okay, because if you are putting a front or attempting to put on a front in an interview, trust me, recruiters may be able to read through that. So again, speak positivity as much as you can over your career and over your future and know that this is not long-term. Again, let's say you have been furloughed, right? So let's say the company says, "Okay, well, you're still on the payroll, but we're not paying you. We're not gonna give you any hours, and we don't know when you'll be able to come back to work." If that is your situation, I would encourage you to go ahead and start just getting your things together so you can get ready to start job searching, because you just, again, never want to put that much power and control in your employer's hands. They are just as uncertain about all of this as we are, all right? So go ahead and get it in order. Even if your job is secure and you feel like you're pretty good, I would encourage you to start getting some of these things in order, and I'll be talking about this a little bit later when I say get things in order. I mean your career toolkit, okay? Hold that thought, 'cause I'm not there just yet, but I am going to share what that career toolkit includes. All right, so remember, #1: Understand it's not your fault, #2: Understand that you are not stuck. It is time to build mental toughness and speak positivity over your career. #3: Do some reflective work, okay? Let's say you were furloughed, right? I had a conversation with someone today who is a chef and she was running, you know, like, a restaurant or, like, a [cafe?] for an organization, and, you know, of course if all the employees are working from home that really kind of leaves them with no one to serve, right? And so she was furloughed, and she said, "Honestly, I didn't even like that job. I was there too long, and when they told me when things picked up I could come back to work, but I don't know if I want to come back." Y'all, this is a great time to really do some of that reflective work. I'm asking you if you were even doing something that you wanted to do, right? Or currently are you doing something that you want to do? This is the time right now to do that reflective work, to be introspective, to ask yourself, "Can I see myself doing this for much longer?" And this conversation just happened with a potential client this past week, but just a few weeks ago I had actually tweeted that there's a lot of folks who are not going to return back to their job once this is all said and done, and I really believe that. If you are feeling anxiety thinking about just going back into that office or going back into that workplace, accept that, okay? I started my career in accounting. I'm not doing anything close to accounting, and I love what I do now as a career coach. The thought of going back into an accounting firm just makes me cringe. [laughs] So this is a very good time to just give some deep thought to "What do I want to do in my career?" Okay? "Where do I see myself going? Is what I'm currently doing going to put me in the right direction to get me to where I want to go?" All we're doing right now is sitting at home, so take that commute time that you had in the mornings and in the evenings and use that time to get still and to get quiet and to journal, to talk through this with a friend. I will, in the show notes, link an article that I absolutely love from Forbes. It's "10 Questions You Should Be Asking Yourself About Your Career Right Now." I have all of my clients, coaching clients, read this article. So I will share that article with you. #4: Pay attention to the industries that are hiring and the ones that are not. So I'm using a young lady that I mentioned earlier who is a chef, right, and she's now talking about teaching some classes, teaching some cooking classes online. So again, you already have the skill set. If you enjoy the work that you do but you did not enjoy that organization, what are different ways where you can add value in a way that you actually want to? Because that skill doesn't leave you, even if you don't, you know, currently have that job that you had before. That job doesn't validate that skill set. No, because you were already working in that space. So think about how you can still continue to do the work that you want to do, what makes the most sense for you right now. Can you start offering services virtually? Pay attention to the industries that are hiring and the ones that are not. I think that's pretty cut and dry, right? I know you might really want to go and work in hospitality. I know you really want to start that event planning company. This may not be that time to just do it. [laughs] Okay? Because I don't know when, and quite frankly many of us don't know when we'll start going back to large-scale events and conferences, and these are things that I really, really miss honestly, but finding an event planning job right now... whoo, and I'm just being real, okay? I'm just being real. As a coach it is not my job to sell you a dream. Yes, I want you to find your dream job, but I want you to find it at the time where it makes sense. So again, go to an industry that is hiring right now. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Don't try and go and work at the airlines right now. I know that was your dream, but trust me, your skill can be applied to many different industries. For example, I was talking to someone, a client, the other day on a coaching call, and she is potentially thinking about HR roles, and she said, "I've always been really good at tech, and I help my coworkers with tech issues that they're having, but I don't know if I would ever go back to school," and I said, "Well, you can still work for a tech company," right? So every tech company needs someone in marketing. Every marketing company needs someone in tech. So you will need to get creative and innovative with thinking about how your skill set can be applied to different industries. #5: Build relationships. Connect with your connections. This is a great time to do it. It's an even greater time to get connected to those folks that can help you get connected to jobs. I know that we don't like to tell folks that we're looking for a job, that we were let go or, you know, we were furloughed. I understand that, but you do need people to help you get into the door, even more importantly now, because there's a lot of folks who are looking for jobs right now, and if you have a connection at these companies, at these organizations, if you're connected to recruiters, trust me, that's going to help you in the long run. Don't be afraid to let your network know that you are open and looking for opportunities. Check in with your contacts. Go through your LinkedIn messages. That's what I did and that's what I've been doing for the past week or so on LinkedIn, on Twitter, on Instagram. I'm going back through of some of my messages. I'm really for me spending more of that time on LinkedIn, and I'm looking and saying, "Okay, who do I need to connect with that I may have not connected with in a very long time?" Just reach out and see how they're doing, right? If you want to be really strategic with that conversation, of course you can share that you are looking. Again, I already shared with you all the stats around unemployment, so trust me, even the best of the best right now are kind of losing out on opportunities. So again, remember that this is not reflective of your skill set, okay? #6 is find people that can be of value to you, so I've already kind of talked through that. Recruiters, leaders at organizations. You know more people than you give yourself credit for. Think back to who you went to school with, your alumni network, your church. Who did you volunteer with? Happy hours that you've attended, any meetups that you've attended, coworkers, old coworkers. Really think through your different network--I like to call 'em, like, network bubbles, right? Like, I have my friends I went to college with. I have my sorors. I have my entrepreneurship friends, you know, my business colleagues here in Charlotte, I have business colleagues in Atlanta. So really think about the different buckets, different pools of your network that you can really lean on right now. #7: Your career toolkit. That is your resume and your LinkedIn. You have got to get that together. It has got to be top-top-top-notch. I has to be top-notch right now. You cannot submit an average or a subpar resume for a job, not in today's economy. There was an earlier episode where I talked about building a career toolkit and I'll make sure that's linked in the show notes as well, so I'm not gonna spend too much time on that, but just know you need a popping resume. It should be optimized for keywords and skills. Every time you apply to a job, you've got to tailor that resume. I know, I know. It's time-consuming. It's so time-consuming, right? But that actually leads me to #8: hire a resume writer. If you've never hired a resume writer or a career coach, this is a very good time to do so. It's gonna be helpful to make sure that you are putting your best foot forward here, okay? You cannot relax in this area, in this regard. Yes, you may be able to do that job, and you know you can do that job, and you know "If I could just get into the interview I'll be good," but if that resume isn't perfect, you might not even have the chance to really, really shoot your shot. So I encourage you to invest in a resume writer, whether it's me and my company or another resume writer out there. Trust me, we are out here, and we're deep. This is a time to really invest in that, okay? #9 is your skills. Build your skills. If you do think it's time to pivot, if you've realized that "You know what? I don't want to go back to this job. I don't want to go back to this office when we do get that sense of normalcy again," then think about the online courses that you need to be taking right now. Start joining webinars. Y'all, there is so much information out here on social media, on all the social media platforms. There's a lot of free courses. I just saw something online that said Harvard now has over 60 or 65 courses for free online on a variety of topics. I know it's information overload for me, and I love a good webinar. I love a good quick learning session. So figure out right now what skills would be most useful for you to know at this very moment and get really strategic and kind of narrow those topics down, all right? That's going to help you as well with setting yourself apart on your resume when you do get in an interview. So build that skill set. We're sitting at home. Might as well. I just bought a new book on Kindle, on Amazon, and so I'm finding times in my schedule to make sure that I am learning. I'm not just doing, but I'm learning, and that leads me to my last point: set a schedule. Set a schedule so that you can become persistent and diligent in your job search so that you can build good habits. So not looking at job boards--and if you listen to a lot of these episodes, my episodes, then you know that this is something I talk about. I don't believe you should be looking at job boards all day every day in your free time just scrolling. I would encourage you to set a schedule. Three days a week, right? Maybe four or five days a week for an hour, a couple of hours, where you are dedicated solely to looking for jobs. You have some time dedicated solely to tailoring your resume. You have some time working on your cover letter. You have some time to start reaching out to your connections and getting back acquainted with some folks in your network. Be strategic with that and set a schedule for yourself. So I'm gonna run through these ten tips again. #1: Remember it is not your fault, #2: Know that you are not stuck, so defeat those self-limiting doubts and beliefs, #3: Do some reflective work, think about if it's time to pivot or change, think about how your current skill set is translated into the market towards those industries that are hiring. #4: Pay attention to the industries that are hiring and the ones that are not. Focus your attention on the right industries right now. #5: Build connections. Start building those relationships again. #6: Find people that can be of value to you. #7: Build that career toolkit. The next one: hire a resume writer or career coach. #9: Building your skills, and #10: Set a schedule for searching so that you don't feel overwhelmed in this job search. So I hope this was helpful. I am rooting for all of you. I want you to know, again, this will not last forever. We will get through this, and I will be here to support you every step of the way. You can find me on social media. I want you to reach out to me. I want you to seek me for advice. I want to be a resource for all of you that may kind of feel a little bit lost or helpless right now, okay? And that leads me to my last point, which I want to reiterate here, which is jobs may be lost, but hope is not. Take care.

On the sixty-second installment of Tristan's Tips, our amazing host Tristan Layfield explains why you need to get selective in your job search. He also shares his three main steps to an effective job search. Be sure to follow them - doing so gives you more control over the process, and you’ll land more interviews and ultimately the role you want!Connect with Tristan on LinkedIn, IG, FB, and Twitter.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTTristan: What's going on, Living Corporate?! It's Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting, and I'm back to bring you another career tip. This week I want to talk to you about why you need to get selective in your job search.Since we are in the middle of a pandemic with tens of millions of people that are now unemployed, I know that sounds counterintuitive. But when we start to job search in panic, when tend to start casting a wide net. We think the more jobs that we apply to, the higher our chances of landing the role. While, yes, you maybe be able to get a job, let’s talk about why you won’t get the job you want.First, Odds are you aren’t tailoring your resume. But we know that applicant tracking software weeds out 75% of applicants due to a lack of keywords specific to that job.Second, studies show that when you apply online in the US, you have less than a 2% chance of landing the job.Couple that with the fact that only 20% of jobs are filled through online job boards.Based on those numbers, it’s pretty clear that the traditional job search strategies you were taught are failing you. If you’re tired of not hearing back from potential employers, you have to rethink how you approach your search.There are 3 main steps to an effective job search:First, gain a clear understanding of what you bring to the table. This allows you to narrow down what skills you want to exercise. It also helps you to efficiently and effectively convey your value on your resume, in your LinkedIn profile, while networking, and during interviews.Second, Understand how to properly package that up to get past computer software and stand out to hiring managers. You don’t want all of your efforts to go to waste because you didn’t optimize your resume appropriately or showcase the results you’ve driven on your LinkedIn profile.The third and most important step is to actively and intentionally build a network of career boosters to help you along the way. We know that this is the best way to actually land a role, yet many of us are either too afraid to actually do it or don’t know how.Remember, it’s not always the most qualified person that gets the role, often it’s the person that knows the most about the job search. By taking these steps to redesign your job search process, not only will you have more control, but you’ll land more interviews and ultimately the role you want. If you need some assistance with this, reach out to me and let’s talk.This tip was brought to you by Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting. Check us out on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @LayfieldResume or connect with me, Tristan Layfield, on LinkedIn.

Zach has the honor of speaking with Great Place to Work CEO Michael C. Bush about GPTW itself and the process of creating a great place to work. Michael generously shares what he believes executives should be thinking about when it comes to building better trust within organizations and talks about where he sees Great Place to Work continuing to grow and expand to capture more marginalized voices and experiences.Connect with Michael on LinkedIn and Twitter.Check out Great Place to Work's website. You can review their most recent lists by clicking here.Follow GPTW on social media. They're on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.Interested in Michael's book? Find out more about it on Amazon.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and man, you know what we do. We center and amplify underrepresented voices in the workplace by having authentic, available, and frankly incredible conversations with some incredible guests, and, you know, today is no different, right? Like, we've had who, we've had Robin DiAngelo on, we've had Ruchika Tulshyan, we've had--we've had professors, we've had executives, we've had activists--we've had DeRay Mckesson--we've had all types of folks on the podcast, on the platform, and today is just incredible because we have Michael C. Bush. Michael C. Bush is the CEO of Great Place to Work, the global research and analytics firm that produces the annual Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For lists. So you know when y'all, you know, see companies and they have, like, the little badge and it'll say, "Oh, we're, like, #5 great place to work," this person we're speaking to is the CEO of Great Place to Work, y'all. This is a big deal. I'm not trying to overhype it. I don't think I can overhype it. I'm just trying to give proper context to who we have on the show. You know, the 100 Best Workplaces for Women list, the Best Workplaces for Diversity list, and dozens of other distinguished workplace rankings around the world. Since 2015, Michael Bush has expanded Great Place to Work’s global mission to build a better world by helping organizations create Great Places to Work not just for the some, but For All. Under his leadership, the firm has developed a higher standard of excellence that accounts for fair and equitable treatment of employees across demographic groups, as well as executive leader effectiveness, innovation, and financial sustainability. His book, A Great Place to Work For All, outlines the compelling business and social benefits that come from these efforts. Michael, first of all, how are you doing?Michael: I'm doing great. Thank you, and honored to be with you today.Zach: It's a pleasure. Now, I'm asking--you know, we're in the midst of a global pandemic, and I would be remiss if I didn't ask how are you doing with your family. Is everyone safe and well? Friends and family, loved ones?Michael: Thanks for asking. Yeah, the world has really changed in the past 45 days, but I'm doing well. I'm sheltering in place here in Oakland, California, with family nearby, so everything's good, and I hope the same for you.Zach: You know, everything is good. It's interesting. It's an interesting time. My wife and I just welcomed our first child into the world just a handful of weeks ago, and it's just an interesting time to be new parents, right, with so much chaos, you know, seemingly all around us, or uncertainty around us, but life is beautiful nonetheless.Michael: Well, congratulations to you and your wife, and yeah, you couldn't have brought, you know, a baby into the world at a crazier time, you know, but things are always a little bit crazy, and what a story you're gonna be able to share with your baby, you know, and we're just gonna do what we're always gonna do, which is make the world a lot better from here.Zach: I love it, absolutely. So let's get into it, right? We talked about it a little bit in the bio that I read. You've been the CEO of Great Place to Work for over 5 years, going on 5 years. Can we talk about your first 100 days as the CEO and, like, what did that look like, you just kind of stepping into that role. And then, you know, in these past five years--I guess Part B to the question is what have you been most proud of since taking the helm?Michael: Yeah. Well, when I stepped into the role in 2015, I got into the role in a strange way. I was actually hired by the founder of Great Place to Work to sell the company, and I had done a lot of turnaround work in the past, and so I came in and worked to do that, and to make a long story short I ended up getting an investment partner and buying the business. So that's how I got into it, and then one of the things that I knew is that I felt like having the analytics of what really was going on for working people all around the world and knowing that there are a lot of working people who never really get a fair shot at being developed, never get a fair shot at being promoted, never get a fair shot at being recognized and rewarded, that I could use--I hoped--the data and the analytics to use recognition to get organizations to change, and so that's really when we made the change, almost instantly, to Great Place to Work for All. I thought that we'd have a platform, and at that time, you know, you never know how things are gonna work out. The business was technically bankrupt, so the first 100 days were what you have to do when you're turning around a company that's bankrupt, which is you have to stop all the money flowing out of the company. So a lot of tough decisions, a lot of tough days where you're just pruning the rose bush so that you can grow, and those times are very difficult, but that's really what the first 100 days were about. Not too much about the future. A lot of pain in trying to cut costs, but we got through it.Zach: When you talk about, like, Great Place to Work for All, like, clearly that's a point of pride for you and, like, kind of continuing to shift and expand the platform or the position that you stepped into. Can we talk a little bit about what it was about that particular--like, why you took that angle, and, like, why was that your point of determined growth for Great Place to Work?Michael: Yeah. Zach, I think the thing that helped me was having a lot of business experience and having been a CEO before as well as working with CEOs. One of the things I knew is that most CEOs, while they talk articulately and clearly and passionately about diversity and inclusion, it's not something they think about that much, you know? They think about it during Black History Month, you know, or other things like that, but beyond that they really don't think about it that much, so it's kind of a head fake because you can hear these things that are very optimistic and passionate, but in fact they just don't think about them that much, and so--they're CEOs, which means they're thinking about other things like shareholder value, stakeholder value, but this one isn't one of 'em. They delegate it, and so they typically delegate it to a chief of diversity and inclusion or maybe a chief of people or a CHRO, but it's delegated, you know? It's not something that they lose a lot of time thinking about, and so I knew that and knew a lot of people, you know, doing diversity and inclusion work, and the common experience was "If you get to a CEO and you say, "Hey, I'd like to talk to you about diversity and inclusion," and they go, "Oh, talk to my chief of diversity and inclusion and I'll see you later." And so they're gone. So I was trying to find a way of keeping them in the conversation by not bringing up diversity and inclusion, and we did that. So when you talk about Great Place to Work for All, they don't leave the room because they're like, "Hey, I'm into that because, you know, that includes me," and also Great Place to Work for All has superior financial business performance. We've got all the data on that, so now they hang in the room, and now they're there and they're present, and now you have an opportunity to share data and information with them to get them into the conversation and hopefully leading the conversation. So it's really--for me it was a Trojan horse. It was how to get into the castle walls and not have somebody come out the castle walls, you know, that was delegated to talk about diversity and inclusion. I felt that the CEO needed to be in that conversation just like they're in the conversation when they're buying the company. They have a head of M&A, but they're in that conversation, so I thought that we could make that happen, and so far so good.Zach: Well, no, it's a great point, and something that you just said rung true with me. I think another example is, like, HSC, right? Like, you talk about health and safety environments, like, the CEO is going to be involved in that conversation by some degree because they recognize the business value and just, like, the imperative of safety for their workplace. Like, they may not be in every single part of the conversation, but they're going to be engaged. If there are other parts of the organization that executive leaders, that CEOs want to be plugged into, I think it's interesting. As much growth as diversity and inclusion has seen, I think that certain language and buzzwords kind of, like, trigger disengagement from the senior-most people. So I find that really interesting and powerful that you were able to figure out kind of, like, I don't want to say the cheat code, but, like, the way to kind of mitigate that a bit.Michael: Yeah, yeah. Cheat code. I hadn't thought about it like that, but that's kind of what it is, and whatever works, you know? Kind of by any means necessary, and so we found that this works, and it not only works in the U.S. When I first did for the for All and started moving it around the world, the first thing we got was resistance because, first of all you're coming from the U.S., and the racial issues are--in the U.S. they are on display for everyone to see and the rest of the world looks at it, but the rest of the world doesn't look at themselves, and so the very resistance was "Well, you're coming from the U.S. We don't have racial issues," which is crazy, because it doesn't matter which country you go to, there's racial issues. But they're not seen the same way. They don't--people don't really self-reflect in the same way. And then, you know, so I was bumping into that, and then what began to happen was people in Sweden started talking about, "Well, really, you know, women aren't treated family," and so for them for All meant that. And so wherever you were in the world - Japan, you know, women, and so there was always some group of people in every country that was treated differently in terms of opportunity and promotion and getting into the C-Suite for example than others. So then it just took off. Then it just took off and really, outside the U.S., it's been embraced more strongly than inside the U.S., 'cause in the U.S., you know, people do say, "Are you using a cheat code?" You know? They're kind of more suspicious, but around the world the thing has really just taken off, and, you know, the book is now in I think 11 different languages and so on just because of that, and CEOs now want to be linked a message that gets them a lot of brand value, and so Great Place to Work for All gets them a lot of brand value. If they talk too much about diversity and inclusion, you know, they actually get blowback from the dominant group in the workforce, and so this is a way that they can get out in front and be totally, totally inclusive without saying inclusive.Zach: It's interesting too that, like, you know, the amount of work that goes into that, right? How can we be inclusive while at the same time not oversignaling to the point where we actually lose the folks in the room who we need to be engaged to create, you know, systemic change and a sense of belonging for everybody? That really kind of leads me to my next question. You know, you're the first--yes, you're the first black male CEO of, like, a major organization or company that we've had on Living Corporate, right? So we've had, like, different senior leaders and executives and directors, but you're the first CEO that we've had. Can we talk a little bit about the role that your previous experience--'cause you talked about it before, about you were a CEO before this, you had industry experience before coming to Great Place to Work--and how your identity plays a role in some of the things that you do and the relationships that you have to make and maintain in your current position?Michael: Yeah. A lot of times people will ask, you know, "How do you get to a CEO?" And the answer is I started, you know, my own company in 1994, and so it really began by breaking out of corporate America. So it wasn't being within it, it was breaking outside of it. There are other journeys. I'm familiar with them. I have, you know, close friends who have done the corporate journey and been able to get to the CEO role. That's one path. It's a very different path than the one that I know the most about, which is the entrepreneurial path. And being an entrepreneur isn't for everybody, just like being a corporate CEO isn't for everybody. It takes two different personalities and two different skill sets really. But for me, on the entrepreneurial path, it was getting a feeling that I was never gonna really be comfortable in the corporate environment. I was never gonna be comfortable. I was always gonna be doing some shapeshifting in that environment, and so once I broke out, okay, then it was great, because I was able to break out and do the things that I needed to do to be successful, and the thing about, you know, so then how do you grow and how do you get to do more, what you gotta do is make rich people more money. So it's--the key is that, you know? It's you better be delivering that value. And so if you create value for people, you have friends for life, and so then you can start to be able to use that momentum. So all of the things that I've done, just like Great Place to Work, what I talk about is profitability. What I talk about is cash flow. So I talk to CEOs about the things that matter to them most. It's all about that. Now, this is the way you do it, but I always go through that door, and I've always gone through that door so people know it's about profitability, it's about EBITA, it's about cash flow, it's about growing market share, and this is the way you do it. You know, this is a way to do it, but it's a business helping another business do a lot more business. I have the data to prove if you make it a Great Place to Work for All you're gonna crush your competitors, you know? The companies that are on our list that are Great Places to Work for All outperform the S&P 500, the Russell 2000 and 3000 by a factor of 3:1, including today, you know, as the market drops. Our companies don't drop as much and they rebound quicker during recovery. So having the data and the analytics, always leading with those numbers, never going to the morally right thing to do but always being about the business enables the CEO to stay there so I can actually--the CEO doesn't leave the room because there aren't a lot of D&I people talking about EBITA, earnings and cash flow. They're talking about other things. So, you know, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with that. I'm just saying--Zach: It's just the reality of the environment, right?Michael: It's just the reality of the environment, and if you're talking to a CEO about the things they care about, which are those financial metrics, you can begin to talk to them about a lot of things, because they know they're talking to somebody that everything I say is gonna be about enhancing those metrics.Zach: You know, that leads me--Michael, it's almost like you do this a lot, right? It's almost like you talk to folks and you do meetings, interviews, quite a bit, 'cause you're just--you're helping me out. Without getting too much into the secret sauce, like, we understand that Great Place to Work, like, y'all's list is not something that's, like, qualitative, but it's a variety of quantitative analytics, points of measurement. Can you talk a little bit about how the data analytics behind the Great Place to Work rankings has evolved over time and what influenced, if anything, the way that Great Place to Work determines if a company is indeed a Great Place to Work.Michael: Yeah. So we ask the same 60 questions of every company we do business with in 98 countries around the world, so that's one thing that makes us different. Other companies kind of tailor the question set. We're like, "No. We know people. We've got 30 years of data on people." People, you know, the norms might be different, the willingness of a worker to say what they think and what they want might be--they might be more willing and open to it in one country versus another due to social norms, but at the bottom people want the same thing, and so we measure those things. People want to be respected by the people that they work for, so we ask 11 questions that let us know whether you feel respected or not. People want to work for somebody who they feel is transparent with them, so we ask about 9 questions about that. And people want to be treated fairly more important than anything else, so we ask 14 questions about that. And then people want to enjoy the people that they work with and people want to be proud of their work, which means they feel cared for and they care for the people around them, that's what really drives high-performing work, people caring about one another. It's not stock options. Those things don't have the stamina of people. They have to feel like they're doing something they couldn't do on their own and be connected by some sense of purpose. So we measure those things. We ask these questions. We're an analytics company. It's all about the numbers, and we do this with 10 million employees and 10,000 companies every year, so across every single industry. There's not an industry that we don't survey in. So therefore we've got a huge data set to let people know when your people are feeling that in this part of the world things aren't fair, we tell you what that's gonna do to EBITA and profitability and earnings and revenue in that part of the world. We can go straight to the correlation between the employee experience and revenue and these financial metrics, and in some metrics we can go to some causation. We can actually tell you if people aren't feeling emotionally or psychologically or physically safe, those, what I just said, safety defined with those other three attributes drives earnings, you know? It drives earnings is how safe people feel, so we measure those things and therefore can let you know, "Hey, when we see this set of data, we know these people are updating their LinkedIn profiles. They may still be working for you, but they are looking for the next thing to do. So we call it presenteeism. They're present, but they are looking for a way out. So now the data can be used with artificial intelligence to predict what's gonna happen with people. You can see that a person pulls on their--the economy is going good and a person pulls on their 401K and then doesn't return in time not to pay a penalty on that. This person's undergoing some financial pressure, and the financial pressure they're going through affects through employee experience, so we can alert a company that "Hey, you've got a problem here because we can see in this data." So it's all about the data, it's all about the 60 questions, and we measure the employee experience, how they feel about the people they work with, whether they feel like management involves them in decisions that affect them, whether they trust management, whether they have confidence in management. So we ask a set of questions where we can let a leader know exactly what's going on and then compare that so we can--if you're a tech company and you get the data and you don't really know what to think, well, we have a benchmark against other tech companies, and then you go "Whoa, okay, these companies are actually outperforming me in these areas. I want to do something about it." So benchmarking is very important. You can see how Latin America is doing versus South America versus North America or men versus women or people of color versus majority or members of the LGBTQ community versus the majority. You can do all the demographic cuts. The biggest change we made in our methodology since I got involved were these demographic comparisons to see if it was a great place to work for all versus a great place to work for some. That's the revolutionary breakthrough that we've made, and so our lists today are different from the lists in the past because we reward companies that treat everyone the same, where employees are having the same experience and the same in an equitable way, which we're able to measure.Zach: You know, you talked a bit about--you mentioned, like, predictive analytics there, and I'm curious, how far away--and if we're already here, then let me know, but how far away are we from predicting, like, lawsuits or, like, legal action by employees who feel, like, psychologically, emotionally, physically unsafe, who feel, like, discriminated against and things of that nature and then, like, present that to organizations and say, "Hey, look, you have a serious problem, and here's the likelihood of X happening, and then here's the amount of damages that would cost to your brand over X amount of time." Do you think we're anywhere close to that? Do you think that's anything that would be relevant or pertinent for organizations to have?Michael: Well, for some companies they're able to do it right now, and you're talking about where we're heading, absolutely where we're heading. So if you've got an HR system of record on Oracle or a [?] or an SAP or Ultimate software, if you've got an HR system of record--which is a platform that has the payroll information on the employee, the use of benefits on the employee, something around the performance management of the employee, and you have an employee engagement tool that's doing the measuring, and those two are nested and the data can flow between them, you have what you need. And so there are other companies who have what they need and others are heading there now. This is the movement to be able to ask an employee a set of questions and predict what's going on with them and what you need to create a better experience for that employee, which is usually around development and opportunities and promotions and feedback. That's mainly what most people need. Sometimes tailored benefits around things that are going on in their life, like everybody's kind of living through right now. So this is happening at companies now. I'm very much aware of it. We're involved in it by nesting our tool on top of these other platforms, but I would say big companies, Fortune 500 companies, will be totally in this game in 5 years, you know, 100%, and then products will be developed for medium-sized companies and will be in the marketplace--you know, start to enter in about 3 years.Zach: I just find that so intriguing, right? Like, I think about the fact that there's already tools out there that are being mobilized within the next, like, half--within this decade, right? We're gonna start seeing--Micheal: Easily, yeah. At the end of the decade this will--we won't be talking about this.Zach: It won't even be a point of discussion. It's gonna be "Hey, look, no. Your data says this. There's an X percent chance of this happening, and we need to make some adjustments now."Michael: It's absolutely gonna happen, and so machines are already now--at Amazon machines are recommending people for promotion. Machines are recommending people for termination. Machines are doing that. So they're kind of on the cutting edge. Not saying that they're doing that in a great way, I'm just saying--Zach: The technology is out there and it's happening.Michael: It's out there. They're using machine learning tools to make those decisions. Others are going to move on that, and the key is how do you do those things in a way that employees can trust it? Which is a big difference between machine learning and artificial intelligence when there is no trust and a big difference between machine learning and artificial intelligence when there is trust, and if you think about the 60 questions we answer, what are we really, really measuring? It's trust. That's really what we're measuring. Now, we can define it in all its dimensions, but it's trust. Respect is a part of trust. Credibility, transparency is a part of trust. Fairness is a part of trust. So trust is really what we're measuring. We could just double-click all over it to get you additional information, but it's all about trust.Zach: You know, I think--and for me, I'm always curious about when it comes to these lists--and I say this as somebody, of course I love what y'all are doing. I love Great Place to Work. It's the definitive listing space, right? I think it's also interesting because as a black man who has a network of a ton of black and brown people, right, like, we'll look at some of these lists and like, "Dang, okay." I recognize that the overall maybe brand of a company may be really strong, and it's ranked or whatever, but then I wonder like, "Okay, how do I reconcile that with, like, stories that I'm hearing from marginalized people who have had, like, real challenges at these companies?" And I'm curious to know, like, where do you see Great Place to Work continuing to grow and expand to capture, like, marginalized voices and experiences?Michael: Yeah. So Zachary, that's where I was in 2015, exactly where you were, meaning looking at a company--at that time thinking about buying it, looking at the list of the places that were ranked as Great Places to Work, and I knew people of color having horrible experiences in those companies. That's why I bought it, because I'm like, "I think we can do something about this. We can reorder it." And if you look at, you know, 2014, 2013, the companies at the top of that list, they're not at the top now, okay? They're not at the top now, so that's really what happened, but I was exactly where you were and definitely driven to do that. So what it has enabled is, you know, I'm not satisfied by any means. I'm satisfied by the progress, but not by where we are. You know, the thing I talk about it, the bullseye all the time for me is 2030, that that's when we need to get this right, which means--you know, our analytics are driven by algorithms, and so you've got to continually modify the algorithms, and when you modify the algorithm, you've got to live with that algorithm and its output for a year, then you modify it and you've got to live with it for a year. So it's frustrating because it takes a long time, but, you know, we're at the place now where we can say to a company that "Hey, we've measured the experience of different demographic groups, people of color, and we can double-click on it and so on, and their experience is very different from these other groups, therefore you're falling down or off the list." We can do it on that basis now, which that wasn't happening in 2015. There was no way of doing it. We do it now. So we call it maximizing human potential. That's another cheat code, but what it is is we compare one demographic group to another. We reward companies where the gap is small and we penalize companies where the gap is huge. So you can no longer be "80% of our people are having a great time." We go into the people who have given a one or a two response on the Likert scale, you know, that are saying, "My manager involves me in the decisions that affect me? Never or almost never." Okay, well, we grab that group and compare it and put--we give weight to that, a group that it was never done. Another thing is--you know, in terms of there's other lists out there that are recognizing companies, none of them are surveying employees. So really those are marketing-driven exercises.Zach: Right. Those are smiley faces, right?Michael: They are. You know, they're just doing something very different, and so for us, we can let you know--like our diversity lists. You know, there's a few diversity lists, you know, kind of out in the world that are well-known. There's only one that measures and scores the experience of under-represented people. That's Great Place to Work. Our list is driven by their experience, so it doesn't matter, you know, frankly, what white males think about their work experience. We don't measure it for those lists. You know, we don't measure it for those lists. We look at underrepresented people. That's what drives that list. We look at their experience, because that's what it is. For the 100 Best we look at everybody, but we don't for that. So it took us a while, because if I had done that immediately I'd be out of business. So, you know, you've got to build some brand strength and get people to, you know, understand what you're doing and that you're a rational person who wants to grow their business. So it took some time, but we're almost there. I don't feel like we're there right now. We're almost there where we are just pulling in representation into our final ranking criterion. So I feel like we're just about there, and it's enabling us to have some great CEOs who loved being on our list, but now we're able to say, "Hey, guess what?" Even though, you know, we have some companies that, you know, 60, 70% of their workforce are people of color, and they're having a great experience, which is great, but then we look at the top team and we're like, "That doesn't look like them." But the good news is you can have that disconnect and a group of people having a great experience. So that's wonderful, but just think how much better they could be if they could look up and say, "Hey, if I keep working real hard, it's possible for me to get there." "I feel respected now, but I'd really feel respected if that's true." So we're able to talk to CEOs and say, "I know you're happy now." Nobody in hospitality is happy today, but [?] they were happy, 90 days ago they were happy, and you could say, "I know this is great, and I know you're providing a great experience for these people, all these people. That's incredible. We think, you know, the world of you, but you need to do something about this because you'll really unlock them," and the kind of CEOs we deal with, which are the ones who get how this drives their profitability and earnings--and most of these have some moral connection as well in the way that they want to be seen and the way that they want their families to see them. That's kind of another lens that affects a CEO's mindset. So then they go, "Okay, look, I got it," and they don't have to do it, but they choose to do it. So that's when I know, "Okay, this is working now," that this is enabling them to be who they want to be. And a lot of CEOs, I've done a lot of work on the following where you have a CEO moving through their career and just having a great career, a lot of power, a lot of influence, they're happy and satisfied, and then they have a daughter. It changes 'em forever, because then they're like, "I want my daughter to get paid equal pay," but at the company they're running, it's not happening. All of a sudden they start to look at equal pay differently because they had a daughter. I've seen this time and time again, a CEO with a daughter, a CEO with a kid with autism, a CEO with a kid with mental health issues. It modifies the behavior of that CEO and how they--which is great, but that shape-shifting move blows the door open for being a great place to work for all. Now it becomes their thing. They start saying it because they have this new desire to do something and to change the way that others view them and the way that they view themselves.Zach: So first of all this has been an incredible conversation, and, you know, we're coming up on time, Michael, but what I want to do is I want to go back to a word that you used earlier, trust, and really that a lot of these questions go back to--the rankings and the analytics go back to--quantifying trust, and I'm curious to know if you could give us, like, three points of thought that executives should be thinking about when it comes to building better trust within organizations? What would those three points be?Michael: I think that fairness is the most important. So the way you treat a group of people, whether they be analytics versus non-analytics, accountants versus engineers, you need to treat people the same. People read when you're not doing that. They are paying attention to whether you're doing that or not. So being consistent in the way you talk to people, respond to people, what you tweet and what you don't, it matters. So fairness is what's most important, and then making sure your actions--if you say that, you know, diversity drives innovation, people are gonna look and see if you really think that's true. So if you're saying diversity drives innovation and your executive team is not diverse, then now you lose credibility and you're not being transparent and people think it's not fair. The whole pyramid collapses based on you saying one thing and you're actually doing another, and then you want to take a look at your board of directors. You want to take a look at your executive team. You want to take a look at your pipeline and make sure that in 2023 things are going to be different. You want to make sure companies now are restructuring or laying people off. Well, look at the pool that you're laying off. Look at the pool you're restructuring. If you're not careful you're gonna erase ten years of gains is what you're doing right now. So these are the things that build trust. These are the things, fairness more important than anything else. The reason there's resistance to D&I efforts is somehow white men--some--feel like money's being taken out of their pockets.Zach: Right, this scarcity mindset, right?Michael: Yeah, the zero sum game, so you have to--if you have an ERG for African-American professionals, Asian-American professionals, you need to have one that a white male says, "I identify with this one. I identify with this one." They gotta have one too. You can't ignore anyone. It has to be for all.Zach: Michael, this has been great. I just gotta thank you again. Before we go, I'll give you a chance - any shout-outs or parting words, man?Michael: I think that entrepreneurism is a journey that's not for everybody. If you're thinking about it explore it, you know? Talk to some entrepreneurs and see what it's like, but do an honest check with you as to whether or not it's good for you. And then if you're in the corporate environment, lead with the data. You know, the data is what you're gonna need. And know that even if you have all the data, if there are people who aren't interested in diversity and inclusion, you know, the data's not gonna get it done. So, you know, get the data, use the data, make your case with the data, and if you find things are still slow, that's because the leader you're talking to just doesn't want to make a difference. You know, they don't want to change, and so then I'd update my LinkedIn profile and try to find some place where people are using data in the way that they use it for every other decision, whether it be M&A or anything else. You don't want anything different in the D&I area. You just want the consistent behavior, but don't bang your head too long or you're gonna find yourself with a headache.Zach: Michael, thank you so much, man. Look, we're gonna talk to you soon. We consider you a friend of the show. Honored, pleasure to have you. All right, y'all, so that does it for us. This has been Zach with Living Corporate. You know what we do. We're having these authentic conversations even during the rona. I pray that everyone is staying safe out there. You know where to check us out. You can just Google us. We're all over the place, okay? Living Corporate. You type that in and we're gonna pop up on something. You make sure you check us out on our website, living-corporate--please say the dash--dot com, or livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.net, livingcorporate.tv, livingcorporate.us, okay? Livingcorporate dot... shoot, all the livingcorporates except for livingcorporate.com. We've already talked about this. So if you type in livingcorporate.com it's gonna take you to some Australian website. [?] Australia, but we don't have that domain, okay? So livingcorporate.co, .us, .tv, or living-corporate.com. 'Til next time, y'all. This has been Zach. You've been listening to Michael C. Bush, CEO of Great Place to Work. Catch y'all next time. Peace.

On the eleventh installment of our See It to Be It podcast series, Amy C. Waninger speaks with Bobbie Shrivastav, co-founder and CPO of Benekiva, about her personal journey that led to the insurtech industry, and Bobbie graciously shares where she goes for support among other women and people of color in the insurtech space. Connect with Bobbie on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.Find out more about Benekiva. They're also on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate. Now, look, for those of y'all who are new here, the purpose of Living Corporate is to create a space that affirms black and brown experiences in the workplace, right? There are certain things that only we can really understand, and when I say we I mean the collective non-white professional [laughs] in corporate America. And when we look around--if you, like, Google being black and brown in corporate America, you may see, like, a post in Huffington Post or something that kind of communicates from a position of lack, but I don't know if we necessarily see a lot of content that empowers and affirms our identity and our experience, and that's really the whole purpose of Living Corporate. It's with that that I'm really excited to talk to y'all about the See It to Be It series. Amy C. Waninger, who has been a guest on the show, who's a writer for Living Corporate, and who's also the author of Network Beyond Bias, she's actually partnered with Living Corporate to actually have an interviewing series where she actually sits down with black and brown professionals so that we can learn about what they actually do and see ourselves in these roles, right? So it's a variety of industries that she's--she's talking to a lot of different types of folks. You're gonna be able to see what they do, and at the same time you're gonna hopefully be able to envision yourself in that role, hence the title See It to Be It, okay? So check this out. The next thing you're gonna hear is this interview with Amy C. Waninger. Y'all hang tight. Catch y'all next time. Peace.Amy: Bobbie, thank you so much for joining me. How are you today?Bobbie: I'm doing good, Amy. How are you?Amy: I'm doing great. I was hoping you could tell me just a little bit about your company so that we can sort of level set on what the heck is insurtech anyway.Bobbie: So a little bit about my company. I'm co-founder and chief product officer of Benekiva, and our entire mission for our company is to bridge the gap between the carrier, the policy holder and the beneficiary, and we do that by offering carriers--right now we're focused on life and annuity--organizations with claims automation, asset retention and data management.Amy: And so for the people who aren't in the insurance industry or don't know a whole lot about life insurance, let's break that into plain English. So you're trying to solve the problem--I'm gonna put words in your mouth and you correct me if I'm wrong--you're trying to solve the problem where someone dies and they have a policy and their beneficiaries maybe don't know that that policy exists or how to get to it, and you're trying to help people get the money that they deserve based on those policies being in effect, right?Bobbie: So yes, so--it's actually six-fold, 'cause our--we have six different modules that we've created, but before I go into the six different modules, success for our company is when a beneficiary has just received a check that they had no idea was coming. For us, that is what we are striving towards. Our foot in the door is through claims, and what we've learned by just interviewing and just statistics alone is that the claims process is simply outdated, so we have a 100% digital claims solution that also includes moving the money if the carrier wants to. So that's our first module, then we have modules that allow carriers to track their unclaimed property in the shipment [logs?], Bene Retention is taking the claims process and giving the ability for the carriers to serve the beneficiaries by using their sales [force?]. The module that you talked about, which is Bene Update and Bene Notify. So what we want to do is Bene Notify is when a triggering event happens--and unfortunately in life it is a death, death is a triggering event, that's when we want to notify the beneficiary. But on the update side, what we want to encourage carriers is how do you create that engagement with the policy holder so that we're getting that Bene information ahead of time? So you're not--right now if you look at carriers and how they're trying to find beneficiaries, Google is their best friend. How do we make Google not their best friend? 'Cause they can't find these benes, so they're looking online, they're look at obituaries. It's just a manual process to just find a beneficiary. Amy: Yeah, you would think they would've had that under control years and years ago, but good for you for putting all those pieces together.Bobbie: Oh yeah, and we've heard horror stories, even on the carrier side, where their bene information is still in file folders. So it's not--they've not even done the transformation to get some of the information online. So yeah, it's a huge problem, and we are very excited to solve it. So that's what, you know, drives us every day.Amy: That's fantastic. So can you tell me--how did you get into this space? Because obviously you're solving a problem that's never been solved before, and something led you here, so what was it?Bobbie: So it's an interesting story. So in 2016 I was working on a startup with Soven, who's one of the co-founders of my original startup and Benekiva, and he's also my husband. So both of us had this startup around digital--it was a digital documentation and e-signature platform, and he has roots in Iowa, so we--his parents were coming from Nepal, so we decided to go visit them, and my key was, "Hey, we're beta testing this product." And the product is Docsmore. I'm not sitting there and hanging out with family. That's great, but I also want to do some business development and just see what the Des Moines area looks like--'cause we live in North Carolina. So that's what led us to meet Brent, 'cause we had reached out to several people, and there was one person in particular we met, and she was Brent's client, and Brent Williams was a financial advisor, a very successful financial advisor--250 million assets under management--so he met with us, and he initially thought--when his client heard about what we were trying to do she's like, "This is interesting. You should talk to Brent, and let me do the introduction," so it was once again that networking. It was so cool. So we met up with Brent, and Brent thought he was telling us about financial advisory 'cause of our corporate backgrounds. He was like, "Okay, they look like good couples. I can help serve them," and the entire conversation--this is when Soven's like, "We're more interested in learning about your startup. What is it?" You should have see Brent's eyes. He just, like, "Oh, my gosh. I gotta share about this insurtech startup" that he was starting, and it was--as a financial adviser, he has gone through the claims process with this policy holder's loved ones, and he's seen the breakdown from the insurance--like, from an advisory angle, and that's when we fell in love with the problem. He was looking for innovation and tech folks to jion the team, and Soven and I had just bought life insurance policy because we--my child right now is 4, but at the time she was 1 and we just bought a life insurance policy. I'm like, "Are you telling me there's, like, a two-thirds chance that policies don't get claimed?" And she may be one of them. So we're gonna go--we're gonna go solve this problem. So that's how we connected back in 2016. That's when Benekiva was born.Amy: That's awesome. So you actually have a tech background, not an insurance background?Bobbie: I have a tech and financial services background.Amy: Okay. Also--Bobbie: Insurance is brand new, and I kind of immersed myself when I met Brent.Amy: That's neat. Yeah, a lot of people in insurance don't get there on purpose, right? They kind fall into it, and that's okay. We'll keep you. Bobbie: I love it so far. It's been amazing to find people like you and Tony and others that--it's been a great community of people, so I feel so welcomed.Amy: Good, I'm so glad. So what's been the biggest surprise to you about starting this venture in the insurtech space?Bobbie: So initially the town that I live in and our startup community, I'm the first insurtech startup in our area, in Winston-Salem. There's not many, and if there are they're hiding 'cause I've not seen anybody. Amy: Startups that hide are usually not very successful, by the way.Bobbie: So when I talk to folks about Benekiva in our local community, they were like "Yeah, that's not a problem. That's not a problem that needed to be solved," and I was like, "How can you say that?" And it's because they don't work in insurance. They've never been in the insurance--they don't understand the value chain. So I came in with the bias that yes, we are solving this problem, how will the market react when we launch? And we literally thought it was going to be this short, steady ride, we'll have this, like, really, really [?]. It's just gonna be just new. It's gonna be a long several years before we can get some good traction, and we have been blown away, and that's been the biggest surprise. So we know now, like, that kind of is confirmation. Like, we did so much research so we knew that there was a problem, but the fact that the market and the carriers and the supporters that we had gives us such good confidence that yes. So all of those other folks in my community who said "You don't have a problem," I do. I'm solving a problem. So that's been--but what's funny though is the same people that, when Brent talks to them, they're just enamored by the problem we're solving, but when I pitch it's kind of like, "Yeah, you don't have a problem." So I get some type of a bias sometimes, and I'm wondering what it could be, but... oh, I know what it is. Never mind. Amy: Imagine that. So yeah, I know people who will hire--I have talked to a couple women entrepreneurs who have hired men to go in and say that they're the boss to get money, to get clients, to close deals, and because for some reason when it comes from a man it's a great idea, so they just make that work for them. So I guess it's good that you have a partnership with someone who--Bobbie: Yeah, and we work so well as a team, and honestly from a Benekiva perspective, our entire team, we're just one big family. But he even recognizes, you know, that we do a lot of partnering when it comes to--'cause he's done sales all of his career, right, and I've been in tech, so I've learned a lot, and we've just been jointly doing selling, and what we've found is super powerful is when you have a male dynamic and when you have a female dynamic in the room trying to work with problems, right? I come at it from a different angle. He comes it at from a different angle. And we have just made that work so good, and it's actually what makes our company unique, because we do, we have that--we embrace diversity, and we do things together.Amy: That's awesome.Bobbie: Yeah, and he's a big supporter. He's like--he's the first one to say, "Okay, Bobbie, there's a woman in tech event and you're gonna go and present that." So I have a very supportive founding team. They push me to do stuff, so it's great.Amy: That's awesome. I'm so happy for you, because there are so many women, especially in tech, who would just, you know, yearn for an opportunity like that, to have an opportunity to contribute at their fullest, and I just think it's wonderful that you've found that and that you're doing it in a way that's just gonna help so many people. I just think it's awesome. I'm so excited for you.Bobbie: Thank you, thank you. And I encourage other women too. Like, that's--get out of that mental state of "We can't do it," you know? We have enough supporters that we'll make it happen, and a lot of our supporters come from men. So it's awesome.Amy: They need too because they're the ones with the seat at the table, right?Bobbie: Yeah. I mean, just recently a Twitter post where they had published, like, a top 10 or top 20 or top 30 insurtech list, and Nigel was like, "Where are the women founders?" And he, like, blasted [a few?] women founders, and it's people like that that make you feel so supported in our industry. 'Cause our industry is tough.Amy: It is, absolutely, and, you know, I've seen so many, like, future leaders, right, and almost without exception future leaders are young, white men, and it's like, "No, future leaders are everybody, and if you can't see that, then you're perpetuating the problem." So I'm so glad that you have those allies in place. So speaking of that, where do you go for support? And I know that you identify as a woman of color, being Indian-American. Where do you go for support among other women or other people of color in your industry?Bobbie: So honestly, in our industry, it's social media. I have a great group of core women that we support each other. Like, you're one of them. We support each other by tweeting, sharing. If I have an issue--like, I was just texting with my friend Marie, and just, you know, [?] is another one. We just have a good support system, but there's a group in LinkedIn for women in insurtech, and if you're a woman in insurtech you need to join that LinkedIn group. Add me on LinkedIn and I can add you to that group, because it's a good way to get that community growing and just encourage women entrepreneurs, especially in our industry. So I've done mainly--100% actually. It's all social media.Amy: I think social media is so under-recognized as a networking tool, and I did that myself early on. I was like, "I don't want anything to do with Twitter. I don't understand it. I want no part of it," and someone told me "No, you really need to be on Twitter," and the really needing to be on Twitter thing was like, "Okay, fine, whatever," right? And I started a little bit and I started a little bit more, and then I started to figure out how to grow my following there, and my network has exploded because of Twitter. And it's not superficial, ridiculous, like, trolling kinds of relationships, right? It's real, honest to God human people who, you know, called me when my book launched to congratulate me. Called me on the phone to congratulate me. Not tweeted at me, right, but, like, actually made a human connection. It's people who have invited me to speak at their companies. It's people who have, you know, referred me for opportunities. There's such a sense of community on social media, and I think a lot of people who don't use it that way don't recognize that that exists. When people say, "Well, how do I connect with people who are different from me?" My first thing is start on social media, because it's a great way to listen to a conversation without inserting yourself into it, and that's the first step in building trust.Bobbie: I'm reading a book right now about how to create--I'm on the chapter about how to create, like, CHAMP networks. It's--yeah, I mean, doing things on social media, I think people, there's--you know, you often get so much spam, and I think that's why people don't engage it in much, but once you can filter those people out there are some--especially in insurance, in insurtech--there's great conversations that are happening in pockets and bigger pockets, and it's a great support network.Amy: Absolutely, and, you know, as people connect with you and see you as one of their own, whatever that means, right, whether it's in your discipline or in your industry or in your demographic group, right, when people connect with you and really feel that they start to open doors for you. And these are people you wouldn't have access to you because they don't live where you live or they don't work at your same company or whatever. So I think it's just so powerful to put yourself out there and kind of let the universe take over in a way.Bobbie: Yeah, it's been the best--I was always on LinkedIn, but I think I really truly started understanding the value of LinkedIn in the last two years, because I have not--I've not been one of those people who truly engaged. I had a good following, you know, but now if you look at the conversations I'm having they're super meaningful and I'm building those relationships. Previously I was just at'ing co-workers and, you know, having the relationship and bonding at the workplace. Now, as an entrepreneur, you know, you don't have that luxury, especially with me being in Winston-Salem, being the only insurtech company, it's just it forces you to reach out.Amy: Definitely. So if somebody's not already in insurtech, where do you recommend they go to learn about this industry and what skills they might have that would transfer in or how they might get started, you know, in a career of their own here.Bobbie: So the way I entered insurtech was through startups, right? Like, I had an initial--I was an entrepreneur and just landed myself here. So I saw a complementary need that what I was trying to do with Benekiva was doing. What I would recommend folks that want to get into insurtech is find those problems that you want to solve. I wouldn't have gone into insurtech if I didn't fall in love with the problem. That's just not my personality. I don't build companies just to say, "Oh, it's gonna be profitable." I'm very mission-focused, so it's gotta touch my heart in order for me to even get involved. So I think if there's a passion or an interest or, like, if you're even curious about "Why does this happen in the insurance space?" Oh, my gosh, find a startup, and I would always encourage people to find a startup. Go to those startup weekends, right? Create something, like, an idea. You get resources for free. So much resources are available. Just maximize on that. And then if you've got enough momentum, build it. If not, then partner with somebody. You know, like, as a start, you know? So I always encourage entrepreneurs, like, if you're passionate about something, just do a side hustle, do a whatever, but just figure out, and then once--you will feel it when you've got the momentum to say, you know, you can leave, you know? You can leave your full-time job and do your own entrepreneur journey.Amy: It's scary, isn't it? 'Cause you went through that when you were an employee--Bobbie: Yes, that side hustling. Amy: Yeah, so tell me about that thought process. How did you prepare for that departure?Bobbie: I think I shared that story with you when we first met. So--it was so funny. So 2015 is when I was, like, you know, I jumped into entrepreneurship. And I had a full-time job. I had a very nice career. And when I dipped my toes in, the first thing I did was I told my boss, which there were--my employers, they were super supportive, and they were like, "We all have side hustles. You should have one too," so they totally encouraged me [?].Amy: That is so rare, by the way.Bobbie: Very rare, but I worked for a fantastic organization. And then I literally had--there's so many phases, and you've probably experienced it--imposter syndrome. "Am I gonna make it?" Oh, it's so tough. I mean, there's so much, like--it's a hard road. So one of my friends--we became very good friends, and she does coaching. She's a transformation coach. And she's just like, "You know what, Bobbie? You're so smart and you can do this," and I'm like, "Yeah, she's just saying that because she's my friend," but she's like, "Let me do a coaching session with you," and that went onto I wasn't part of a group coaching on things that initially, before I did that, I thought it was all, like, voodoo stuff [?], but it really worked because it helped me declutter all of the biases that I had and gave me the confidence. So what I did was March of 2017, I won't forget, I wrote a card and I said--I kind of planned my end-of-day--like, this is the date I'm gonna leave my work. I'm gonna have this grand party. I'm gonna say bye to everyone. And I wrote the date of September 29, 2017, and I looked at it every single day. Every single day I looked at it. So it gave me this kind of, like--I'm a project manager by trade--gave me, like, a timeline to get things done, get things planned out, and September 29th is when I left my full-time job.Amy: That's incredible. I love that story for so many reasons. Okay, so just one more question and then I'll let you go today, but when do you feel included, Bobbie? Tell me about a time when you felt genuinely included.Bobbie: You know, honestly--so the entrepreneurship journey has been difficult, and everybody has those stories, and I think I've literally felt included when--I've been on this journey in my local community since 2015. 2017 is when I really pushed, really organized an event where I really wanted local companies to meet startups, local startups. We talk about buying local, and I'm like, "It's time that you buy local products from startups, tech products. Don't go to Company ABC when another company is doing something similar. You should give them an opportunity. Give them a seat at the table." So I worked with our co-working space to do an event, and I was told that "Bobbie's legit," and I think that's--it kind of, like, pissed me off, but then it also gave me, like, this confirmation. Like, "Okay, now I think people are taking me serious," you know? But it took two years, and that's what my mission is, is it took me two years as a woman, right? And I know what the biases are. It's because I'm a woman. That's the issue, and I don't want any other woman to ever feel like they're not included earlier on in their journey. I felt included, and now I'm never gonna let anybody else not feel included until they've proven themselves. There's no need. There's no need.Amy: That's so beautiful, and I love that, that it took somebody else saying "You're legit." And how many of us struggle with that feeling of "I won't be accepted. They won't think I'm really supposed to be here," right? You know, Amy Cuddy, who did the TED talk famously on, you know, power poses and, you know, she talks about, "Oh, well, I'm not supposed to be here" because she had been in an accident and lost some of her IQ, you know, even though she had been on this meteoric rise. Then that was kind of taken away from her, at least in her own mind, and I think so many of us feel like we're just not supposed to be here, and when somebody else says, "No, no, no, you're legit," or, you know, someone that we really admire, you know, talks to us as an equal or, you know, or treats us that way. I just think that has such a profound impact. And you know what? It costs nothing.Bobbie: Yeah, it costs nothing. It's just you have to have an open mind and an open heart.Amy: Exactly. Bobbie, thank you so much for being my guest today. I greatly appreciate your time and your talents and I look forward to so much more from you.Bobbie: Thank you. Thank you so much.

On the sixty-first entry of Tristan's Tips, our amazing host Tristan Layfield talks about how you can build and maintain relationships with co-workers while we work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the hardest things to do when you and your team aren’t in the same location is to build and maintain relationships - let's be real, it's difficult enough when you're all in the same office. Actively cultivating those relationships could help you position yourself as a valuable player on the team though, so make sure you listen to the full show and utilize Tristan's advice!Connect with Tristan on LinkedIn, IG, FB, and Twitter.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTTristan: What's going on, Living Corporate?! It's Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting, and I'm back to bring you another career tip. This week I want to talk about how you can build and maintain relationships with coworkers while working from home.I’ve been working from home for over 8 years now and I know one of the hardest things to do when you and your team aren’t in the same location is to build and maintain relationships. Let’s be real, it’s difficult enough when you all are in the same office. But during such a trying time, actively cultivating those relationships could help you position yourself as a valuable player on the team. So here are a few tips on how to do just that: 1. Send a morning instant message - now I wouldn't recommend doing this for every coworker every day, but I'd suggest that you rotate coworkers. Ask them how they're doing, see what they're working on, or just let them know that you're there if they need anything.2. Check-in via email - Set a schedule to check in with some of your team members weekly or biweekly. Ask them how the transition is going and if they need any assistance with anything.3. Set up a video chat - Maybe invite your team to have morning coffee or tea for 10-15 minutes over Skype, Zoom, or WebEx. This provides an opportunity for you all to catch up and still build community. You might even be able to identify some issues that you can easily solve and position yourself as an emerging leader. 4. Teach them - even though we are a few weeks into working from home, undoubtedly, there are people on your team that are still having issues with some of the remote tools they now have to use. Shoot an email out to the team to see what issues they are having and set up a training session to teach them how to utilize the platforms. By making the team a priority, you'll show leadership that not only are you a team player, but you're invested in the success of the business. Also, don’t forget to include these efforts on your annual performance review!This tip was brought to you by Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting. Check us out on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @LayfieldResume or connect with me, Tristan Layfield, on LinkedIn.

Zach chats with Fortune senior editor Ellen McGirt about her journey to writing on race and leadership and what fuels her to do this work, and she graciously details the dynamic of what it looks like for her to talk about these topics with majority-white executive leaders while breaking down how it works for her as a journalist. Ellen's reporting has taken her inside the C-Suites of Facebook, Nike, Twitter, Intel, Xerox and Cisco and on the campaign trail with Barack Obama - check out all of her information in the show notes!Connect with Ellen on LinkedIn and Twitter, and check out her Fortune.com newsletter raceAhead.Follow Fortune on social media. They're on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and man, goodness gracious. Wild times we're living in. I hope that you're washing your hands, keeping your hands off your face, not congregating in groups of more than 10--just chilling really, right? Take care of yourself, take care of your family. I hope that you've been listening to the content that Living Corporate has been putting out regarding just working from home and still maintaining community while working from home. Just taking care of yourself. I'm hoping that you're able to engage in our content, and irrespective of that I'm just hoping that you're safe. You know, we always have conversations on this platform that aim to center and amplify underrepresented voices, and I think that we continue to separate ourselves as it pertains to doing that, right? Like, we're trying to be unapologetic about really amplifying and centering marginalized, underrepresented and underappreciated, underestimated voices at work, and we do this by having authentic, available, candid, transparent--any other words you want to use for real--conversations with all types of people. Authors, writers, professors, activists, executives, recruiters, entrepreneurs, influencers, artists, right? Like, anybody that is passionate about this space, and with that being said, we have somebody on who honestly--and I don't know why I'll always say, "I'm really a fan of this person," but I really am a fan. Like, this person, if y'all--anyway, we'll get into it. Ellen McGirt. Ellen McGirt is an award-winning journalist, senior editor at Fortune Magazine, and covers race, culture and leadership in a daily column for Fortune called "RaceAhead". Make sure y'all check out RaceAhead. We'll talk about that a little bit later, but it's fire. Her reporting has taken her inside the C-Suites of Facebook, Nike, Twitter, Intel, Xerox and Cisco--now, look, those are just a few, okay? 'Cause that's not exhaustive--the campaign trail with Barack Obama--what's up, come on--and across Africa with Bono to study breakthrough philanthropy. In the past, she’s written for Time, Money and Fast Company, where she wrote or contributed to more than twenty cover stories and created the digital series "The 30 Second MBA." Back when the web was young, [laughs]--so that's when Al Gore was, like, you know, like, a little less stodgy. Like, this was earlier. She was the founder of a financial website for women called "Cassandra’s Revenge," and she established similar sites for AOL and Oxygen Media. Y'all, she established sites for--it's crazy, 'cause I'm reading this and I'm like--as if I haven't read this before, but it's just wild when you think about, like, sites for AOL. Like, that's back in the day. You know, some of y'all don't remember. You had to log on, and then, like, the little man would be on the screen, and then, you know, you couldn't be on the computer, and then your mom would be on the phone 'cause--the busy signal 'cause you had dial-up, and you'd pick up the phone and it'd be like *noise*. Anyway, so the point is, like, she's OG. OG in the game. Ellen was the lead editor for Your First Leadership Job, a book published by Wiley in 2015, and she attended Brown University. Ellen, welcome to the show. How are you doing?Ellen: I am exhausted after listening to my bio. My gosh, I've been busy. But so happy to be here, Zach. Thank you.Zach: Now, look, first off we gotta shout you out, because you were one of the first articles that we cited on Living Corporate, "Why Race & Culture Matter in the C-Suite," talking about leading while black. Can we talk a little bit about that piece and your journey on writing in race and leadership?Ellen: 100% we can, 'cause that really kicked off a whole new career development for me. But before we do I have to shout you right back, Zach. I mean, when I stepped into this space of writing about race, particularly for the corporate world, I was stepping into a space where giants already inhabited the world, and you are one of them, and I appreciate you, and I just want to let you know that at moments when I really don't know what to do, what to write, what to think about what's happening in the world, I've got your voice in my head, and you steer me in the right directions, so I appreciate you.Zach: Would you stop? Oh, my gosh.Ellen: That's the thing. But that's also the thing. I know that you know this from doing this work, which is different from, you know, your day job and your home life and it's just a distinct part of what you do, is that when you decide to talk about race and inclusion, particularly in the workplace and what that means in the world, you inherit a whole bunch of people who you didn't know who existed who have been thinking about how to make the world better in this challenging way, and that's the blessing of the work. It really is.Zach, You know, speaking of the work, why do you think so few folks discuss the intersection of race and leadership in major publications? This is not even really an ad for Fortune, right? Shout-out to Fortune. What's up? But, you know, I don't see this a lot. You know, you see pieces from time to time in Harvard Business Review, but I don't think I've seen dedicated spaces for this intersection of race and leadership in white-owned publications. Like, why do you think that is, and what's your fuel for doing this work?Ellen: You know, this leads me right back to your first question. You know as well as anybody who is reading business material or even news magazines or news material that race is just not something people are willing to talk about, are comfortable talking about, and I think for Fortune, which writes for the business audience--and not just any business audience, for a corporate audience--this is not something that had ever been taken on seriously in the corporate world before, and in addition to subscribers, in addition to people showing up at our events, major corporations actually are our advertisers and our sponsors. In many ways, we are paid for by the people that we cover. So it is an inherent tension, and we do have to walk that fine line. I know you and I have talked about this in the past. So imagine my surprise, you know? [laughs] I hadn't worked at Fortune in years. I had left in 2006 and joined a competitor for many, many years, which you mentioned. I had worked on a book. I was sort of looking around for my next act, and I get a ping out of the blue from Cliff Leaf, who is now the editor-in-chief, asking me if I would be willing to write a piece about why there's no black men in the executive pipeline in Fortune 500 companies. So two things leaped to mind. "Oh, my gosh. Of course yes," and the second one is "There really must not be anybody as part of just Fortune's daily lives who felt comfortable writing a piece like this," which reflected just how tentative it all is for everyone. News rooms are not as diverse as they should be. Corporate America isn't. Nothing is as diverse as it should be. So in my first conversation with Cliff--and I have to also shout-out Alan Murray, who's now our CEO--then our president--you know, this is something that people, that they cared about, brought to their attention, as something that would be welcome in the marketplace, and to their credit, two white men stood behind me and said, "We pick you. Let's see what happens," and my conversation with Cliff is this can't just be about data. This just can't be an inspiring conversation with a beleaguered chief diversity officer somewhere,who we all know doesn't get the resources that they need. We need to look at what happens that black men very specifically, from the time they're born, in under-resourced neighborhoods, in neighborhoods without sufficient food resources and with environmental issues, to the time they don't get to the C-Suite. And where are we losing them? We're losing them in school, where they're--under-resourced school or biased treatment, disproportionate treatment while they're in school. We're losing them into the criminal justice system, and we know how that works out. We're losing them through a series of biased decisions and screening mechanisms which are systemic. Hell, if their mothers survive their birth with them we're losing them every step of the way, and that was what that first story was intended to do, was to look at it from that holistic point of view. And Zach, it worked. It almost killed me, but it worked, because, you know, in order to do it I had to take the testimony of men just like you, and some not like you--younger than you, in different stages than you, [?], young men who would never join the corporate world for any reason because they don't trust it--and put that, their pain and their regrets and their pressures and their inability to cope with some of the unique pressures they experience, on full view, and that kicks us off with an opening to have more of these types of conversations in longform and print and in a daily newsletter, which had--to my knowledge--not been explored in this way in any business publication. We were growing a newsletter of business, but it was particularly--it was usually sector-oriented. Like, here's tech, or here's healthcare. You know, those are the kinds of things we tend to gravitate to. "Here's mergers and acquisitions." The exceptions were Alan Murray's CEO Daily, which is about leadership, which is, of course, top of mind news, top of the heap, and Broadsheet, which is for women and [?] corporate women which has inspired me from the very beginning and has turned into literally my sisters in inclusive thinking. Like, really advocating for what would make the workplace better for people who should be there in larger numbers. And it was an accident, it was an experiment, and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.Zach: Well, you know, it's incredible, and I'ma tell you, like, I read it--and Living Corporate's format back then was a little bit different, but I hope that I gave it justice when I read it on the podcast because it was just--it really resonated with me, and I remember, you know--'cause you were profiling the now-passed on--rest in peace--Bernard Tyson, and I just recall at the time, like, even reading the piece and the way you talked about Mr. Tyson and just his journey, it was almost just like reading, like, about a mythical figure, right? So it meant a lot. It meant a lot to me, and I know it's meant a lot to our listenership. And a little bit behind the scenes actually, that particular episode is one of our most referenced--and that was, like, early. I mean, y'all, this was almost--this was two years ago, right? This was in our first, like, 10 or 15 episodes. This is one of our most downloaded episodes actually, like, to date. So you talked about it--you know, you said the piece, it almost killed you, and you made mention of, like, really, I believe--without putting words in your mouth--you were alluding to the emotional labor of the work. Can you talk a little bit about what it looks like to do the work and, like, how you maintain in really grappling these types of topics day in and day out?Ellen: You know, I am one of many, many people in many professions, for a variety of reasons, who have to look at the human condition. And when you talk about race or gender in particular, then it's also my condition. It's how I have been left out or how my father, who served in World War II in the segregated Army came home and couldn't vote or participate in home ownership programs for other veterans. You know, it's the weight of that. It's the understanding of the history and the extent of it and our unwillingness to examine it without distensiveness. That is just--it weighs so heavily. When I have candid conversations with people like Bernard Tyson, like yourself, like anybody, you feel the weight from them, and I feel a tremendous responsibility to get their story right and to put it in the correct context. The other thing I wasn't expecting though--and again, it's purely sort of the naivety of the journalistic separation, you know, the sense that you've got some sort of distance, was how ugly the world was going to get. At some point I felt like I was still going to rely heavily on, you know, data and surveys and diversity reports and truly inspiring one-on-one conversations with people who are doing the work. I was not expecting Nazis in the streets. I was not prepared for video after video after video after video of people shot by and killed by police, you know, which I had to look at them all, and then in order to not make a mistake--because I'm not an expert, I don't have a background in it--every link I share, every interview I have I have to overprepare for, and I've gotten more used to it now, but I would spend hours reading, selecting links, curating them to share, trying to make sure I understood them, making sure I was framing them correctly, and that has been a wonderful masterclass--I mean, I feel like I have nine master's degrees now, but shame on me if I make a mistake about how what's happening in an indigenous community or with gender. I wanted to be able to model the best possible work I was asking other people to do, which also meant that I would have to, you know, own a mistake that I made publicly, which is also what I'm asking people to do. So those are the things--I mean, those are really the things. It was deeply personal in a way I didn't expect. It was more violent than I expected. I mean, I just never imagined I was going to spend my time fighting with people about whether Robert E. Lee was a good guy or not. I mean, it's just a shock. [both laugh] And then it's just the weight of getting it right in areas that are not my expertise, which quite frankly are all of them. Zach: I think that's the most interesting thing about this work. When you talk about--'cause ultimately, you know, you and I, we've had conversations on and off-mic around, like, you're talking to a lot of people who are self-described diversity, equity and inclusion experts, but, like, the reality is, like, all of this work in, like, its full earnestness is still very new, and, like, no one, I don't believe, has a right--outside of people who have lived experience, right? So you're talking about folks who have really lived this and they've built things. They've built coalitions, right? So, like, if you're talking about people with a civil rights background, sure, but I'm talking about, like, the average corporate D&I person. You know, there's very little I believe true, like, expertise. It's like, "We're all out here just trying to learn and grow and amplify and make an impact where we can." I do think that you--and this is not a pat on the back--I really do think it's important that people appreciate folks who are in your position. You're one of the few people I think who, like, will take onus on mistakes that you make, right? Like, there's some journalistic principles to that too of course, but it also I think comes with the domain of what you're covering. Like, I think there's a lot of times when folks just feel like they're so beyond apologizing. It's like, "No, you were wrong. It's okay."Ellen: Right, and that is--it's humiliating and it's hard to master in a highly-competitive environment. It feels like you're going to lose something important, some sort of status thing, but I think particularly for white audiences who don't understand--and I didn't understand until I started learning more--about the contours of what it means to be white, you know? We spend so much time thinking about what everybody else's life is like and what they need from us and what we should do, but we, meaning white people, need to think about what whiteness actually is, and that seems to trigger this hideous reaction from folks. It's like a soul death. I think that the more we become accustomed to making space for these conversations and white people--especially white people who are in leadership positions--talking with other people about the shape of, about the idea of whiteness as a concept, as a construct, and what that means and why you cling to it even if you don't know that you're clinging to it the better off we're going to be. And so modeling that--I'll give you a good example. A couple years ago we sent out a reader survey, our marketing department sent out a reader survey, to anybody who subscribes to a Fortune newsletter, and the first part of the survey was boilerplate and the rest of it was tailored to your specific newsletters. I only paid attention to the information that we were asking from my readers around who they were and what they needed and how diverse they were and all this other stuff. Where I didn't notice was that the first part of the newsletter only had male or female as an option for your gender, and within seconds of it going out my inbox was filled, filled with people who weren't angry but were deeply hurt, and it was such a validation of the relationship that we had created together, but oh, I scrapped everything I was working on, sent apologies to everybody who had written to me, and then spent the next column walking through what happened, apologizing and promising to do better, but in order to actually do that I had to get our folks who designed the survey in Bangalore on the phone and get them to add other options, and then make sure with my audience that I had added the right options. And it was a beautiful experience. I'm still humiliated by it. I didn't even notice. But as a result, I brought that to our Fortune events team, and now all introductory language in all of the scripts for all Fortune conferences uses gender-neutral terms.Zach: Well, it's incredible, right? And, like, I think what people in positions of power--and power is relative, right, and we're gonna talk about this in a little bit, but, like, privilege is relative. You know, I'm a black, straight-presenting straight man, Christian man, who is over six feet. So that comes with certain challenges and certain privileges, but you can demonstrate humility to communicate "Oh, you know, I caught this. I realize I was wrong, and this is what we're gonna do about it." Like, that's huge, and I think also to your point, like, them not being mad but being hurt, like, that's an important part, piece of nuance to grasp, like, to decenter yourself. Like, we've had other conversations on the pod around, like, decentering whiteness from conversations with marginalized communities, and it's like, if you just decenter yourself for a moment, stop thinking that--you know, stop centering your own hurt or your own pride or ego and consider that people are reaching out to you. And they sound angry, or they're yelling or they're using direct or curt language, it's because they feel ignored or left behind or they don't feel seen, and, like, that's important, right? Like, we're all human beings. We all, by the very nature of our own existence, deserve the right to be seen, and I think, like, that--if we can change our perspective a little bit, especially from a leadership perspective, and understand where that pain is coming from and, like, that hurt, I think that can time shift like, just the overall responses, you know what I mean?Ellen: You're absolutely right about that, and it is a leadership skill, and it's an inclusive leadership skill, and it's one of a core set of listening and decentering skills that are very hard to learn and very hard to each, because they do take time to master and to be supported in a work environment, especially a work environment that's under siege, that wants to be innovative or is having some sort of problem, and now we all have the same problem. Now we all have coronavirus. [laughs] So, you know, all of the things that we know to do to be inclusive tend to go by the wayside when we're in an emergency situation and people tend to fall on their worst habits. They hire mini-mes. They assemble teams of people like them. They want to stay comfortable in times of real volatility. So I think we're entering into a pretty interesting test, whether some of our commitments to taking risks--and I've got air quotes around risks--with people who are not like ourselves will stick with that during times where teens are gonna be coming together rapidly and people are gonna be making very difficult decisions.Zach: Agreed. You know, and let's continue talking forward. Let's talk about you actually in this work, 'cause you talked about this shape--and again, like, we don't... I love--sidenote, I love this platform because of the kind of conversations we have. You know, shout-out to you. You're one of the few people on that platform so far that we've really, like, tackled the concept of whiteness. Like, the way you talked about the contour and shape of whiteness, like, how it practically shows up. I want to talk about what it looks like for you being who you are, a black woman in this space, talking to majority-white executive leaders around these issues? And, like, what does it look like to maintain a balance--and I don't even know if balance is the right word, but it's like you have to, I would imagine, carry enough of a relationship so that you can actually get them to open up and have conversations while at the same time--I could be wrong--it seems as if you go, like, too hard, then you end up damaging your potential network and brand, like, to where you won't be able to have anymore conversations with this space, but you're also trying to, like, speak on behalf of, or amplify, marginalized voices or speak truth to power. Like, I'm curious as to, like, that dynamic and, like, how does it work for you as a journalist?Ellen: That is such a great question. Most people don't ask me that, and it really is something I've thought a lot about over the years. The vast majority of the work that I have done as a journalist--which was a second career for me--that involved powerful people had nothing to do with race, although I always asked questions about, you know, race and equity as a natural part of the way I talked. And that was mostly at FastCompany where I wrote a lot of profiles, and writing profiles of people is a different way of telling a story about a company. It means I don't have to be a tech expert or I don't have to be a hardware expert or I don't have to be a medical devices expert to talk to people who are running these kinds of companies, 'cause the higher you go up on the food chain the more of what you do all day is the people part, is making sure that you're removing barriers for growth, and that includes touching product and touching money, but mostly what you do is you think about people, and not just your customers but the people that work for you. And those are universal conversations, and those were ones that I learned to get good at. And I also--this is odd, because I spent years and years and years as an art dealer and working in museums and galleries. I spent a lot of time talking to people I didn't know--typically people who had more money than I did--about something they absolutely did not need to buy, which is, you know, pigment on some parchment or fabric, and then just talk about the world, the world of ideas, and I got very comfortable talking to people with status because of that decades-long experience, and once you start talking to people, then other things can flow from it. So I walked into the race beat having developed a sense of comfort and belonging talking to people who were quote-unquote powerful, and to your point--and I'm going to say this delicately--because I've always been sort of a middle-of-the-pack person in the news room, in journalism, I'm not part of any kind of fast track, I don't look like the next editor-in-chief of anything, you know, based on results of the last couple of decades. I felt a sort of freedom that people who are largely invisible often feel, and I was lucky. I wasn't head of a household. I didn't have children for most of my journalism career. I'm a stepmother now, so I don't bare the sole responsibility for their well-being. I support older relatives, but for the most part I live a pretty safe and self-contained life, so I felt like I could take some big swings and big risks, and I--I just am nobody's next choice for executive anything, right? Like so many of us are. I'm the person--and I say this with real love and real respect, but I am the person who found a niche and was expected--and I expected it of myself--to stay there. It is a very freeing thing. As much as I would love someone to throw me the kids to a major publication and have all of my leadership delusions of grandeur play out for me, for the most part I got where I am by turning in story after story after story after story asking very powerful people some questions that I was legitimately curious about, about how they think, how they lead, how they make mistakes, how they course correct, you know? And these are difficult conversations to have. It was not fun for me ask Mark Parker, the CEO of Nike, what the heck was going on with Tiger Woods, right? These kinds of things. It's like, "What's at stake?" And we talk about all of them with a sense of purpose of telling a story and not a sense of "I need to hold you accountable." On the other hand, I haven't really interviewed any actual evil-doers. I've never chased down Harvey Weinstein. I've never chased down a person who is an obvious problem that way, and I think I look forward to being able to do that one day, but I do think in the work that I'm doing now, when I started diversity and inclusion as a serious practice and as a serious emphasis, it was relatively new. Four years into it, we haven't gotten very far, and now I think I'm going to find myself having more serious conversations with people who have said all the right things and haven't gotten very far with their results, and those are going to be candid conversations. They're going to be challenging conversations, and I assume noble intent for all of them, but I do think that corporate America, when it comes to inclusion, is going to have to face some sort of reckoning, and there's some obvious problems in the tech world. There are some obvious problems people aren't even trying, but there are some real bright spots, particularly in certain sectors--like consultancies for example--who really are trying. They may not be getting where they want to go, but there's a real openness there. So I expect the conversations I will be having to be getting more emotional because we now have data, and the data shows that we're not moving far enough fast enough.Zach: No, you're absolutely right. And to your point, I do think, relative to other spaces, there are at least consultancies in that space--like, they're out there at least talking the talk, and one could pessimistically surmise that that's because of who their clients are or how they're trying to market, but still, like, they're doing more. That space--and, you know, we could go firm to firm, but that space is doing more than, like, you know, certainly than Google is doing today, right? Or Uber or others. So I 100% hear you on that. I do agree. One I think it's incredible that you acknowledged the fact that, like, having made the progress and had the momentum that you're looking for, I do agree--and it resonates with me--about the fact that the work itself is going to need to get more, you know, lovingly confrontational. You know, not your work explicitly. I mean just, like, diversity, equity and inclusion work is going--because I do think as we have Gen Z, as they integrate more into the workforce, you know--people talked about millennials have a lower bar, level of tolerance, for some of the talking [?], and, you know, they'll leave or they'll transfer jobs or they'll quit or they'll pursue their passion, all that kind of stuff. I really think we're gonna see a much different and higher degree of that with this next generation of workers, right? And I think that, like, they're just a savvier group of people. They're more, like, just informed, because they grew up--they didn't grow up on the Internet when they were, like, in high school. Like, they had tablets when they were toddlers, right? So the idea of this next group wanting a different type and level of accountability, and the fact of the matter is that Gen Z, like, it's gonna be the most, like, diverse group of people that's ever entered the workforce, you know what I mean? Like, more black and brown, more gender-fluid, trans, non-binary, more representation across the spectrum. Like, there's gonna just be way more, like, just a different cohort of worker in this next generation, yeah.Ellen: That's right, and hearts and minds are just not gonna get you there. We cannot make sure that everyone feels super comfortable and understands everything and just feels good about things, you know? I think the first step is going to be what are the actual rules and systems that you can put into place that will mitigate bias and make sure that people are behaving well in the workplace? There are a couple of things that often come to mind, but Intel has the warm line. Are you familiar with that? Zach: No, break it down for us.Ellen: I really--and Barbara [?] is their chief global diversity officer. She's really smart. She's really on it. They have a very unusual way of measuring in diversity in that they're on track, it's where the percentage of representation in the marketplace--which I appreciate--and they're managing to it beautifully, but if there is a [?] person at any level, but typically individual contributor, is having a problem with their manager, they have something called the warm line. It's warmer than the hot line, and they can find somebody who is trained to understand to help them understand what's happening. So it's like putting in a ticket, like, a tech ticket, and determining what needs to happen next, and what often needs to happen next is that their manager needs an intervention. Some support, some training, some information, and that is looked at as a developmental experience, not a punishment, and some of their--I don't have their data in front of me, but their data around the warm line usage has been outstanding. People have been using it. People have been flagging issues. They've been using it to not only help individual managers but to beef up training, making sure that this is something for everybody and that managers who get a call from the warm line people aren't feeling shamed by it so that they disappear forever. And I was really--that is an example of a systemic approach to people's behavior and making sure they understand what's expected of them if they're having trouble just formulating a response, that they have that new information, they have that language at their fingertips, but making it very clear across the line about people are feeling at work is important to the organization. You link that to performance metrics, to your performance reviews, if you link that to your compensation, are you promoting people? Not just bringing people onto your team. Are you moving them along? Those are the kinds of things that really make a systemic difference, and the hearts and minds will follow. I hope that the hearts and minds will come along as we become more comfortable working with people who are different from ourselves, because that's the gift of proximity, you know? That's the whole purpose of proximity, as Brian Stevenson so beautifully talks about. But these are the kinds of bright spots that I collect. Like, little pearls of hope that I collect that make me feel hopeful that people are very serious about solving some of these issues.Zach: No, 100%, and I think to your point, like, what I'm excited about, what I have not seen, right--and I'll also say, Ellen, like, Living Corporate has allowed me space to interview a wide array of people, right, as you know, but what I haven't explicitly experienced and what I haven't really heard anyone articulate is, like, we're in this phase now where it's, like, all about, like, awareness and unconscious bias, right? So, like, we're doing unconscious bias training, we're kind of still talking about vocabulary. You know, that's kind of, like, really been the space we've been in for some years now, and what I'm really interested in seeing in this next phase of leadership development and work and just in this space overall is let'sg et away from, like--and not get away from it wholly, but what I mean is let's continue the conversation forward. Yes, we've talked about the historicity of racism. We've talked about structural inequity, but sometimes it turns, like, theoretical or, like, abstract, like it's out there, right? Like, I'm really excited about what does it look like for you to--so yes, we have structural inequity and we have--like, a variety of ways, right? People are economically disadvantaged. There's food deserts. There's all types of things. Let's also talk about the structural inequities in this workplace, right? Like, let's talk about our behaviors in this space and how it reinforces patriarchy, white supremacy, how we have outmoded ideas of hierarchy and power and structure and how [those] things not only curtail innovation, but they also exacerbate mental wellness problems and challenges, right? Like, that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for us to evolve and put some of the white fragility down and have some honest dialogue around that, you know what I mean?Ellen: I do. I'm hoping that I'll be able to find ways to either lead these kinds of conversations or participate in these kinds of conversations that will send a ripple through a culture. And you are absolutely right. For it to work, for it to work well or really at all, it has to ripple through the culture of what is perceived to be power now, and that's hard, and that's terrifying, you know? Power does not give itself up easily. As a culture, in the United States at least the majority culture--I know you guys talk about the majority culture, which is different in other places--we have a very specific idea of who we think is powerful, and we're still going through the exercises of "Google a Leader" and, you know, pictures of white people show up, or ask a child "What does a doctor look like?" and they draw a white guy in a white smock. It's just--the image is so ingrained. I think this is where the entertainment media has a real role to play, just by normalizing certain kinds of people who aren't typically in charge. The idea of non-traditional casting is already an insulting point of view, but it explains the problem. The president has typically looked a certain way in the history of media. Women have always been presented as a certain way, as sort of the sidekick or the supporter or the sexual object and powerful for ways because they were magic or wiley or just nonsense things that influence all kinds of ideas about how we as an entertainment culture think of people who are powerful. Black people with certain kinds of hair would automatically make things like the Crown Act less of a big deal.Zach: The fact that we even have to have a Crown Act is wild.Ellen: It is wild. All of this stuff is wild, and little by little as people start to notice it and think about it in context, once you get over the initial shock of "God, how did I not know this before? I'm embarrassed," or "I'm embarrassed that I noticed in myself that I was uncomfortable with the dentist with braids," you know? Suddenly just to make the cultural aspects of that less wrenching for individual people, but it does have to be intentional. I think I have looked at too many videos of young people with tiki torches or read too many ridiculous sort of comments on TikTok videos or just in general on social media to believe that young people automatically have the answer. I assure you they do not.Zach: Yes, it's a lazy analysis, truly.Ellen: It is terrible, and even if they did it wouldn't make a difference if they don't come out to vote, you know? The young people's revolution is not coming. It has petered out. And I think as young people in particular walk into their lives and feel increasing pressures of, you know, wanting to have a life partner, wanting to have a livable home, wanting to have a livable wage, all of the pressures and the weird preconceived notions about what we think is power and what we think is good behavior in society is gonna come bubbling back and turn into their worldview. It just feels inevitable at this point. Zach: I think that really helps us transition into the work that you're doing now and the topic of your conversations on raceAhead and even just the focus of, like--the things I see that you tweet about and you talk about, right? You've been covering politics this year. Why is that?Ellen: You know, I--in the last couple of years, particularly as the Trump presidency was starting, I made a decision that I was going to mention things that he said that were not true or address the policies and how they affected my audience in a very direct way, and that was something that I think many, many, many people in many industries had to work very hard to think about the fine line that they wanted to walk on there. They don't want to alienate someone who feels strongly identified with Republican values and principles and also not make the president angry if you have to interface with him for any reason like most people in business do, but I have a very specific audience. I have an audience of people who are considered--my audience cares about people who are black and brown and Hispanic and immigrant and AAPI and LGBTQI+, you know, all of those things. People who are underrepresented in communities, in schools, in power, in leadership, in business and in financing, you know? Like, all of the things that we know. If we care about this audience we have to examine, in direct ways, the speech and the policies that affect this audience. That is the talent pipeline. That is my audience, and if you want to have a diverse pipeline you have to care about the fact that black women are unlikely to survive motherhood. You have to care about the fact that certain neighborhoods are safe in very, very specific and manageable ways and we don't manage them. So I cover all of that, and this particular administration far more than previous ones is working really hard to not only undo any of the elements of the previous administration, the Obama administration, that led to greater inclusion in the government and across society, but were directly aggressively making people less safe, from the immigration ban, from transgender issues both in the military and throughout society. It was just, like, one thing after another, so I just decided that I had to talk about it, I had to flag it. Making people afraid to take the census is an incredibly dangerous thing, you know? The under-counting of vulnerable communities, of people who are worried that their citizenship is going to be questioned, is dangerous. It's going to have an impact on community health for years to come. The kids in cages at the border. Like, all of this. It was just an overwhelming amount of things that hit the political and public policy sphere, so I decided I was gonna cover it all, not necessarily advocating for one candidate over another, but just--these are the issues, and you should flag them, and you should understand the genesis of them and come up with an idea for yourself. And I will say though, for 2020, just for a brief moment of time, having such a diverse slate of candidate was a beautiful and affirming thing, and it was an interesting way to get to know a variety of different people and their communities and where they came from but also try to understand where they fit into a traditional political machine. I don't think I have any answers around that, but it has been interesting to watch it and it has been interesting to see where voters are moving to feel safe and hopeful. I'm speaking really carefully right now. [both laugh] I don't want to reveal too much of my own personal preferences, but I do think as sad as it has been for people to lose their candidate of choice, it was tremendously exciting to see such diversity on stage. Andrew Yang was a surprise, right?Zach: Yes, and I think it's like--it really helps me as someone--you know, we all live in respective bubbles, like, no matter how "woke" or aware we think we are, like, we all have areas we just don't understand. I think that was a wake-up call for me. Like, "Dang, y'all really--okay, we voting for Andrew Yang? Okay." I think--I'm really curious, as we come to a close here... when Bloomberg was in the race, maybe you were holding it back but you didn't seem to hide your anger and frustration, not only on your personal social media accounts but also on raceAhead, and I'm curious to know what role do you believe that anger can play in speaking truth to power and then driving systemic change?Ellen: That is such a great question. I was livid, and I am still surprised at how angry I got with that thing he said. He lied about what redlining is to protect his client. I mean, his entire wealth is based on his relationship with the financial services community. I mean, just billions and billions of dollars is running around and then he lies about what redlining is, and I just--I lost my mind, and I honestly don't know what it was that triggered such a strong reaction. It could be a variety of things including, you know, blood sugar and not enough sleep or whatever, but I was well and truly angry, and I tried so hard not to sound angry in that column, and I'm a little bit afraid to even go back and reread it because I was shaking mad for days. I just--I couldn't, and I really struggled to figure out what it was that had triggered me so badly. And the problem is that in order to write that column I went and looked up some of the tracks on redlining and read what people wrote about how they were managing these communities and really just thought about, let it marinate, in the kinds of things that people were saying, specifically about immigrants and black people and jews. Just the hatred and the way they described how they lived and the way they went out of their way to make sure that these communities were isolated and continue to be isolated for generations, and then to just breezily say... look at how mad I am now. Look, you just made me so mad right now. [both laugh] And just to breezily say, "Oh, yes, because the banks changed their regulations poor people got mortgages they couldn't manage and they ruined the economy for everybody," and not one person associated with the '28 financial crash was held, like, accountable. Really, really accountable. They paid fines, there was a rearrangement of things, and I know that there were plenty--I've interviewed plenty of bank executives who felt the weight of that--all of them women by the way--who felt the weight of it, who felt that it was an important wake-up call to make real changes. I'm glad nothing similar has happened again, but I just--I'm speechless I'm so angry just even remembering that, and so what I guess I would say to answer your bigger question is that the righteous rage of people who have a point to make, and it's about systemic unfairness and it's women who get put down for their anger and they're called all kinds of names, it's black people who are isolated as sort of the angry black man, the angry black woman, you know? The things that we do to put down people who have a real point to make is such a sign that we're on the right track, you know? That powerful people respond with lies. And Bloomberg is a smart man. He willfully misrepresented the definition of redlining, and there's nothing anybody could tell me that would make me believe any differently, and he did it for a reason, and he did it to protect powerful people such as himself, and he did it because we are not, as a society, prepared to do our own work, to read books, to think about how things actually work and to doubt powerful people, because we need them and we depend on them for our survival. You know, that's how they get away with it. And so it takes the angry voice, the clear voice of "That is not true," we need them, and we need them whether we're typing, we need them whether we're showing up and voting. You don't have to be screaming it but, you know, hang onto it. Hang onto it. You know, there's just--the world really depends on someone who is too agitated by a terrible injustice that continues to play out in front of them to sit by the wayside. And, you know, call me an angry black woman, call me--you know, call anybody anything, as soon as you start hearing that label you know that you're onto something, and that leads to the ultimate expression of allyship is believe other people. You know, that's it. You don't get to call yourself an ally. I get to call you an ally, and I will call you an ally when you believe, when I see you believing and taking an action that puts you at risk, and that's what we need to see. Don't ask people to prove it. Don't ask people to present you more evidence. I'm not coming at you with a PowerPoint deck. None of those things. When people tell you there's a problem you need to listen to them, and that's it. That's the one-two dance of anger that's... that is... I am furious thinking about that damn redlining thing. I am, like, legitimately furious. I was furious for days, and I still--I cannot tell you--in your spare time you should get a therapist license, because that would be hilarious to actually process this with you. I cannot quite put my finger on what made me so angry, but I could not believe it. It was everything. You know, this guy breezes in, starts throwing money around, he wants to be president. Ugh. He could have registered--how many fines of formally incarcerated people in Florida could he have paid to restore their voting rights? Zach: He could've fixed the entire Flint water crisis with millions left over.Ellen: Millions left over for a party. It's just--I don't... I couldn't believe it, and then to lie like that. It's--ugh.Zach: I apologize for taking you there. I didn't--Ellen: It's good audio, man. It is good audio.Zach: But it's important because I do think we're missing that too. I think we're missing the reality of the rage that comes with lived experience when we talk about equity, right? I think it's Eurocentric in origin. It's, like, this overdependence on--it's like we almost make data divine, right? Like, look, data are just points of information compiled by human beings that have conscious and unconscious biases. This quantitative data is but one point. There are other things that need to be considered, and that has to I believe include lived experience. You know what, I really think, Ellen, we need to just--we need to end it right here. Y'all, shout-out to Ellen McGirt, senior editor of race and leadership for Fortune Magazine. We're gonna have all of her information in the show notes. Make sure y'all subscribe to all of her different newsletters including raceAhead. It's a wonderful read. I check it out every single day. We definitely consider Ellen a friend of the pod, of Living Corporate as a whole organization. Y'all, we here. You know, every Tuesday we're dropping these real conversations. Make sure you check us out. You know what it is. Just Google us, man. I ain't about to list all our stuff. Just Google us. Living Corporate. Until next time, y'all, peace.

On the twenty-fourth entry of The Link Up with Latesha, our incredible host Latesha Byrd, founder of Byrd Career Consulting, addresses a pressing concern - whether or not to continue applying for a job during the COVID-19 pandemic. She emphasizes that not all hope is lost and shares a handful of effective tips to help you set yourself apart from other candidates during this trying time. She also talks about her newly-launched Career Chasers Members Club - check the show notes for more information!Interested in Latesha's Career Chasers Members Club? Click here for all the info.Stop by LateshaByrd.com! Click here to check out Latesha's shop, and don't forget the 60% discount code GETTHECOINS.Find out more about Latesha on the BCC website or connect with her through LinkedIn, IG, Twitter, and FB.Check out Latesha's YouTube channel.Connect with Byrd Career Consulting via LinkedIn, IG, Twitter, and FB.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTLatesha: Hey, what's up, everyone? Welcome to another episode of The Link Up with Latesha. Happy Saturday. Happy Saturday. I know that all of our days may feel the same, but I encourage you to find something of joy to do today or to do over the weekend. What I want to talk about today, which is a recurring conversation that I've been having with clients, that I've been having with some friends in media that reached out for interviews, is "Should I stop applying to jobs? Should I halt my job search fully?" And that's what we are going to be talking about today. I don't think that we should put a halt or a stop on applying. I don't think we should slow down. However, with this pandemic a lot of things have changed. Companies have went on hiring freezes. And I'll be honest with you, I want to speak from a place of conversations that I've been having with my clients and what they're currently facing, and in full transparency, as a career coach, it has been really hard to, you know, process what is happening here, you know? Before this pandemic hit, the job market was boom-ing. Like, booming, you know? My clients were applying and interviewing and at these networking events and just kind of killing it, and they're still going to kill it, and if you listening to this podcast are applying for jobs and seeking to make a change you will too, but this has definitely put a wrench into, you know, the job search. There is no doubt about that. And so today I am really just speaking from a place of authenticity. I don't have a lot of notes planned, but this has been wearing and tearing just on my heart, because I feel for all of you that may be seeking employment or that are facing doubt and uncertainty right now, and if you are in need of any, you know, positivity and light and some, you know, awakening, listen to this podcast, because I want to give you some advice on just being real about the situation but also being proactive about the situation as well. I do not think all hope is lost, and that's one thing I want to make sure that you all know. I don't think all hope is lost, but I do think that you will want to be much more strategic and intentional in your efforts, in your outreach efforts, but really truly in dealing with your emotional wellbeing, with your emotional health. That should come first. That should come before, you know, any of these job applications that you're submitting or before you are hopping into an interview or a networking conversation, you know? Take care of you. Living Corporate has released some great episodes on just how to really manage your stress at this time and manage your emotional wellbeing, so I encourage you to listen to those episodes. So before I hop into the reason why I say yes, you should keep applying and looking, I want to share something with you on a good note [laughs] that I recently launched, my Career Chasers Members Club. It is an online community for women of color that are seeking just to hit new heights, you know, in their careers that are on the brink of really chasing and striving for career greatness, that are searching for not just any opportunity, not just any job, but for a career. So if you are on the path of chasing a career, shameless plug, I will drop the link in the show notes. And we have--so excited--over 80 women that have signed up for this members club in a matter of 10 days. I am so proud and honored to be able to work with each and every one of these women. What else does this membership bring you? There's a monthly workshop. Well, there's a monthly theme, but with each monthly theme there will be a live workshop with me, or webinar. Our first one is this upcoming Monday on job searching during a pandemic. So like I said, I'll drop the deets in the show notes. There's a digital workbook that comes with each workshop that we have to help you to strategize and plan for your future. Outside of that, there is an online community. So if you are really feeling alone in your pursuit, you know, you're in need of that support, that encouragement, that accountability, that clarity and that strategy, I want you to join my members club. Now, the membership did close on the 10th, but I want to keep it open until Sunday night. So for any ladies who are listening out here and you feel like this is for you and this is your time and you need that tribe, you need that community of women that are really looking to achieve their career goals, I want you to sign up, all right? So enough of that. Super excited to get started with that and very thankful for everyone that has signed up. So, with that being said, you should still be out here applying pressure on your job search, and I want you all to go back to an older episode that I recorded for The Link Up with Latesha for establishing or building a career toolkit. It has all the things that you need as you prepare to launch or relaunch your job search. Saying that to say that there's a lot of preparation that goes into searching for a position. You know, people have asked me before, "Should I start looking for a job," or "Should I go get a new job," and I want to make sure that, you know, you know that there are multiple steps and procedures that go into actually landing a new job. It's not like walking into a car dealership like, "Okay, I'm gonna buy a car today. Do I want this Escalade? Do I want this Beamer? Do I want a Honda?" You know, picking out colors and leather and cloth interior, whatever, and you walk out with a--or not walk out [laughs,] you're driving out of the dealership in your new car. That's not how getting a job works, you know? You don't walk into a job dealership and you're like, "Hm, do I want to work this job? Do I want this one? Okay, yep. Boom. Mm-hmm," negotiate your salary and you're out. That's not how it works. There is the networking that goes into it, then applying, first round interviews, phone screenings with recruiters, second round interviews, panel interviews, you know, group interviews, dinners--well, we're not doing dinners no more, but some companies used to have dinners, lunches. We're not doing none of that, but there's still an interview process that you have to go through. So you interview, you're negotiating your salary, you get a job offer, then you gotta get onboarded, and there's so many things that go into it, so I want you all to not just ask yourself, "Is this time for me to get a job?" but "Am I going to be fully committed to doing what it takes for me to get a new job? Am I going to be fully committed to this process?" And that is going to give you your answer. Now, I want to go back to the conversations that I've been having with my clients over the past week or two. A lot of companies are putting their hiring freezes going on or they've gone back to the drawing board and said, "Okay, what are our most critical roles that we still need to make sure we are hiring for?" There are some companies that have started to lay off some of their staff. There are some companies that are cutting out benefits. They're not doing any promotions, they're not doing any raises, you know, they're not doing any bonuses. Saying that though, you should still make sure you are managing your performance and always asking for feedback, 'cause this thing is not going to last forever. But with that being said, companies are taking the precautionary measures to make sure that 1. they can either keep their lights on or they can still keep their staff employed, and for some it has not been working out, you know, as well as others. Looking at this from a place of being super just real, it's going to be harder to get a job now for sure, and I know you all probably know that, but it's not impossible. It's definitely not impossible. I have many clients that are still interviewing today. Even this past week, I have clients that have accepted job offers. They may not be starting right away, but they do have new jobs. So going back to the original topic, "Should you be applying to jobs?" Yes, but there are other things that I want to make sure that you all are doing in tandem with applying to jobs. Yes, companies aren't hiring, you know, maybe as aggressive as they were at one point. Of course it depends on the company, it depends on the industry, but that means that you want to make sure that you are putting your best foot forward, that you're really setting yourself apart from the competition. And I want to really just dive into a few tips that will help you to do that. The first thing is to network online. Network online. There are no more networking events, so we really have to rely heavily on social media. Facebook groups, you know? I've had clients that tell me, "I don't have a Facebook." Well, you know, hey, you want to make sure you're getting plugged in. I just joined a few groups on Facebook about job opportunities in Charlotte since I am based in Charlotte and about, you know, 20% of my clients are here locally. So there are some groups on Facebook that you might want to join. LinkedIn as well. Networking on LinkedIn is huge. Join LinkedIn groups. We don't emphasize that enough, but there are groups dedicated out there solely for, you know, they can split it up by industry, you know, they split it up by where you're living or by interest. I want you to start joining those industry-focused groups on LinkedIn. We overlook those, but that is a great opportunity to really connect with people in a more genuine way versus just cold reaching out to someone. When you are in a shared group with someone on LinkedIn, you want to start engaging. You want to start posting, sharing things, and then from there it might be easier for you to reach out to a member in that group and then introduce yourself. Now, I don't want to say that cold reaching out never works, because trust me, it does. I've done it before even when I was searching for job opportunities, and it's gotten me some interviews. So definitely start reaching out to people on LinkedIn and reaching out to see if you can set up a phone call. One of my clients said she's doing some virtual coffee chats. So you could reach out to someone you admire, someone in the industry, and say, "Hey, I want to sponsor a coffee for you." Send them, you know, $5--I'm not saying you gotta bribe people, let me not say that, but someone has done that to me and it actually worked. [laughs] So ask people if you can do a virtual coffee chat, you know? 15 minutes and that's it, all right? Now, when you do reach out to people on LinkedIn, there's a few different ways or methods you can do this to increase your chances of getting a response back. First thing is go through your first connections. Filter it by companies that they work for or by industry or by job title. Sift through your connections. You'd be surprised to see who you are connected with who might be that person that will help to get you in the door. Sift through your connections. Start with your first connections. Go through your second connections, and if you have mutual connections, ask a first connection to introduce to that second connection. Y'all know the networking game. Y'all know how it goes. Your probability of getting on the phone with that person or getting in a meeting with that person is always going to be hire if someone else vouched for you and they said, "Oh, can I introduce you to Latesha? I think she'd be a great person just for you to connect with. You guys have similar interests. You're in the same industries, you do the same work. I really think you would benefit from having a conversation with this person." Because not only are they committed to--I don't want to say committed to you, but if that other person introduces you to them and they hold that person in high regard, that facilitates that introduction. Not only will they be more prone to connect with you, they will also kind of feel accountable, you know, to that person that facilitated the introduction. So make sure that you are networking. Don't ever lose sight of that. Your resume and LinkedIn. We don't spend enough time on the preparation end. We just go straight into applying and that's it. This is a wonderful time to really just take a step back and start to beef up your resume. Again, your application needs to be super tight. It does need to be super tight right now, so make sure you're adding numbers, you're quantifying your results. Make sure you have a summary that clearly aligns with what they're looking for, making sure that they are able to read your resume and understand how what you've done is directly related to how you can add value in that particular role. Start working on that resume. Take a step back and really go through it line by line and word by word. Come up with examples. I call these your "hero examples," these hero stories, stories in your experience where you have really set the bar high, where you have solved a problem, you have created an initiative and implemented something new. Just think about those things that you're really proud of, where you solved a problem, you helped the company, you added value. You want to come up with your hero stories so that when you do get into this interview and they're asking you, "What are you most proud of in your career?" or those behavioral questions, "Tell me about a time where you had a difficult co-worker, difficult boss, you had to think quickly, you were under a tight deadline. How did you handle that?" You already have those hero stories or examples that you can speak to. Get your LinkedIn complete. I'm tired of getting up here and preaching about LinkedIn. [laughs] Do the things that are going to get you noticed and that's going to set you apart. Being that your networking has shifted to 100% online, having a great LinkedIn profile, you can never, ever, ever go wrong with that. Again, when you apply, I encourage you, for every job to apply to, to have a referral. Have a referral. So don't just apply, but have a referral, someone at that company that is vouching for you on the inside. And the last thing that I want to say here is it's easy to get frustrated. It's easy to want to give up, but all hope is not lost. I cannot emphasize that enough. You will find that next opportunity. You will come out of this on top. So you want to make sure you're giving yourself some grace and taking days off. If you feel really frustrated about your job search or if you are just completely burnt out from networking and doing all the chats and the virtual happy hours, then take some time off and get back on it, but just don't give up. If you feel like you're on the brink of giving up, that means that you just need to rest and take a break and get back to it. So I'll just end it with that. The last thing that I'll say is that the reason why you want to continue to apply is because this thing is not going to last forever. Companies are going to be back hiring once this is lifted, and so if you are already right now in the process of building those relationships, of networking online, I want to make sure that you are top of mind when these job opportunities do present themselves or when these companies are ready to make an offer. So again, keep applying, but also network, network, network. Manage your contacts. I use Trello to keep up with--even for me--to keep up with my client leads. I have hot, warm, and cold leads, and so I'm really on top of my hot and warm leads. My cold leads not as much. You can have different frequency touchpoints for each of those categories, but again, you want to stay top of mind. So, you know, continue to put yourself out there, but also make sure that you are engaged, showcasing your skill set by, you know, posting status updates, posting articles, just staying engaged and staying visible even online is going to be key. So when the company releases their hiring or comes up off their hiring freeze and they are have job opportunities that you would be perfectly aligned for, you want them to say, "Oh, my gosh. I remember Latesha. I just talked to her a month ago and she was looking. Let me check in and see if she's still looking for an opportunity, because now we're ready to hire again." I've seen miracles. I've seen miracles when it comes to getting a job, so I believe in it. I know you deserve it, and I want you to keep pushing. I hope this was helpful, and I'll talk to y'all again soon.

On the sixtieth entry of Tristan's Tips, our amazing host Tristan Layfield is back to talk about how to figure out which companies are hiring during the coronavirus pandemic. Make sure to take advantage of the resource Tristan mentions - it's a new tool that is tracking the hiring status of over 5,000 companies. Check it out in the show notes!Connect with Tristan on LinkedIn, IG, FB, and Twitter.Utilize the tool Tristan mentioned in the episode by clicking here.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTTristan: What's going on, Living Corporate?! It's Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting, and I'm back to bring you another career tip. This week I want to talk about how to figure out which companies are hiring during the coronavirus pandemic.One of the first questions people asked me when the stay at home orders started to go into place was, "are companies even going to be hiring during this time?" Well, the answer to that question is yes. Similar to pre-COVID times, there are going to be companies that are hiring and those that are not. However, during COVID, the hiring process for many companies will continue to fluctuate, so it's much more difficult to assess their status in our current job market. That's brought up another very important question, how do I find out if a company is hiring during this time?Conventional knowledge would tell us to just do a quick search on a job posting website and see if the company has any posting up. While that somewhat worked previously, that may not be the most effective method now. See, many companies were hiring before the pandemic, but now they are not. Many of them haven't taken the time to remove any old or irrelevant job postings so they could still be floating around out there. With that said, if you see a job posting out there that you are very interested in, but you aren't sure if the company is hiring, the best thing you could do is move forward as if they are. You'd hate to count yourself out of the process simply because you assumed they weren't hiring.On the other side of this, many people are looking for some sort of reference point to figure out where to concentrate their job search efforts. Luckily the co-founder of Candor, a website that helps with negotiating offers, has created a new tool that is tracking the hiring status of over 5,000 companies. This 100% user-generated list tells us whether those companies are hiring, have hiring freezes, are laying people off, or even if they've rescinded offers. You can also add the status of your own company. To access the tool go to candor.co/hiring-freezes.This tool is in no way an end all be all, but it was designed in an effort to make things a bit easier during these crazy times. I hope it helps you during your job search process!This tip was brought to you by Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting. Check us out on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @LayfieldResume or connect with me, Tristan Layfield, on LinkedIn.

Zach chats with Race2Dinner co-founders Regina Jackson and Saira Rao about the genesis of Race2D, how exactly its dinners take place, their experiences running it and so much more. This episode features explicit language. Listener discretion is advised!Connect with Saira on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram, and connect with Regina on Twitter.Interested in learning more about Race2Dinner? Check out their website.Follow Race2Dinner on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? Now, look, you know that we try to keep it clean on Living Corporate, but every now and then we have folks come on who are impassioned, and we are not ones to censor anybody if we really believe in the heart of what it is that they're saying and the mission that they're doing. So the conversation you're about to hear does contain some harsh language, so listener discretion is advised. Catch y'all next time.What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and you know what we do. We're having real talk in a corporate world. How do we do that? We talk to black and brown entrepreneurs, executives, activists... let me see here, what else? Public servants, creatives, artists, influencers, educators, you know what I'm saying? Anybody who is black and brown or an aspirational ally. We try to have them on the podcast and have real conversations, right? These real conversations are centering underrepresented and marginalized voices. We're having conversations that often go unhad or whispered in a corner. We're trying to have those out loud and on a digital platform so that they can be accessible to everybody, and we do this weekly, and we have dope dope dope dope DOPE guests. So today we have two guests at the same time, yo, at the same time. Saira Rao and Regina Jackson. Yo, so let me--so I got these two bios here, y'all. Y'all know what we do. You know I try to read the bios just so y'all can have an idea of what's going on, then we get into it. So here we go. Saira Rao grew up in Richmond, Virginia, the daughter of Indian immigrants. For forty years, she wasted her precious time aspiring to be white and accepted by dominant white society, a futile task for anyone not born with white skin. Several years ago, Saira began the painful process of dismantling her own internalized oppression. Saira is a lawyer-by-training, a former congressional candidate, a published novelist and an entrepreneur. Now, look here, if y'all don't recognize what kind of podcast this is about to be by the bio that I read that they gave me, listen, I'ma just go ahead and drop the Flex bomb right now. It's about to be spicy in here. Now we'll go ahead and go Regina. Now, born in 1950, Regina remembers an America where everything was in Black and white. Burned into her memory are; the beatings and horrific treatment of civil rights workers throughout the South, the Goodman, Chaney & Schwerner murders, the murder of Viola Liuzzo, the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the murders of President John Kennedy and his brother Robert. The violence perpetrated on innocent people going about their lives by white people, it is these memories that drive Regina to push for real change in America, which is why she co-founded Race2Dinner. Saira and Regina, welcome to the show. How are y'all doing?Regina: You know, I'm doing great. Saira?Saira: I'm doing pretty well, thank you.Zach: So I read some bios, but can we get into y'all's own stories as to why Race2Dinner came to be and how?Saira: Well, like my bio said, I ran for Congress exactly two years ago, and I ran in--we live in Denver, which is a predominantly white city, and I ran on an explicitly anti-racism [platform] about the racism within the Democratic Party, which, you know, we know there's--the Republican Party's entire platform is racism, but there's ample racism within the Democratic Party. And so, you know, what I found was a long line of white ladies wanting to have coffees, breakfasts, lunches and dinners with me, and 99.9% of the time it was for them to tell me very indignantly that it's not them, "not all white women," and then they tick off all their civil rights accomplishments in the past and their safety pins and how awesome they are, and really just telling me about how I had them wrong, that they were individual--you know, "Stop painting all white people as the same," and so, anyway, I had to do those because I was running for office and I needed to [?]. After I lost in June of 2018, I became a big target of sort of the alt-right, Breitbart, Fox, those places, and the invitations for these lunches and dinners didn't dissipate as I had hoped. They just got more and more and more. And I continued to do these lunches and dinners in good faith, recognizing by the way I was not just out hours and hours of my time. It also took a tremendous toll on my mental health. And by the way, these ladies never picked up the bill. And I was, you know, paying for dinner [?] for babysitting because I have two small children. Anyway, that's when last December this happened with Regina.Regina: So when Saira ran for office, I immediately fell in love with her because she was talking about racism that doesn't get talked about in the United States, and she was talking very provocatively about racism. She wasn't being nice. She wasn't not using the white privilege and white people. I mean, she was talking it, so I immediately volunteered for her campaign. I worked on her campaign and got to know Saira, and I was like, "Wow, I really like this woman." So I had had a white friend who said to me--she said, you know, "I'm just over Saira. She hates white people, and I'm just gonna be done with her," and then in the next breath she says to me, "But if you can arrange it, I'd like to go to lunch with her to talk about it." So I talked to [Saira] and Saira said to me--she said, "You know what, Regina? I'm not doing that anymore," she said, "But I'll tell you what. If she wants to have a dinner and invite some of her white lady friends and you do it with me," she said, "I'd be happy to do that," and thus was born Race2Dinner.Zach: Wow. It's--okay, so let's talk a little bit about, Regina, the exchange that you had. Why do you believe that your friend at the time said that Saira hates white people?Regina: Well, because Saira was saying she hated white people. [everyone laughs]Saira: [laughing] No, I didn't. I didn't say that. No.Zach: [hold on a minute there playa sfx, laughing]Regina: Okay, it's up for debate. [laughs]Saira: No, I literally never said that. So the thing about this particular woman was that I said that Beto O'Rourke is a white savior, and she was one of these women who was, like, obsessed with Beto O'Rourke and went to Texas to volunteer for Beto O'Rourke, and I said, you know, Beto O'Rourke is a white savior, and I also donated to his campaign, and if I lived in Texas I would vote for him. You can actually, you know, hold various things to be true.Zach: At the same time, yeah.Saira: At the same time, and so that's what sent her over the edge. And that's actually--at the dinner she brought that up as the thing that sent her over the edge, and she, you know, got really angry when I wouldn't budge on the fact that Beto O'Rourke is a white savior. Frankly, I think Beto O'Rourke might acknowledge himself that he's a white savior. And so, anyway, she cried. She got super mad. She did all the stuff that white ladies too.Regina: This is a white woman who called herself my friend. She thanked me for, you know, teaching her about racism and helping her to be a non-racist. She told me how much she loved me all the time, blah blah blah. When we started our Race2Dinner website and we decided to do a Patreon, you know, where people sign up for $5 a month or $12 a month. This white woman, who had told me--she's a widow, never had any children--that her income after her husband died is $200,000 a year, and I said, "Will you sign up for our Patreon?" She told me to put it [?] on Facebook. Needless to say, we are no longer friends, 'cause she talks the talk but she doesn't want to walk the walk.Zach: So you're saying she has over 200--I'm sorry, but I'm shocked, 'cause I come from humble beginnings, right? And I'm not from Denver. Like, I'm from the South. So, like, you said--just to go back a second, you said her income is over $200,000 a year?Saira: Yeah, and she won't spend $60 a year on our labor, on our writing. She wanted us to put it on Facebook for free.Regina: And see, we have really been talking about that issue, how white people don't want to see black and brown women especially paid for our work. Now, you know, they'll pay $40,000 to go hear--what's her name?Saira: Glennon Doyle.Regina: Yeah, Glennon Doyle, but they can't pay us for our labor in a personal, private, small group conversation?Saira: That includes dinner and booze.Regina: That's more white people nonsense, and I'm not having it.Zach: I mean, at a certain point you're just like [what more do you want from me? sfx] You know? Like, what is this? Like, what are we doing? Like, y'all see this effort. Y'all know that it's valuable. Recognize it financially. And y'all know that the way this system is built--capitalistically--that we need the bread to survive, so come on. Like, come up off. So I hear that, and it's interesting, 'cause Race2Dinner, it reminds me--and I want y'all to walk me through this format, 'cause I've been to a couple of events like this where, like, you get together over dinner and you talk about quote-unquote culture. I want to understand though. Like, talk to me about the format of Race2Dinner, how it works, and just how it's set up.Regina: Okay. Well, one of the first things I think there is to recognize is that most white people don't even know that they [?], okay? In the book "Waking Up White" by Debbie Irving, she talks about white culture, and us as non-white people, we recognize it because we have had to live it in order to, like you say, survive. It's perfection. It's being nice to everybody.Saira: It's talking about nothing.Regina: Yeah, don't talk about hard stuff. Don't upset people. You know, that's the culture that we were all raised in, and they still want to just talk nice, and we say, "You know what?" The other thing is they're all in their feelings. "You made me feel." Can we curse on this show?Zach: Yes, absolutely. Go ahead.Regina: [laughs] And I love to say, "Fuck your feelings." [Zach laughs] That's between you and your universe. That has nothing to do with me, but they are always up in their feelings, and that's one of the things--in Race2Dinner, if you have to cry, you have to leave the room. Zach: Really? If you start to cry, you are [?] from the table?Saira: Yeah, cry or get really angry. But to answer your question about painting a picture for you. So, you know, why is it dinners? People say is it "Why is it dinners? Why can't you do conferences and keynotes?" Blah blah blah. Here's what we know about white women. White women are devoted to being nice and polite, and there's nothing more impolite than getting up and leaving the dinner table, period. The setting is a beautiful dinner table in a woman's house where she's serving dinner and she's pouring wine. And so this is the white woman's happy place and safe place, a dinner party with other white women, right? And, you know, every once in a while maybe they go to dinner parties where there's A black woman or An Asian woman or A Latina woman, but, like, you know, they feel very comfortable, so they come in and kiss kiss, "Oh, my God, how are you? You look great, you look great," the whole nine yards. And then they sit down, and instead of "Oh, my God. What are your kids doing this summer for summer camp? Oh, my God. My husband's irritating me." We just--it's very, very much like this. Like, everyone go around the table and say why you're here, and you literally have, like, a minute or two to do that. 'Cause early on we were like, "Why are you here?" And they would just, like, pull out their resume and start telling us about how they volunteered at Planned Parenthood and they went to a Black Lives Matter rally and whatever, and so--anyway, after that, the next question is "Please go around the table and name one way in which your racism has presented itself in an action that you've done recently," and then they basically fall out of their chair. Like, you might see pee come down their legs, because it's like... they can't leave. They all want to freak out and run out of the room, but they can't because they've got this nice beef tenderloin and a glass of Chardonnay sitting there and it would be rude as fuck to do that. So then they have to actually do that.Regina: And we used to--we just changed that format, because we used to [have] everybody introduce themselves, and then we'd talk about our background and why we were there, and what we found is we would have two or three women in every dinner who would not say a freaking word. You know, the lurkers. So we finally said, "This is not okay. If people are going to be here, they need to engage." So we make everybody talk about, you know, "This is why I'm here, and this is how I notice racism in myself."Saira: In myself. So, you know, you go to one of these, like, liberal white person dinner parties, and they're sitting around for hours trashing Donald Trump and trashing the Republicans and talking about--like, they pat themselves on the back. It's like the Backpatting Olympics, right? Who is the most awesome white person in the room? This is a place--and by the way, they try. So, like, at the last dinner party--and look, these are not bad people. We've got to break down this false binary of racist bad, not racist good. That shuts down the conversation. But there's a white lady there who's lovely and [?], and we asked her "What is the racist thing you've done?" And she starts rambling, and then she says, you know, a friend of hers ends every conversation with "Me love you long time." And all the other women were like, "What?" And I was like, "No, no, no. How are YOU racist? Stop deflecting it to your friend." In that case, which she could have easily said--but she didn't, she can't [?] anything else--is "I'm racist because I've never shut that down." So that's the silence is complicity. So all this, like, "The Republicans are bad," what about you? Like, what are you doing? Like, what are you doing? Like, silence is complicity, you know? And even though the Republicans are quote "bad," white America allowed this to go on. Donald Trump didn't invent racism. He just capitalized on it.Regina: That was my turning point, this whole Make America Great nonsense. I'm like, "No. I'm done with white people nonsense. I'm done." You know, they need to step up and call a thing and be the wonderful people that they seem to think they are.Zach: And Regina, so your profile, the fact that you were--you know, like, you were active. Like, you was moving around during the civil rights movement and you're still here in 2020. So, like, have you ever had situations where people have, like, either alluded to or told you to, like, get over it or it was a really long time ago or times have changed, and if so, like, how do you react or respond in those situations?Regina: You know, I don't think anybody would tell me that. [everybody laughs] But I have [this?] attitude. You know how us black women can give off that "Don't fuck with me today?" Zach: Yes. [everybody laughing]Regina: [?] going on generally 24/7. It's like--[to this day sfx] So not today, not ever. Not having it.Zach: Oh, my goodness. I love it. The spice. The energy on this podcast, it's reached incredible levels, and we're really just, like, still in the beginning. So when it comes to--and even, like, honestly, like, the tone of this conversation, right, the unapologetic, like, very to the point manner in which y'all are speaking and in which, like, I see, like, your website communicates as well as your online personas. I'm curious about what feedback or critique you get when it comes to, like, the idea of civility, right? 'Cause I feel like even today there's a lot of folks who are still, like, really hanging their shingle on civility, and they use it almost, like, as a cudgel to, like, silence voices. I'm curious as to how y'all respond to that.Saira: That's what it is. Calls for civility is calls for silencing. And I'm just curious, when has--so civility is code for being nice, right? When has nice saved people of color [?]? Like, was niceness there to save Trayvon Martin? Is being nice saving the brown and black people who are dying in concentration camps around the country? Is niceness [saving?] the Palestinians, upon whom we are, you know, aiding [Israel? and dropping bombs upon them?] Like, being nice is code for doing whatever the fuck you want to oppress people and not getting called out for it. That's what being nice is.Regina: Exactly. And remember that Dr. King said that white [moderates,] they would rather have order than justice. You know what? I'm not about order. Fuck your rules, okay? Fuck hurting your feelings. Fuck being nice. Let's talk the real deal. Let's talk about how you're hurting black and brown children, how black boys and girls get treated in school, how black people are being [?] out of their communities onto the streets by gentrification? Let's talk about all that, and if it requires me to be nice, then it ain't happening.Saira: Yeah, you know what's super not nice? Stop and Frisk. You know what's super not nice? The Muslim ban. You know what's super not nice? These concentration camps. And so I'll tell you what though, Zach, is, you know, before I even ran for Congress I spent a year, 2017, going the civil way. I went to the University of Virginia, and at that time most of my [?] in life were friends that I had met at the University of Virginia, overwhelmingly white women. By the way, like, I was in an all-white sorority and I wore [Laura Ashley?]. So I used to think that I was a white woman. [?] And I tried. You know, I did dinners with these friends. I cried, they cried. I made them--you know, I patted them on the back. I massaged their feet. I think I might have painted a toenail or two. I mean, I did all the nice, civil things, and every single time--it was, like, straight out of an SNL skit... which, by the way, SNL is also a toxic, white, liberal mess, but it was, you know, "We don't like your tone. You just seem really angry." My favorite from one of these women was "What are you doing? You're completely alienating everyone." And I said to her, "Who's everyone?" And I said, "Are you unaware that there are people of color who actually are in agreement with what I'm saying?" And she was like, "Oh, I never thought of that," because she literally--the only people of color [she knows?] were me, one--and she's a nurse, so a couple of her colleagues. She has a black woman colleague and a brown woman colleague, and she said to me, "Well, I asked them, and they said that they think you're crazy, and, like, [that?] racism is untrue." And I'm like, "They're not [safe?] to say that. You're, like, their boss," you know? And somebody said--it's very funny. They're like, "If you're white and you have a brown or black friend who doesn't talk about white people, then you don't have a brown or black friend." Regina: I was gonna say, now, my big thing, I started working, volunteering, mentoring in a high school about six years ago, and I would--the woman who ran the program and started the program woudl tell me all the time that I hurt her feelings. You know, everything you say hurts their feelings, and I sounded like I was angry, and I just started saying, "You know what? I'm mad as hell, and I could give a shit about your feelings, so deal with it." She finally resigned, and I [?], and now the program is being run by people of color.Saira: Yeah. And by the way, like, of course we're angry. I'm sorry. Like, white women literally go batshit crazy if their spin class instructor is 5 minutes late. Go fucking crazy, right? They're angry and it's fine, like, that's fine, but we're not supposed to be angry about systemic oppression. We're not allowed to be angry about that, but they can be angry about a yoga instructor or a spin class instructor being 5 minutes late. It just goes to show you they don't care--it's not only that they don't care, they actively are fine with being participants in this. They just don't want you to call them out for it, and in some ways that's the difference between Republican woman and Democratic women, the 50% that voted for Donald Trump versus the one who kind of sat idly by on let Donald Trump win, you know? Do you know how many white liberal women I know who voted for Hillary Clinton, but their husbands voted for Donald Trump, and they didn't speak a word [?] Hillary Clinton. They didn't put a Hillary Clinton sign in their yard. When I would come into their house they would be like, "You can't talk about Hillary Clinton here because of So-and-so." So what's the difference between the husband who is voting for Donald Trump and the wife who is silent? Nothing. You know, feasance versus non-feasance. It's all the same thing. Not acting is acting.Zach: And so I'm curious, like, again, the delivery of this, and even with the [criticism?] that you've received like "You're not being nice" or "It's not being [?]" or whatever the case may be, and yet Race2Dinner is a whole organization. Like, y'all are an active organization, so clearly--Regina: That's the other thing [?]. These white women want to say, "Well, what do we do with our money?" It's like, "It's not your business. Do you go into Nordstroms and say, "What do you do with your money?" We're not a non-profit. This is a business."Zach: And so I'm curious. Like, it seems as if your approach was so off-putting and alienating that your business would not be viable, and yet it is, right? [Both: Yeah.] So talk me through--Saira: That's a good question. You just asked the question "Why?" One woman put it to us like this not too long ago, and I think this is it. She said a lot of stuff. She's the woman who said to us--I said at this dinner, particularly dinner, you all don't see Regina and I as your [equals.] You don't see our humanity. You do not see our children and grandchildren as your children and grandchildren's equals. You don't see their humanity. 7 out of the 8 of them just shook their head. "Oh, my God. Wrong, wrong, wrong," right? Woman to my left, you know, God bless her, she paused before she spoke and she said, "You know what? I'm not gonna lie. I don't. I don't see the two of you as my equal. I don't see your humanity. I don't see your children and your grandchildren, Regina, as equal to mine," and there was a collective gasp, right? Like, they couldn't believe it, and then little by little they were like, "Yeah. I mean, that's right," and at the end of the dinner this woman said, "I feel such a sense of relief. I feel relieved," because white supremacy kills everybody, including white people. It's like a disease. It's toxic and it kills you. And she said, "This is the first time I've been able to actually acknowledge this to myself, say it out loud, say it in a room full of my peers and say it front of the people that I harm every [day?]," and I think that's it right there. She articulated why we're able to get people to come to these dinners, because it is a relief for them, at least, you know, the ones who are willing to accept it and come in with fully open minds and leave their fragility at the [door.] I think it's a relief.Regina: And, you know, one of the things that I want white women to do--and I don't know why it's so hard, but it is, is to just step up when you see injustice, when you see racism, when you hear it, call that shit out and let things fall where they fall. They never do that. They're always dependent on us to be the ones calling it out, and I'm like, "Y'all started this shit. Get in here and stop it." Saira: Right, just like men created and benefit from misogyny, so men have to dismantle misogyny. We can't. Women cannot. Similarly, white people created and benefit from white supremacy, so they're the ones who have to do it. So this is--by the way, we don't allow for other women of color in the room, because the one time we did--it was a Chicago dinner. There was another Indian woman in the room, and so, you know, she's a member of the community. These are people that she sees at pick-up and drop-off at her kid's school. Every time we were speaking, looking at her and waiting to see and asking, "Well, do you feel like this? Do you feel like this?" It was a deeply unsafe space for her, just like my nurse friend asking her women of color colleagues if they felt like that. That's not safe, right? So we don't want to put other women of color in a situation where they're answering to white women in that room because it's not safe for them.Zach: In y'all's experience of having this organization, this [business?], and facilitating these dinners, like, what has been the most eye-opening experience?Regina: My most eye-opening experience is we had a dinner with several white women, 8, and maybe 4 of them had adopted children of color, okay? Black children, and we had one young woman--I would say she was maybe in her 30s. She had adopted a young black boy. This woman had the audacity to say that if her family and friends said something racist or harmful to or about her child--Saira: In front of her child.Regina: In front of her child! She did not correct them because they loved him. That's the biggest [?] I've ever heard in my life, and if I could've taken that kid away from her I would have done it.Zach: And so then--you know, a piece recently came out--and Saira, this was something that you actually tweeted about. I believe it was someone who actually attended a Race2Dinner event, and they said, you know, "Most folks don't like Saira."Saira: Well, she said, "A lot of people hate Saira." [everyone laughs]Regina: And I'm like, "There, it's out there. We can get over it." [laughing] Saira: Yeah.Zach: And so I'm curious about what does it to look like--like, what does it look like to continue to do this work in light of those types of critiques? Like, where do you get your strength and resilience from to continue this type of work?Saira: It's not easy. I'll say Regina's a big source of strength and a big source of resilience for me. Here's the deal. It's a process, right? And I would be completely lying if I said it didn't bother me when--you know, look, I've gotten used to most of it. I've gotten used to the white supremacist trolls. I've gotten used to the Nazis. What I do not enjoy is getting doxxed. That happened over the weekend by a white woman in Abu Dhabi. Doxxed me and my family, so put out our private information and tried to send Nazis to come hurt my family. I do not enjoy that. I don't enjoy that my children get left out of things, you know, because their moms hate my guts. I don't like that. It's uncomfortable a little bit to run into these old friends of mine around town, and I know what they think of me and I know what they say about me. I don't love that, but, you know, besides that, it's okay. It sounds really weird. Like, I'm actually okay, because I realized that I was filling my life with a lot of nonsense, and how many times--I mean, you know, I was thinking back on this because we're working on a bunch of stuff, but I've had to, like, dig deep, how many times--I was at a party once in college with these friends. It wasn't even a party. It was a dinner, right? And I couldn't leave because it would have been rude to leave. And it was two white women sitting across from me who were not really close friends, me, and then this white woman to my left who was a very good friend, and one white woman said to the other--her last name is an Asian last name but she's white, and she said, "Oh, my God. When I got the letter in the mail that you were gonna be my roommate, I freaked out and I said to my parents, "What have I done in my life to deserve an [Asian?] roommate?"" And they started laughing, and they were like, "And look, it turned out great!" And my friend to the left of me, she was laughing too, and I was just sitting there stunned, and I said, "Hey, you guys. I'm Asian," and then they all took another sip of their [beer?], like, spit it out laughing, and they go, "Oh, yeah, but you're not one of those kind of Asians." And I said, "No, I am. I'm actually 100%--" They go, "You know, like, the accent and, like, the weird food--"Zach: Weird food?Saira: Yeah, "And the smelly, weird food," and I looked to my friend, and she just sat there and was laughing with them, and so I did what I had always done, which I started laughing too. So I sold myself down the river and I upheld--that's how [people of color?] uphold white supremacy is I laughed as well and I let it go. How many of those experiences have I had in my life? I cannot even count them. There are too many to count, and so I'm living an honest life, and you know what that means, living an honest life? If that [means I'm hated?], so be it. Hate me.Regina: You know, as a black woman, I have learned many, many years ago that the only way I can sruvive is I affirm myself on a daily basis. I know who I am. I know what is okay with me. I know what's not okay. So when people start talking shit, "Regina's this, that and the other--" And I tell my mentees that. The best way to have a good life is know who you are. Affirm yourself, and when you get crap from anybody else, you don't have to own that because you know who you are.Saira: Yeah. And Zach, just further to that by the way, I'm trying to start affirming myself because Regina really truly is the most [evolved?] person I know. I think a big part of why a lot of people come at me--and it's all kinds of people. It's not just white people. It's black people, it's Indian people, it's Latino people. It's I'm the first generation of the "model minority" born and raised in this country, right? So we're new, and we're supposed to stay in our lane, and we're supposed to be extremely grateful and not call out white supremacy because we are the model minority. So there's something extremely jarring to have an Asian lady in the middle of Colorado speaking like this. I think that's a big part of it too. I mean, lots and lots and lots and lots of South Asian people really hate my guts.Regina: They just want her to shut up.Saira: You know? They will say--I had [?] Indian people say to me, "Stop talking about Black Lives Matter," and I was like, "They know that there's a Muslim ban. Like, they know." So I'm so confused. I mean, you're called Apu how many times a week? You're called [?] how many times? And they're just, like, pretending like it didn't happen. And really funny, the only Indian/South Asian PAC didn't invite me to their gala in 2018 when I was running for Congress, and so [Andrew Yang?] actually invited me to go as his guest. And so I went. I flew out and I get there, and it's 8 other--something like that, 8 other--South Asians all [?]. By the way, they're all, like, super white platforms and [?], and I show up with Andrew and everyone's literally like, "Who the fuck brought her?" Like, "Why did you all bring her?" I mean, it was just really funny. I mean, it's funny "haha," but yeah, like, my own people hate my guts. Regina: You will love this. Saira says at our dinners, "I'm anti-black and all of you are racist," and I go, "Guess what? Black people know that." We know that every immigrant group thinks they're better than us. We know everybody would rather be whatever than black. That's not news.Saira: So we talk about. So I just want to add that one last thing to what Regina said. You know, we'll say, "Who's racist in this room?" And most of the time no one raises their hand except for me, and they're like, "Wait, what?" And [I'm like?] "[I'm Asian?], so I've been trained institutionally to be anti-black," and then they'll look at Regina because then the next step--you know, Step 1 is dividing and conquering, and they look at Regina like, "Oh, my God. Look. You've got an anti-black colleague here." Regina's like, "All Asians are anti-black." Like, if I'm asking white people to acknowledge their own institutional bigotry, it would be wildly hypocritical of me and completely lack of self-aware if I wasn't able and unwilling to do that myself.Zach: And so it's interesting because, like--I just find it all so very intriguing, because, like, the closer we get--and I'm continuing to have conversations about the fact that November is coming up, and, like, the closer that we get to November, it's interesting that we're, like--a lot of us are still kind of moving, like, business as usual, but--Regina: I know! It's scary.Zach: It's really strange, right? Like, even though, like, we remember all of the chaos, like, that happened four years ago, like, in and outside the workplace. I recall the work day--Regina: [?] the election.Saira: We know that. We know that.Zach: Right, and so it's just strange to me that, like, even from a diversity, equity and inclusion perspective that we're not really talking about that. Like, we're not preparing--Regina: Yeah. Where is the [Congressional Black Causus?] Where the fuck are they? [everyone laughing]Zach: Oh, my gosh. This has been--oh, man, this is great. But no, I find it really curious, I find it really curious. So Race2Dinner, it's white women attending the dinners, and then you both are facilitating the dinner. What do you believe it is about--like, 'cause typically we talk about gender equity and we're rarely intersectional. We rarely talk in [?]. We typically just say "men and women," and the default of course there is white women. It seems as if there's still a lot of work to be done when it comes to white women understanding their place when it comes to understanding diversity, equity and inclusion and how they fit in this role and, like, what power they wield, and I'm curious, why do you think there's still a reticence to engage that? Even from, like, just an intellectual exercise?Regina: Well, you know, I like to say, first of all, you all--everything you've made has been on the backs of black people. Let's get that out there first, okay? So that's the first thing they need to understand. They wouldn't have what they have today if black people had not fought and died [in] the civil rights movement. So that's the first thing I want to say. The second thing, when we talk about intersectionality, we're really talking about black women and their intersection of both race and sex. So white women--this is what we try to say. You know, the foot of patriarchy is on your neck just like it's on yours. You want to continue earning 75 cents for every dollar the white man earns? Fine. But if you want ever to have equity, enjoy the same rights that white males do, you better come and join us, because we've been fighting this for a long time, and we're gonna continue to fight it with or without you, but they also have the proximity to the power. They have the proximity to the money. These are their fathers, their uncles, their brothers, their sons. So that's why they need to be engaged in this.Saira: Well, and the reason, you know, they always pick whiteness over gender is because they're benefiting greatly from whiteness, and so they've been born and raised--but they would never say that, right? That's the lack of honesty and transparency. They've been born and raised to see themselves as the greatest victims on the planet because they are below white men. So that's it. That's where their analysis of inequity--that's where it stops. It starts and stops on them being the biggest victims on the planet, and as a result they erase women of color. We don't even exist in their minds. I'll tell you what, Zach. Use this whole hoopla around the 19th Amendment 100-Year anniversary this year. It's a great window into white feminism. Susan Becky Anthony totally fucked black women, right? So the 19th Amendment [was not?] the women's right to vote. That was the white women's right to vote. And so we're not--like, black and brown women are not celebrating the 19th Amendment, but you would think all of these freaking white suits all over the place running around and talking about how this was, you know, the year that women [?]--that's not true, and there's a direct line between Susan B. Anthony and Nancy Pelosi who regularly throws her women of color colleagues under the bus, starting with Maxine Waters and every member of the squad. So I'm tired of it. I'm tired of white women, you know, lumping all women's rights together. That's not true. That's just not true.Regina: And they know it.Saira: They know it. They're pretending like they don't know it.Regina: See, the biggest issue that we have is them pretending that they don't know shit. They're here to pretend like they don't know how bad it is for women of color. They know. They're gonna pretend like, you know, we're all treated equally. They know. So I want them to stop pretending and tell the fucking truth.Saira: We ask every dinner--this is well over 100 white women around the country--how many of you would trade places with me or Regina? Guess how many of them have raised their hands. Guess.Zach: Zero.Regina: The first dinner. No, one from the first dinner, remember? That we filmed?Saira: Yeah. I mean, it's between zero to one. So they were [?] about that, so they know. They know. So they first tell us that they wouldn't trade places with us because they're better than we are, and then they'll all say--they stopped doing this though because we put an end to this nonsense--"I'm just hear to listen and learn. I'm just here to learn." You already know because you wrote the book about white supremacy. You had it optioned [?]. You've made every film. It's won every Oscar. It's been exported to every country around the world. It's been translated into every language. And you're asking us to explain the book that you wrote? Like, I'm so--that's bullshit. That's bullshit, and we are not [?]--that's fine, that's the way it is, but we're not here for it. We're not here for your stupid ass lies.Regina: That's right.Zach: [laughs]Regina: We can tell you can't wait to have dinner with us, right?Zach: No, no, I'm here for it. I'm here for it. I actually have some mentors that would love this, and actually what I really want to do is I want to give y'all space. So we'll make sure we'll put all your information in the show notes, but I want to give you actually some space, like, to plug all your information. Where can [they learn?] more, how people can sign up, all of that.Saira: Race2Dinner, R-A-C-E-2-dinner.com, and find me on Twitter--I'm Tweeting quite often--@sairasameerarao. Regina: Regina Jackson. I'm on Twitter @ReginaJacksonMe... I think. You know, I'm old. I don't know all this stuff. [both laugh] But we have a couple of great people working with us who schedule all of our dinners, and you can reach them through the website. And also we have a Race2Dinner Facebook page, and Race2Dinner is on Twitter, and Race2Dinner is on Instagram.Saira: And we're also, Zach, starting to do corporate executive teams, so boards and executive teams, because they seem to need it because diversity and inclusion is a big hoax, as you know, and, like, 95% of diversity and inclusion is run by white women. And hey, companies, white women are not diverse and are not inclusive. Regina: Well, and where do you think they get their information about racism?Saira: Yeah.[Flex bomb sfx]Saira: What we've heard from a lot of--like, the three non-white diversity and inclusion officers in the country have talked to us and said, you know, "How great would it be if you two could come in and say the things to the board and my colleagues that we can't say without getting fired?" They can get fired. We can say the shit they can't.Regina: And I just had this conversation with my husband yesterday. We've got some things going on in Colorado with our judiciary. The office of the Supreme Court in Colorado has nine black employees out of 260 something, and none of those are at a management level. So we were having this conversation and I said to him, "You know, Gary, me and Saira, we can talk shit 'cause we don't have to answer to anybody. I don't have to keep a job. We don't have to play politics. We get to just call a thing a thing." Saira: And I think ultimately, if we want to blow a little smoke up our bums, I think that people kind of like us at these dinners.Regina: I could care. [laughs]Saira: No, no, but he's asking why they [?].Regina: Oh, yeah. They want to be our friends. They want black and brown people to like them. And this is really interesting. I just--while we're talking about this, I just got a three-page letter from a white woman friend of mine--[I've known?] her probably 40 years--who is married to a black man, and in the letter she wanted--she had read The Guardian and she wanted to know about if we were gonna take on the issue of how white women that are married to black women are treated in black women spaces, okay? So that's what she wrote me about, and I talked to my husband and I said, "Here's the issue. We can't trust you." I said, "When 53% of [white women] voted for Donald Trump, and then they want to tell us, "Oh, we're in your corner," we can't trust you." So until we can trust you, I doubt that we're gonna accept you.Saira: Yeah, and Regina said that at one dinner last summer. You know, we were talking about trust, and one of the women said, "Well, that hurts my feelings. You mean to tell me you don't trust any of us in this room?" And she goes, "No, I do." She goes, "I trust Saira with my life," but she goes, "I don't trust the rest of you bitches." [both laughing]Regina: You know, it is what it is. In order to be trusted you have to be trustworthy, and white women have not proven themselves to be that.Saira: Not just that, they've proven themselves to NOT be that.Regina: Yeah.Zach: And so then, you know, in some of the pieces that I read about Race2Dinner, I know that there are executive leaders who are white women who attend Race2Dinner, and I'm curious about, from your perspective, what is it that you're seeing leaders are doing or not doing that is hampering inclusiveness and equity in their respective workforces?Saira: We just had a dinner in Chicago, what, like, two weeks ago, and I would say this was one of those--you were asking what were sort of the most poignant moments, well, this was one of the more poignant moments for me because we kind of saw the whole ecosystem at play. So this woman is a nurse in Chicago, and she said--and she, like, got teary, and she said a month earlier she was in a meeting with 9 other white women nurses and doctors and their boss, who's a white guy. A doctor, okay? A doctor. These are people who deal with brown and black lives all the time. And he said that the big thing they need to tackle in 2020 [was?] hiring foreign-born doctors, and she said, "Well, guess what I did?" And we were like, "We know what you did. Nothing, right?" So she said, "I went through the whole thing in my head. "Maybe he didn't mean it." But she was like, "No, all the foreign-born people that we've been hiring, Norwegian and French doctors. We had been hiring brown and black doctors." And she said, "I didn't say anything. I didn't say a word." And I said, "Did anyone else?" And she said no. So that to me was like, "Oh, my God." And I said, "[?] that. So you just upheld--what you all, the ten of you white women did, was every bit as toxic as what the white guy did."Regina: And harmful.Saira: And harmful. And so, you know, I said, "What if you broke the cycle there? What if you had said something?" And then Regina of course said, which is true, "Here are some of the ramifications. Let's play this out. You could have been fired, right? They would make up an excuse to fire you. "You've become a troublemaker" or whatever. You become demoted. You're ghosted. All the stuff that we've experienced, but they would think twice before saying and doing this harmful stuff the next time. Like, using your voice in these professional settings is so important because it moves the needle in a way that [?] they can actually move the needle. And, you know, she totally got it. Meanwhile, white lady to her right does exactly what they always do 'cause they need to set themselves apart. She goes, "Ugh, I can't believe that you did that. I would never do that." I was like, "No, no, no. Like, let's back it up. Of course you would, and you do, so why do you feel--" She goes, "Well, I know that you think that it's not possible that I'm not like that," and I was like, "You're all like that by training, you know?" And so, anyway, it was the need to separate herself from, you know, classic white woman behavior, and what was great is the other women at the table did come after that woman and say, "Come on, you know that we all do this. We're all silent at dinner tables. We're all silent in executive meetings."Regina: Exactly. One of the things that I make sure that I tell women, this is just the beginning. If you are going to be in this work, #1: It's work. You will be doing this for the rest of your life. #2: If you expect to gain anything, boy, are you wrong. You're gonna lose. You're gonna lose relationships. You're gonna lose jobs. You're gonna lose friends. This is not a winning game. It's not a winning game for us, and it's definitely not a winning game for white people.Zach: Oooh. See, I don't have sound effects for, like, spiciness. That's why I've been dropping that Flex bomb from time to time, but I will say this has been incredible. Before we let y'all go, any parting words?Regina: I want to shout-out to Genevieve and Lisa.Saira: The two white women who work with us.Regina: Yep.Zach: Come on, white ladies. [air horns sfx]Regina: Thank you for having us on this show, and I'm looking forward to listening to this interview.Zach: We're looking forward to everybody hearing it. Y'all, yo, now, I told y'all at the top of this it was gonna be spicy, so y'all don't--don't be emailing me with your complaints. You want to see the manager? I'm the manager. Y'all know we are unbought and unbossed, okay?Regina: That manager stuff doesn't work with me, so I get you. [laughs]Zach: Yes. No, it's not. All the emails go to me, Ade and Aaron, so we not--nope. [laughs] Y'all, this has been--man, this has been a dope conversation. You've been listening to the co-founders of Race2Dinner, and just thank y'all, thank y'all. Saira Rao, Regina Jackson. Make sure you check us out on Instagram @LivingCorporate, on Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod. Just Google us, you know what I'm saying? If you look up Living Corporate we're gonna pop up there. SEO is strong enough, okay? Check us out on all of our domains, www.living-corporate--please say the dash--dot com, livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.us, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.net. We got all the different domains, y'all, we just don't have livingcorporate.com yet. Like, Australia owns livingcorporate.com, but one day we're gonna get that domain too. And shoot, if you have questions just make sure you just DM us. DMs are wide open. You don't have to follow us back. We're thirsty like that. Just hit us up. You can also email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com. Until next time, this again has been Zach, and you've been listening to Regina Jackson and Saira Rao, co-founders of Race2Dinner. Make sure y'all check out the information in your show notes, and make sure you sign up and go to have a racy conversation. All right, y'all. Peace.

Sheneisha sits down to chat with wellness lifestyle enthusiast and author Tonya Kinlow in this special Sunday episode themed around managing COVID-19 induced stress. They talk a good bit about the practice of meditation, Tonya offers three tips about what we could be doing to help manage our wellness during the pandemic, and she also talks some about the impact this outbreak will have on our minds following its eventual end. Connect with Tonya on LinkedIn, and check out her website, remarkablewellness.us.Interested in finding out more about the TKI Remarkable Wellness Journey? Learn on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.You can click here to browse Tonya's books on Amazon.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTSheneisha: What's up? Sheneisha here with Living Corporate, and today we'll be discussing managing COVID-19-induced stress. We have a very special guest. Our guest is a Wellness Lifestyle Entrepreneur, A Woman in Technology, a Certified Health & Wellness Coach, a Blogger, and an Author. Her three books, A Year of (ME) Mindful Eating to Improve Wellbeing, The 10 Days- A Wellness Retreat for Personal Transformation and A Wellness Journey are all dedicated to health and wellness through mindful living. She writes a weekly blog, Mindfulness Matters, raising awareness for living a holistically healthy life. An avid foodie and mindfulness enthusiast, she left Corporate America in 2016 to launch the UGottaEat app, creating a virtual marketplace providing much needed fresh and healthy meals into local communities, and a platform for food sharing. UGottaEat is dedicated to improving the overall health and wellness of society. She also launched TK Inspirations offering Remarkable Wellness Transformation Coaching, group Wellness Journeys and inspirational meditations talks based on discovering wellness through purpose, and how we together can improve the overall health and wellness of our world. Before becoming an entrepreneur, our guest was a Finance Executive with a corporate career spanning over 26 years. A crippling car accident involving her children led to the awakening of her spiritual journey. She takes great pride in being from Washington, DC and a graduate of THE Florida A&M University. Her greatest joys are her children, Evan and Taylor, and her husband, Chef Craig Stevens. Let’s welcome our special guest Tonya Kinlow! Tonya, welcome to the show.Tonya: Thank you. Thank you for my introduction.Sheneisha: It is fabulous, as it only should be being a Rattler.Tonya: Yes! Oh, that's so exciting. I love my FAMUly. Absolutely.Sheneisha: Yes, and it's so good to have you. So how are you?Tonya: I'm good. You know, I'm like everybody else, surviving this virus, a new way of life, but, you know, I really try to keep it positive and be a light for other people. So in that way I'm doing well, healthy and happy.Sheneisha: Yes, I love that. See that? A whole 'nother logo. There go another business, Tonya. [both laugh] Tonya: Let me write that down... [laughs]Sheneisha: So Tonya, I've given the intro. Can you tell us - who is Tonya Kinlow?Tonya: So, you know, many years ago I probably would have said just what you said. I would have said what I do, things like that, but now--it's funny because one of the first questions I ask when I do my morning meditations is "Who am I?" You know? "What do I want? What is my purpose?" These essential questions. "What am I grateful for?" So it's not what I do but who I am. So I can say I am a spiritual being living a human experience, and I am a seeker, you know, seeking truth and wisdom and ultimately happiness and inner peace, and in that way we're all alike, you know? We all want the same things. I think I just sort of transitioned and transformed over time to sort of when I got out of corporate and started thinking about life in a bigger way that it just became my goal. Like, who doesn't want to be happy? Like, I think everyone's goal should be one of happiness. So I've started to focus more on the spiritual part of me versus just the human part, which is where there's a lot of power. So I would say, aside from what you just presented about me and my background and where I went to school and where I'm from, who I am is a spiritual seeker. I'm looking, and my job, my role, my purpose is to use my gifts to make the world a better place. So I'm uniquely me. I'm a woman, a mother, mentor, entrepreneur, spiritualist. I practice compassion. I'm funny. I got a loud laugh. I am really smart, people tell me, and I'm just a little bit of a diva, and that's me. [laughs]Sheneisha: And you know what? I love all of it, all of it, and I love how you made the point, or emphasis, on the difference between who you are and what you do. That's important. That's so, so important. I think a lot of times we get that mixed up. Could you share more insight about TK Inspirations? Like, how did you enter this space of wellness transformation? But let's start first with tell me about TK Inspirations.Tonya: So TK Inspirations is only a year old and we've done a lot. About a little over a year, maybe a year and a half ago, I was finishing my second--my second and third book, because they sort of accompanied one another, and it's called The 10 Days. So I was talking about these seven intentions, a way of living life, that I have discovered over my lifetime that really can help you overcome any circumstance that comes before you. Like, it just takes your mindset, your way of living, and it's a practice, and so I developed these seven intentions and I wrote a book about it, and at the same time I decided to get a certification for being a health coach, because I felt like I wanted that, you know, certification behind my name and the technical aspect, and that was more, like, about, you know, your insulin levels and carbohydrates and proteins, the really more practical, so I was able to combine, as I do now with everything, right, the practical human side with the spiritual side, and they both--and then align them. I did that. So they were coming out. We self-published and then got it on Amazon, and we were okay, and I went on--last March, a year ago--on a cruise with my sorority sisters. I had a big anniversary celebration and I led the morning meditations and they--we started having a conversation and they loved the idea. They said, "Everybody needs to know this now." So from there I started doing wellness journeys and coaching and just talking to people about these principles and teaching these things, and I did two wellness journeys last year. They're, like, each 60 days long. I do a talk every week. So it just grew, it just blossomed, and meditation is one of the intentions, and it's just been very liberating. I actually have now--I feel like I have, through these intentions and through this journey, created the life that I want. Because I've gone through divorce, as you mentioned my kids had a really bad car accident. I've had some very tough things, as we all have had. The beauty is though when you learn how to overcome these things. I've learned. I've survived, like we're gonna survive this virus. I've survived. I know how to overcome things, and I was able to say, "Ah, here's the things that got me through," and now I just love to help other people make that same connection. So it's all inspirational, all transformational, and so it's about remarkable wellness. So that's how we got that going. And so that's TK Inspirations. Really, actually I didn't even think about it, like, we're celebrating an anniversary right now. A year old.Sheneisha: Well, happy anniversary. If I could sang, I would definitely you hit that with that "It's my anniversary." [both laugh] I would, but congratulations on TK Inspirations's anniversary, and thank you so much for entering this space and giving us something to help us even go beyond surviving, and with that being said, Tonya, I'd like to dive into this COVID-19-induced stress. That's what I'm calling it, y'all, COVID-19-induced stress. So what are the symptoms of stress, and how can we manage it during a time like this?Tonya: So stress manifests itself in a million ways, but some of the really obvious or major ones are--so the physical ones are headaches. A lot of people are tired now, even though they're not even really doing anything, you know? Fatigue, lethargy. Just something not being right. That's sort of the physical thing. Sometimes people break out in hives. The emotional piece is more you can recognize it when you're overthinking, your mind is racing, you have fear and guilt, you know? There's, like, this anxiety, this edge, and just a lack of motivation and a lot of uncertainty. When you're feeling this way, that is stress. And then there's also some really unique things I wanted to point out that people may not be aware of. Anything that's sort of off-kilter or that's different, it's stress, which is an indicator where, if you're paying attention to it, then you can manage it or you can learn how to live with it. So for instance, for me I've been having time shifts, and I've talked to two other people this week who are having the same issue. Like, the time... time doesn't make sense anymore. I think only 15 minutes has gone by and it's been an hour and a half, or I think it's been 3 hours and it's only been 20 minutes. Well, that's an exaggeration. An hour and a half, you know? Or I'd wake up in the middle of the night and I'd close my eyes and wake back up, I think it's 15 minutes, and it's time to get up, right? So these feelings of, like, nothing is the same, that is also an indicator of stress. Not as harsh or harmful as, you know, migraines and things like that. That's just sort of a wake-up to remind us that everything is changing right now. So I think that's interesting. I don't know if people think about time shifting or if you can't recognize--like, people don't look the same to you. Like, if you've ever looked in the mirror and said, "I don't recognize myself anymore," you know? Times of high stress, things just don't seem--it's like a vertigo or an imbalance. Those are all indicators of stress, so those are things to look out for. Anything off, anything that's not working out. And then the question is, as you said, what do you do about it? And the first thing is to be aware of it. So I have to be aware that I'm being stressed out. "I'm thinking too much. I'm getting these headaches," and then you can do something about it. So the first step is, like, just checking out your own body, checking out your own behavior. Oh, I forgot to mention short tempers, you know? Attitudes. Some people just don't handle stress well, and those things, you have to find it in yourself, see it, and then you can react to it. That's the first thing. If people just walk around blind, it is awareness. So I would say the big one thing is to think about what you think about. That is the first thing. What are you stressed out about? What is it doing to your body?Sheneisha: That is a really good tip. I didn't even think about what to think about.Tonya: Mm-hmm. It's awareness, right? Because stressors are--we just let our bodies run wild, you know, with thoughts and worries and fears, but if you start to think about what you're thinking about, there's an infinite amount of things you could be thinking about. Why just choose the negative ones? Once you start recognizing that, it just makes a world of difference.Sheneisha: A big, big difference, especially if there's so many things already being projected on you from family and friends and just this whole ordeal right now from what you see in the media. It's easier to revert to the panic like everyone else when you can honestly just take a moment for yourself and have that carved out time where you meditate and reflect on things that are impacting you. I know a lot of people right now are probably going crazy sitting in the house with their families and their loved ones. You can look at this side of it and just say, "Hey, this is that vacation. It may not be exactly the vacation that we wanted, but this is that time when we can really embrace one another and learn some things about your family that you never knew before," you know?Tonya: Yes, exactly. And that's another thing, when people are getting a little of, you know, that cabin fever, and so within--it builds, the stress builds, because then what? People start to overeat or eat whatever they can get their hands on because they don't want to go out, you know? Or drink too much or binge watch TV, you know? So there's some things that we might do without awareness that are just negative, it just sets us back. It stresses us out more. Now we may have gained weight. Sheneisha: Ooh. I have to manage this. I done went on Amazon and got all this stuff for a home gym. Like, Lord, keep these pounds down. And it goes even into my next question. Like, what are three tips you would like to share to those during this quarantine? Like, what should we be doing?Tonya: Yeah, okay. First is to give yourself a break. Now, this is overarching. This is overarching. We're all in the same boat. None of this is anyone's fault. So the ability to pay bills, the inability to go outside, all of those, this is--we've never felt the oneness of the world and the universe before. We should feel it now. So one is to just give yourself a break. Let the guilt go. Let the fear go. It's all going to be okay in the long term. So that's just, like, a big mindset, but for practical things also to do at home that, you know, we can't use--I always say we can't just use the same things that got us here, so we, as humans, we focus on our five senses, but we are spiritual beings. There is a bigger power that this is the time to tap into. This power is changing the entire world right now. Like, there's a virus spreading. People are working together, you know? People are being kind to one another. There's a whole shift that's happening. You know, tragedy breeds kindness sometimes. It's a shame that it has to be a tragedy. So there's a lot. So creativity is the first thing. We don't have to be competitive now. We're not at work, you know, competing for that next promotion or racing home 'cause we gotta beat the traffic, you know, to get home and make dinner for our kids. This is the time where you can let that competitive side go and bring out the creative side. So do some home projects, do some do it yourself. I've been making shea butter. I just sent my best friend a package with some whipped shea butter with lavender. It's beautiful, you know? And it's something nice to do in the afternoon and I could send it to someone. Journaling, you know? Do things internal or find, you know, something creative. Then the second thing is positive thinking. I just said there's a million things you can think about, so instead of focusing on "Oh, there's no toilet tissue," well, there's facial tissue? You know? Sheneisha: See, I told y'all about this toilet paper. Nobody is listening to me. People are going crazy about this toilet paper. But yes, please proceed.Tonya: Yeah, it's crazy. I literally went to six stores one morning. I really needed it, like, last week. Like, six stores, and then finally I found--I waited for a truck to deliver. It's crazy, but I wasn't mad. Like, I don't understand. I don't understand. I guess I do understand the psychology a little bit, but I tend to say, "Well, I was just picking up some more packs of facial tissue. I just need some tissue." [laughs] You know? Or anti-bacterial stuff. I looked up how to make it. I made some at home. Like, instead of angry and upset about the negative, it's about shifting your mindset to a positive space, to a creative space. You can find solutions, and if you don't it's still gonna be okay. And then the third thing is the biggest thing, and this is one of the seven intentions - meditation, and I mentioned it before. It's one of the biggest things you can do to calm your mind. So what produces stress is this chemical, cortisol. Meditation calms--it blocks the production of cortisol. So the things that we do, the spiritual things align with our bio-chemistry, with our body, and when we are aware, when we start to recognize and manage those things... if you meditate in the morning, it will make your whole day go better. I mean, that stillness and time with spirit, God, the universe, however you call it, will cover your whole day, and it brings that awareness to you. So those three things, those three tips. It's a shift for people because we're so busy and crowded throughout our days that we don't take the time to be creative, to pick back up that hobby, to read a book, you know? To think about creative solutions instead of complaining about problems. So these three things--and the meditation thing, if you can just do one thing, start a meditation practice. That's a stress reliever. It's physical and spiritual. It's, like, a magic elixir.Sheneisha: Yes, meditation, and this meditation goes into - how do we stay focused, right? So we're meditating, right? How do we stay focused while experiencing a pandemic like COVID-19? And even things outside of just this, 'cause there's so many things that can impact your day and induce stress. How do we stay focused during this time? Would meditation be the key?Tonya: Medititation would be one of the keys, one of the main keys, to healthy--because when you start to... and I talked about those seven intentions, when you start to be able to overcome any situation, that means any situation. We all have deaths and relationships and sicknesses and illnesses. That is how life goes. People come into our lives, people leave. So we always have these. The question is how do we overcome them? What are the tools? How can we be equipped? Meditation is one of--it's the biggest--and to me that's the alignment of the physical and spiritual, but there's other things. You know, exercise, self-care, journaling, getting enough rest, but the one thing that you can do to stay focused, I'd say on the practical side, is you set your mindset. It's all about a mindset shift. Again, now, the mind works--there's this executive function, so whenever you put yourself in the context of a situation, you make better decisions and that situation is easier. What do I mean by that? When you're at school, you know you're at school. It's about the teachers, your friends, your homework, what are your assignments. That's what you're thinking about. You're not thinking about your family reunion when you're at school. When you're at your family reunion, hopefully you're not thinking about work. You're meeting your cousins, you're cooking out, you know? "What are we gonna eat?" You're all in that context. Right now we need to be in the context of health and wellness. So everything that--if you can just focus everything that you're doing, bring it back to "Is this good for me?" Is it "Am I washing my hands? Am I keeping a good distance? Am I being mentally healthy?" Everything will naturally come back to the context of health and wellness instead of putting everything in context of the virus. That's gonna make you fearful. It's gonna make you stressed out and depressed. So yes, the virus is part of it, but the main context, the main focus is health and wellness. "How do I stay healthy?" Not "How do I avoid sickness?" "How do I stay healthy?" It's the same thing, but that positive outlook and energetic transference is in your mindset. So everything--we're not at school. We're not at work. We're living our lives. We're in our home. But we are in the mindset of health and wellness. That will go so far, awareness to health and wellness.Sheneisha: So with this health and wellness and it taking us so far, what impact do you think the coronavirus will have on our minds following this, like, months beyond, hopefully when all of this is over and it's resolved. What impact do you think it wil leave upon the minds?Tonya: I think we have a great opportunity to find ourselves, find the world, in a better place. I think we would be missing an opportunity. Once we get through this, it's gonna be like spring. Like, we're going through a winter. We're going through a setback. It's like the world has the flu or the world is going through a divorce. The globe is going through a tough time, but like every time, once you get over it there's an emergence, and I think that we're gonna find that we're gonna work together, we're gonna have a lot of compassion for one another, because a lot of us are suffering losses financially, physically, people, and we all feel bad for one another, so what's gonna happen is there's gonna be a lot more compassion for one another, and that in and of itself is gonna make the world a better place. We're gonna be cleaner. We're gonna be more caring about our fellow man, all of those things, after we get through it, but we can get through it positively. I always say, "You create the future in the present." What we do now determines the world that we're gonna be in. If we start wars now, fighting over beds and, you know, things, if we begin a war, it's gonna take a lot longer. If we go negative and close our doors to helping other people it's gonna take a lot longer, but what I see right now is a lot of compassion showing up, and if we can learn how to get over this hump positively, the world will be a better place on the other side.Sheneisha: Yes, it definitely will. It definitely will be a better place, and that can start with y'all stop withholding all that toilet paper, how about that? Let's start there. #1. [both laugh]Tonya: I went to the store today. I told you I made shea butter. I also made hand sanitizer, and when I was at this little store, the guy, he said "I'm almost out of hand sanitizer, oh, my goodness," so I took him a bottle today and I just gave it to him. He's like, "What do I owe you?" I said, "Nothing." I felt so good.Sheneisha: See? Look at that, y'all. It's things like this, you know, to show that oneness that you spoke of earlier. There was a need, and you went and used the resources you had to help meet that need, and hopefully that can just be paid forward to so many others. And you know what? That plays into your wellness lifestyle. So what are some misconceptions that people of color about wellness lifestyle?Tonya: Oh, my goodness. So many from different places. I can say, you know, on the spiritual aside, because I'm talking about--and I call it remarkable wellness. It is your body, your soul, your spirit, your emotions. It's everything, because it's all interwoven. So, you know, if someone says, "Oh," you know, "I'm not into that wellness of the spiritual side," they think you're trying to take them away from church, you know, or something. That's why I say, you know, "If you don't believe in God, or if you do, or if it's the universe, however your words are," but we get real protective and scared around that, so that keeps us limited sometimes. When it's working out, it is--sometimes people just don't want to get their hair sweat out. [laughs] We gotta get away from that. Like, a healthy body is meaningful, but people have a conception--they feel like it's not fun, and being healthy and strong and energetic is fun, you know? It's like, if you gotta go upstairs to get to your bedroom, that's just what you gotta do. It's not good or bad. So we have these sort of notions around just not wanting to change what we have, and I think this is a good time for us to start getting past that, you know? People say, "I don't have time to work out. I don't have this, th--" We've got time now. There's plenty of time, and this would be a great--what if we all came out on the other side of this in--I'ma just say four months. Who knows how long it's gonna take? Three or four months--healther than when we went in because we actually had time to sleep, to walk, to whatever? So I think that we just need to change, we just need to sort of break some falsehoods, and my main thing is it's all about awareness. I mean, once we start focusing on the negative side of everything and start focusing on the positive, it sort of takes care of itself. If you have a wellness mindset like we were talking about, then you're gonna want to work out. It's only 30 minutes, you know, 45 minutes. It's because of your mindset. You know it's gonna reduce your stress. It's gonna make you feel good. You're gonna be in that wellness space. So those are a few things that I think we gotta sort of turn the switch on.Sheneisha: Yes, turn the switch on to this awareness, this health, being in this space, and talking about being in this space, can you speak to the live meditations? Like, you've done recently a few live limitations, and they've held impact that has helped change the community.Tonya: Yeah. So I mentioned meditation a few times, and I'm not, you know, a master or anything, but I'm very connected, and so I know how good it makes me feel. What I tend to do is bring people together. So the last meditation was on protection and healing, because that's what we need now. And, you know, wherever two or more gather there's a lot of power. so the live meditations, bringing people together. I did a Facebook Live, and I'll try to do them weekly. When you bring people together in that oneness, in that energetic space, it's powerful. It's really powerful when you do it by yourself anyway, but when you bring people doing these things together [?] it makes all of the difference. And what meditation does for me is it makes me more connected. So everything is energy. Everything is vibrational, you know? Whether you can hear it or not, like a dog hearing a whistle or radio vibrations, you know, everything is actually that energy that we transfer. It's what sort of connects us. So examples of how this invisible or spiritual or whatever we want to talk about energy works. You know when someone's staring at you from across the room. You know when someone's standing too close to you behind you, when someone walks on you. You know when you call someone or when you think of someone and then they call you. Those things aren't coincidences. That is how the energy works. And so with meditations and those practices, you learn how to control some things. You learn how to control your thinking. Because you only want positive energy to come to you, so therefore you only put positive energy out, and that's what I do in my meditations. I am putting out positive energy, and sort of we're all lifting the world. We're building a sacred space, almost like protection. Like, you can almost just envision, like, a bubble around you, and it's just the light of God. It's all things good. No conflict. Peace. Inner peace. Happiness. Wisdom. Fulfillment. That's all we need. That's all we want. And so when you can continue to practice energetically, how does that feel? How does that feel when you give that out to other people? How does it feel when you receive it back? These are the live meditations. So we create a sacred space of health and protection and, again, if I'm happy and I can make you happy and then you make someone else happy, we've just made the world a better place just like that. So that's what I try to do in my meditations, and we'll keep up pretty much topically. Right now it's clearly all about protection and health, but I think it's also about transformation. We're going through a transformation, and I think we can do it positively.Sheneisha: Yes, we can. How can we join y'all on Facebook? What's the Facebook page where people can tune in?Tonya: TK Inspirations, and I have [?] on Instagram, but we definitely did the Facebook Live, and I think we're gonna just definitely do it weekly. So definitely join my page, follow me, and it's TKIRemarkableWellness on Facebook, and it's @Remarkable_Wellness on Instagram. And I just started a YouTube channel too, and I will be doing some meditations on there, and we talk about these seven intentions more and daily affirmations, everything positive. So whichever gets your, you know, mode of social media, I try to show up in different ways.Sheneisha: And speaking of showing up, what's the YouTube channel?Tonya: TKInspirations. Yep. Tonya Kinlow TK Inspirations. That'll bring me up. And we just launched it right before this started, this virus started, so it's very new, so I would love to have more conversations on there. Sheneisha: Yes, guys. Make sure you check out TK Inspirations YouTube, TKIRemarkableWellness on Facebook. Tune in. And Tonya, are there any key takeaways you'd like to share with our listeners?Tonya: Yes, that I think the biggest thing that we're gonna take from this is what I would call whether it's the law of attraction or, you know, giving and receiving. Stay mindful of that, because what you put out you definitely always get back, and so that's why it's important to put the stress away. Let it go, because what you're wanting is a clean, healthy experience, and we're all connected, so just that connection, positivity, positive energy. With that and practicing that every day, you can overcome anything. And again, I talk about seven intentions, and when you put them together in a certain way they are so powerful. Each of them by themselves is powerful, like meditation or exercising, but when you put them together in a certain way it is extremely powerful. All positive things, no negatives. Always positive.Sheneisha: Yes, all positive. All positive vibes all 2020, please.Tonya: All day long.Sheneisha: Yes, I love it. I love it. Tonya, do you have any shout-outs? Family, friends, YouTube, Facebook? Any shout-outs?Tonya: Yeah, I want to shout-out to all of my wellness journeyers. I want to shout-out though to all of the people on the front lines right now. The health care workers, pharmacists, doctors, PAs, RNs, everybody. The policemen, everything. Just the oneness, and then all of our families. Certainly I shout-out FAMU. We on the phone, right? [both laugh] And to my family, my kids and my husband for sure. And I just want to say that we are about to launch a new wellness journey, so I want to shout-out the TKI Wellness Journey. Like I said, we did two last year. It's 8 weeks. Every week we talk about one of the intentions. I do a one-on-one coaching with everybody, and it's interactive. We do it on Zoom so people can ask questions. So when people are thinking about what to do at home, this would be great. Like, take the wellness journey with me, and we're gonna launch it... it's gonna start April 13th. And the other thing we didn't say is my website. All the information is on remarkablewellness.us. So that's coming. I would love to see more people be a part of it. And during that we do this 10 days--it's like a retreat. We're working together. I'm doing guided meditations. Like, we're just doing a wellness retreat at home. So I think it would be a great time for more people to participate in a wellness journey. That's my big shout-out.Sheneisha: Yes, y'all. Make sure y'all participate. Be active, especially in a time like this. Oneness, positive vibes, being united, helping each other out, just putting forth all things positive going forward.Tonya: All things positive, and there's no need to be bored. Like, this will be a great, positive addition, and again, we all come out on the other side better than we went in.Sheneisha: Yes, so much better. So much better. And thank you again for highlighting all of those on the front line, our nurses, physicians, pharmacists--all my fellow pharmacists, physical therapists, respiratory therapists. All of those on the front line, thank you guys so much for what you all are doing. Police officers. Even those at Auto Zone. Shout-out to Auto Zone, you know? Helping those out when they need things. So just thank you guys in this, everyone. Thank you all so much.Tonya: Oh, my goodness. The people at the grocery store. The cashiers. Oh, my goodness.Sheneisha: Yes, cashiers. All grocery stores. Thank you, Wal-Mart. Thank you.Tonya: Stockers, yes.Sheneisha: Yes, everyone. Truck drivers, thank y'all, because I need my food and my tissue. Everybody, thank y'all. UPS, FedEx.Tonya: We're a thankful people. This energy, and this--it's just gonna make it better, and I'm so thankful for you for having me on here. I'm very happy about this. Thank you for having me. It was a great conversation. I feel good hearing you.Sheneisha: You know, and vice versa. Thank you so much, Tonya. We greatly appreciate it. And that is our show. Thank you for joining us on the Living Corporate podcast. Be sure to follow Tonya Kinlow on LinkedIn and her website, Remarkable Wellness. You guys heard her YouTube channel. Make sure to follow in. And her Facebook page, TKIRemarkableWellness. Make sure you guys follow her. All things positive energy. And make sure to follow us on Instagram @LivingCorporate, Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod, and subscribe to our newsletter through www.living-corporate.com. If you have questions you'd like for us to answer and read on the show, make sure you email them to us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com. This has been Sheneisha, and you've been listening to Tonya Kinlow, founder of Remarkable Wellness, TKI. Y'all, check her out. This is great, great energy, and just thank you again, Tonya, for being here with us today. Thank you.Tonya: Thank you. Thank you so much.

On the tenth entry of our See It to Be It podcast series, Amy C. Waninger chats with Dr. José I. Rodríguez, a professor at California State University, Long Beach, about how he got involved in academia and what about it appealed to him, and he graciously shares the biggest surprise he had arriving into the industry. José also names several programs that are available for persons of color to help them feel supported and connected within the higher education space. Connect with José on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram, and check out his website by clicking here.Learn more about the programs José mentioned, BUILD, the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, and RISE.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTAmy: Hello, Dr. J. How are you?José: Good, how are you doing?Amy: Doing great. How's the weather in California today?José: Well, today the weather is good. It seems we have weather. [laughs]Amy: Oh. That's unusual for you guys. [laughs]José: Right, right. It is highly unusual, but we're happy. We need the weather.Amy: So I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit--so you work in the education industry. You're a professor at Long Beach State. And I was wondering if you could tell me, how did you get into academia, or higher education, and what about it appealed to you? Did you always want to do this or did you kind of happen into it?José: Right, thank you. That is a great question. I got into it because I--you know, the pretty typical story that you have going to college, you know, your family tells you that that's the thing to do, and--at least in my family--you have to either be a doctor, a lawyer, or some other profession of that ilk, and I thought, "Well, I don't want to be a lawyer. I don't want to be a doctor. I'm gonna be an engineer." I started out as an engineering major, and I just got tired of doing math if I can be perfectly frank. By the time I finished a third semester of calculus I was done. [laughs] Amy: Fair enough.José: Yeah, exactly. You know how that goes. So I took this GE class in communication, and we sat around, and we were studying small group communication, and we would get together in groups and we would discuss topics and we would share ideas and we would have conversations in a college classroom--which I thought was revolutionary, because up until that point I really didn't have experience with communication in the classroom, and I just fell in love with it. I thought, "Wow, this is really cool. I think that this might be my thing," and the next semester I switched my major to communications studies. I started working with one of my favorite professors, who became a mentor, and one thing just led to another. So it wasn't like I had this grand vision of, "Gosh, yes, I've wanted to be a professor since I was 4 years old." That wasn't me. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. It was quite confusing. And I just stumbled onto what I do. I developed a nice relationship with some colleagues at the university. I got into a good master's program, and then just created a trajectory, really through networking, which I know is dear to your heart, and that networking panned out in some really interesting ways. So it was a lot of networking and things that I really didn't plan a priori but just seemed to work out in the process of doing and connecting with people, and I really loved it, and I still love it, and I think the idea of just connecting with people, connecting with people through conversations, connecting with people through teaching, through doing workshops, retreats, things of that sort, I find that very rewarding, very much, you know, aligned with the things that I value, and I find working with people to be, you know, useful. You see the results of it right away if you impact somebody's life. If somebody is moved by something that you say, you see those results very quickly just by looking into people's eyes. Somebody's getting an idea or somebody's asking a question or somebody's emailing you and saying, "Oh, my gosh, that was great. That was fantastic," and I think I really enjoy that almost-instant feedback in interactions through teaching, through doing workshops and things of that sort.Amy: That's fantastic. So what I heard in that was that you grew up with a value around education--and a lot like I was, right? I went into my college programs not knowing, like, what does that mean, what am I gonna be when I grow up, and sort of through the role of a mentor and sort of happenstance you were able to channel this value of education into something that's giving forward to new students and is true to your values and maybe not so much math. [laughs]José: [laughs] It's true to my values, that's for sure. Yeah, giving forward, you know, connecting with people, making a point or having a conversation with somebody that wasn't there before, right? So you enter into conversation or you enter into dialogue with someone, and in moments that come seemingly from nowhere you develop a line of thought or a line of argument or a conversation that is really meaningful, enriched, and it almost seems like magic is happening, that you're co-creating or co-inventing with someone, and that's really kind of fun and engaging and becoming more and more rare as we lead mediated lives, and I find that really rewarding. Amy: Yeah, I want to come back to that idea of mediated lives in just a moment, but can you tell me first - what's been the biggest surprise to you? So you moved down this path of becoming a professor, and then you got there. So what surprised you now that you're on the other side of that particular journey? What didn't you expect--good or bad--about your industry?José: Yeah, the thing that surprised me the most was the variety of activities that one needs to perform as a college faculty member. so I got into it because I like to teach and I like the interaction with students, I like being in the classroom, I like getting into discussions, I like lecturing, I like having that experience where you share a concept or an idea and it makes sense to somebody. They get it. Their eyes light up, and all of a sudden they are impacted in some positive ways. I really like that, and I thought that that was the majority of the show, but no, that's not the majority. In fact, that's just one third. There's this whole thing about publishing and being on committees and having service obligations, and I found that to be surprising and extremely time-consuming. And not that it's bad. It's just typically not my thing. I think in most areas of academia people have their strengths or their weaknesses or their preferences, and my preference is on the teaching side of things. Service and academic publishing are great and I've done some of that, but that isn't really where my passion lies. So that was a bit surprising at the beginning and at times a bit daunting, just because it's time-consuming. It's a lot of work, especially in publishing and getting your work out there and the process of revision and working with reviewers. All of that can be very time-consuming, and so that's a challenge, yeah.Amy: So I remember being in college, and I can tell you that my favorite professors were the ones that were there because they enjoyed teaching, not the ones that were there because they enjoyed the publishing aspect. They were usually not the best ones in class. I usually learned a little less from them because they tended not to care as much about making connections so much as, you know, they were worried about the publications and that sort of thing. So on behalf of your students I want to thank you for sticking with it and being there for them. I think that's so important.José: Thank you. I hear that. I hear that from students every once in a while, at times. You know, some faculty are very blessed. They won, like, a genetic and I guess personality lottery, right? They're very good at teaching, they're really good at publishing, and they're very good at doing the whole service thing, but I think most people have a strength in a particular area and everything else is okay but isn't as, I guess, you know, dominant in their professional life. So yeah, I think your point is well-taken, and at times it's a struggle for faculty who really are into the whole publishing game to teach as effectively as possible. And don't get me wrong, that's not everyone. I think the vast majority of faculty do a great job, and sometimes people who are very well-published are actually very good teachers because they're kind of on the cutting edge of their field and they are really excited about it and they bring that excitement to the classroom, and that's fantastic. But in my experience, that's fairly rare.Amy: Yeah, absolutely. So if somebody's not in academia now, if that's something they aspire to, maybe they're an undergrad or even a grad student at this point and they're thinking, you know, "Maybe this is for me." Where would they go to learn more?José: One of the places to learn more is through a mentor or a colleague or somebody who's already quote-unquote arrived. If you find a professor, a colleague, who is really a mentor, that's really the best way to find out if the career is for you. Usually when you go to grad school, especially if you're getting a Ph.D, you're gonna have a committee of people that are working with you as you finish your dissertation, and you usually have a faculty mentor or a faculty advisor, and that person typically is the type of person that guides you, that, you know, writes your letters of recommendation, that has you on their research team, and that is the primary way that you get socialized into the process of becoming a professor. Another thing that people tend to do is go to conferences and, you know, networking events where once, twice or three times a year there are national conferences, local conferences, international conferences, where graduate students go and meet people across the nation and really create a growing body of colleagues across the globe or across the United States and find opportunities to work. In fact, most people I believe, still today, get hired that way. You hire people that you know or you hire people that have worked with people that you know. In my experience, that probably happens 60 to 70% of the time. And again, just like in almost any other industry I would assume, networking becomes very critical. It becomes a part of your professional practice, and it's a great way to find out if the profession is right for you.Amy: So you said something interesting, and I know that--I'm betting that you knew I would pick up on this. You said that people typically hire people that they know and networking is important, and since the audience, for at least part of this interview--to use Living Corporate's terminology--black and brown professionals who maybe feel like they're outside of the in group and in academia, right? If we hire who we know, that tends to self-perpetuate the demographics of a department or of a school or of a profession, and so what resources are available to young people of color or to professionals of color in your area that help them maybe navigate those waters in a way that someone like me wouldn't have to do? What advice can you give them to kind of overcome that feeling of otherness?José: The feeling is a challenge, no doubt. No doubt. What's really exciting is that there's more and more programs for persons of colors and individuals from historically marginalized groups, programs like BUILD and the Mellon Mays Research Fellowship. There's another one called RISE, and we have those types of programs on campus--and they're national, they're all over the country, and essentially those are programs designed to help students from minority groups form a relationship with a faculty mentor in a larger community that is designed to help them navigate the murky waters of their professional development. They would start their undergraduate program with BUILD or with Mellon Mays or with the RISE program, let's say, perhaps when they're, like, a sophomore in college, and they would be assigned to a faculty mentor, to a research team. They would participate in conferences and get mentoring advice, and they would get help putting together a statement of purpose, a resume, a [?], and have publications with faculty members or, let's say, conference papers on their own as a part of a research team. All of those things are not only very possible, but I see them happening on campus every day. It's part of--what I do is I train faculty mentors on how to create conversations that are empathic and nurturing and holistic so that people know the kind of language that might be best, the kinds of things to say, how things might be interpreted, and we try to create scenarios where we're asked to engage in everyday conversations in a way that is much more inclusive and less divisive. So that's my best answer. Find one of these programs on your campus and join. Put in your application and take it from there. That's one of the best ways to do it.Amy: Yeah, that's fantastic. Thank you. Sometimes we just don't know what we don't know, and if the target demographic for these organizations, if the target age or, you know, the target year is sophomore year, that's very early for a lot of students even where they want to head or, you know, what they might want to do. I know I was, like, mid-senior year and then all of a sudden panicked because what I thought was gonna do wasn't gonna happen, right? So I think it's great that if we can engage students earlier in these kinds of programs so that they can explore what out there, and specifically what's out there for them in terms of help so that they can overcome some of the affinity bias or some of the self-perpetuaing selection processes that maybe existing faculty have, so thank you for that.José: Oh, you're welcome. That's an excellent question.Amy: So what other recommendations do you have for students, and particularly students of color, who want to explore careers in academia? Are there books? Are there articles? Are there websites? Are there other resources around that they should take a look at?José: Well, there are plenty of resources, and again I would just go back to the resources that are available in some of these programs. Obviously all of these programs, BUILD, the Mellon Mays Fellowship, the RISE program and many others that I don't have off the top of my head, are available obviously online. So if you Google the Mellon Mays Fellowship, if you Google BUILD, you will see a major website or local website for your university or for locations across the country and then be able to, you know, gather the information that you need, not only on the website but find out what campus near you, maybe even your own campus, has that program. I know that the BUILD community goes out to junior colleges and does some pretty heavy recruiting to let students know that these resources are available. So BUILD in particular, I'm familiar with them because I've worked with them for the past couple of years, and I know that a huge part of their initiative is recruiting. So not just waiting for students to come to them, but really allowing students to know that the resources are available by going out into the community.Amy: Excellent, thank you. So you had said before that you have kind of this passion for creating connectedness and that you discovered this passion when you took a general ed class in communications, and so can you tell me more about where that passion comes from or what do you think was awakened in you in that moment?José: Yeah. One of the things that was awakened is just the power of solidarity, the power of coming together through dialogue to find what we have in common as opposed to what we have in difference, and that whole idea, you know, it's kind of a nice idea and it sounds like a really nice phrase, but to have that as an experience is life-changing, where you go "Gosh, here I come into a conversation where I thought there was all these differences or I'm not getting along with people or I'm different or there's something wrong with me," and then I go into a room and I have a conversation with a variety of strangers, and all of a sudden there's this feeling of connectedness, there's this feeling that I belong, there's this feeling that I can contribute, there's this feeling of, you know, kinship, right? Father Greg Boyle, who's out here in California, he runs the #1 gang rehabilitation center in the United States--Amy: Homeboy Enterprises.José: Yeah, there you go. Amy: He is a national treasure. He is a hero.José: He is amazing, yes. Father Boyle. He has this great line where he says, you know, "Imagine the circle of kinship where no one is outside that circle," right? And I love that metaphor, the circle of kinship, and I believe that we do that through many means, but primarily through conversation, through discussion, through the process of sharing messages with each other. I see him do this. You know, he has his daily message of the day and he, you know, films himself having a little talk, and, you know, this impacts people not only in his community but all over the country, and he goes and gives talks, and I can see that a part of their process is really this constant conversation of bringing people in, of making them a part of the community, of using a language, a discourse of unity, of connectedness, of how we come together really as an extended family and then bring people into that family, help them feel included so that we can heal what has been broken through this new experience of solidarity, right? And the power to do that through messages, through language, through metaphor, is I think just such a gift, such a beautiful experience to have with people, and I've discovered that that was, like, a rare thing, you know, that I saw in college back at the time. I'd go, "Wow, to be able to study this process of creating messages and using words to bring people together," the power of story for example, telling compelling stories that people can relate to about our challenges and where we came from and how we are similar through the narratives that we construct about our life history, our different positionality, the different intersections of race, class, nationality, sexual orientation that then help us be relatable, human, understandable, vulnerable, right? Those things I think get navigated primarily through the exchange of messages, through the exchange of linguistic, you know, discoursive thought, and those kinds of things I find just very rewarding.Amy: That's fantastic. So for those who don't know, Homeboy Enterprises is--it's a lot of things, but primarily what they do is they take former gang members and teach them job skills, marketable job skills, and then they create businesses, right, with the people in their program. So they might create a whole t-shirt company that's comprised--the employees of which are maybe even rival gang members all working together in sort of this rehabilitative space to overcome the past and to contribute to the economy and to really heal through work and through shared goals.José: Exactly, exactly. I think they have, you know, four or five businesses. They have a cafe. They have a bakery and quite a wide variety of businesses, and about a year ago one of the organizations on campus, the [?] Center for Ethical Leadership, gave Father Boyle an award, and he came--he was invited to come and, you know, accept the award. Unfortunately he was under the weather at the time and I didn't have a chance to meet him at that time, but one of the Homeboys came instead, and Miguel, who was in charge of marketing, just delivered this speech that was stunning. There wasn't a dry eye in the room. It was just powerful, yeah. So very moving work.Amy: That's amazing, and all of that through storytelling and connectedness.José: Exactly, and it was all really through the power of language. A guy up on a stage with a microphone telling his story.Amy: That's beautiful. So in the time that we have left, I would like your perspective on code switching and on cultural dexterity. So you and I had a brief conversation about this before we started recording, and I just want to know, what do those terms mean to you? I know that you use the term code switching to talk about when you're flexing between English language communication and Spanish language communication, but what does that mean to you? What's the feeling behind that term?José: So code switching for me is, you know, experientally that capacity to go from speaking English to speaking Spanish, or then from speaking Spanish to speaking English, and being able to go back and forth from those linguistic traditions, and that's how I tend to use the term code switching, in a very basic, organic, lay type of meaning, right? So nothing too intellectual or crazy cerebral, very simple, and I mentioned that to you in our conversation because I did that in the TED talk. One of the things I wanted to do in preparing for that was to be able to code switch from English to Spanish and Spanish to English, one because I thought that would be really fun, two I hadn't really seen it done before--I'm sure somebody has, but it doesn't happen very often--and also to be able to express through the power of spoken word that capacity to navigate two languages and, by doing that, create a sense of community, reach somebody through an online medium or through the internet or through whatever that message gets sent that says, "Gosh, here's somebody speaking my language," or "Here's somebody code switching," or "Here's somebody kind of going back and forth," and having a moment of identification, and I think through those moments of identification we start to experience solidarity, a sense of unity, a sense that we're not alone, that there's other people out there in the community that are like us, that are human and are willing to put themselves out there and put out a message that can be unifying, can be compassionate, can be empathic and can be, you know, the beginnings of a healing moment, not only for us as individuals but for communities at large. So for me that's my best answer with code switching. I want to just switch to the other topic that you were asking about, which is cultural dexterity, and cultural dexterity comes from a body of academic work looking at cross-cultural or inter-cultural communication, advancing the idea that we need to adapt or to adjust as we shift from one cultural orientation to another, and being able to do that is to have cultural dexterity, to be able to navigate not just my culture of origin or my tradition but to be able to seamlessly adapt to different discourse communities, right, without, you know, excessive effort or, you know, stumbling around, and that capacity I think is a skill that, you know, we really need, not only in our world but in our country, to be able to communicate with people that I perceive are different from me. I think we all need to have that as a skill set, because that is a primary human experience. Difference is a primary human experience. Whenever we meet the other, we are in the experience of difference. And how do we bridge that difference? How do I navigate that conversation with someone that is different from me? For some people that's very easy, for others it's very hard, and cultural dexterity is a concept that tries to get at the ways that we do that. And, you know, as you might imagine, one of the simplest ways to do that is, again, navigating conversations in such a way that we find what we have in common as opposed to what we have in difference. And we do this very organically all the time. When we meet somebody for the first time we say, "Hey, how are you doing? What's your name? Where are you from? What do you do? What do you like? Where'd you go to school?" And we ask all these questions to try to gather enough information to find something that we have in common that we can then zero in on to develop a dialogue back and forth around an issue that we have in common. So if I speak with you and I know that you're interested in networking and diversity, well, then I'm also interested in that, and I go, "Gosh, that's a topic of conversation that we can bridge whatever divisions we might have or whatever difference we might have, because diversity and networking are such a thing that we have in common that the other stuff just is not all that important or is kind of trivial or isn't really central to this passion that we bring to diversity and networking and things of that ilk," and I think that cultural dexterity is an area of study, again, that tries to teach those skills strategically.Amy: Excellent. So I want to commend you on your bilingual TED talk, and the reason I say that is because I think that there's--I think in the current political climate with some of the news stories that I've seen about people who have been harassed or assaulted for speaking languages other than English in public spaces, to me, for you to speak Spanish from a stage is an act of profound resistance against a culture that seeks to punish difference, and I can only imagine what that meant to someone in the audience who, you know, is a first-generation immigrant or, you know, for whom Spanish is their primary language at home, but they have to navigate a world that is in many ways alien to them because, you know, the culture seeks to strip them of language. You know, one of the tools of colonialism has been to strip people of their language and to strip people of their culture by forbidding language, and so I commend you for that. I think that's such a profound act of resistance and a profound act of courage and solidarity to do that so publicly and with so much empathy for your audience.José: Thank you. No, I appreciate that. I have got to tell you, that was difficult to do, yes, yes. It is a challenge because, you know, for all the reasons that you're articulating and more. We live in a climate where it's extremely weird to get up on stage and then not only do that but realizing that you're being videotaped and that is going to be launched at some point all over the internet and people are gonna be able to see that, you know, forever, right? So there's this strange feeling of vulnerability that I never really experienced before because, you know, I'm not someone that does TED talks every day. That was my first one. But there was this whole sense of feeling very vulnerable, very open, very, you know, out there, right? Just without a safety net, right? Especially on the day of rehearsal where you see that there's all these lights on you, right? There's just you, the stage, and these massive lights where you can't see the audience because the lighting is so powerful. You know, in order to capture you brilliantly in all the color and the dynamics of, you know, the technical aspects of the filming, there needs to be just massive amounts of lighting, and at first it was just a shock to the system, you know? Rehearsals for me did not go too well. I was very frustrated because I was distracted. I felt very vulnerable. I felt very agitated, because it wasn't something that I had rehearsed before. And then I knew what I was gonna do. I knew what I was gonna get up there and say. And after saying it though, it felt really good, you know? It felt very rewarding. It felt very evocative. It felt transformative. It felt very emotional. There was a couple of times during the performance where I choked up, because I didn't want to go up there and just be safe. I didn't want to go up there and just be very logical. I didn't want to go up there and just say, "Well, you know, I'm gonna talk about my research and these three areas," and be very linear and Aristotelian and academic because I felt that if I did that I would put on a very easy shield and not really be of service, and I just felt called to just, you know, let it ride, and I was happy that I took that risk for sure, so I really appreciate the affirmation.Amy: Absolutely, and as I listen to you I think about--it was almost a coming out, a public coming out, right, where I've seen and I've experienced, you know, being in front of a room and coming out, and it is, it's terrifying. There's nowhere to hide. You know, physically you're probably safe, but tricking your brain into believing that when you're out there on your own, separated from a crowd, right, the spotlight is literally on you and there's absolutely nowhere to hide once those words escape. It can be incredibly freeing, but it can be terrifying as well, and so--you know, and again, given kind of where we are politically and culturally right now, I just think that was incredibly brave and, you know, probably very affirming to the people that were there listening to you.José: Thank you. That tension between terrified and then having an experience of freedom, right, that is the tension that, no question about it, you feel very liberated, but at the same time a feeling of terror, a feeling of excitement, and talk about intersectionality. Intersectionality as an inner experience of multiple intersections of oppressive, liberating energies in the simultaneity of an insane moment, right? Because, you know, how many people have the blessing or the opportunity to get up on a stage and have all the lights on you and deliver a message? It's such a blessing, such a gift, and I wanted to honor that moment, you know? TED has a great line or a great mission to deliver, you know, a message worth spreading, right? That idea, that brand, a message worth spreading, an idea worth spreading, and every time I prepared I wanted to make sure that I was saying something that was worthy of that mission, that was worthy of that statement, that was worthy of that ideal, and in doing that, right, in attempting my best to stay true to those ideals, it was terrifying, it was difficult, it was liberating, and all of that happening simultaneously, like, you feel like your heart's in one place and your mind's in another and your body's going in a different direction and you forget, and then you bring it back and then you don't know how you're gonna be and you can't predict the future, but you know it's gonna be great, but you're not sure, and it's these weird journeys of the heart and the mind and the soul, and you're hoping, "Gosh, once I go through this whole maddening process, I hope I arrive on the other side okay," right? But it's just really what we talk about in kind of classic stories about the leap of faith, right? Taking a leap of faith, taking the hero or the heroine's journey, finding a way to kind of navigate your journey one step a time by claiming your truth as best you can in the moment and allowing wherever you land to be okay.Amy: Love that, yes. And, you know, the leadership lesson in that, about authenticity and vulnerability, I think is not to be overlooked, because certainly as you're stripping away some of that facade and you're, you know, opening yourself up in that way, people are seeing you as a leader in a way that maybe they hadn't before, and they're identifying with you and your story, and they become personally invested then in your success, and I think that that's--I think that's the real gift of leadership in an authentic and vulnerable way is that other people become invested in your success because they sense that you're equally invested in theirs.José: Right, I totally agree. There's this interesting dialectic, right, there's this interesting reciprocal relationship where I think through vulnerability we make connections with the other because we come to understand, at a very evocative, embodied level, our essential humanity. So I'm a human being just like you're a human being, and we're having a moment of solidarity where you might be admiring me, which is great, but I think the bigger gift is that you see yourself, you see the beauty of you in those moments, because in my, as I like to call it "stumbling successfully," I have said something or I have done something that allows you to see what is already beautiful inside you and helps you recognize it in a moment. And then you might project that onto me, which is fine, but hopefully what happens is that you feel empowered, you feel motivated, and then you feel that you want to pay that gift forward by allowing someone in your life to know that they're not alone, that they have value, that they are here with you for a reason, and in dialogue you get to discover what that reason is.Amy: That's beautiful. And if it's okay, we will end there. Thank you so much for this conversation, and thank you for extending your vulnerability to my audience. I appreciate it.José: It's been a pleasure connecting with you. Always, always wonderful to talk to you. Take care.Amy: Thank you.

On the fifty-ninth installment of Tristan's Tips, our amazing host Tristan Layfield is back to talk about how the struggle is real and how we all need to give ourselves grace as we navigate this pandemic. While work may be a coping mechanism for many, there are quite a few of us that feel overwhelmed and stuck. We're all experiencing something that the majority of us have never experienced in our lives and hopefully never will again. Remember, resilience is not time-bound. In stillness, we can find peace.Connect with Tristan on LinkedIn, IG, FB, and Twitter.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTTristan: What's going on, Living Corporate?! It's Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting, and I'm back to bring you not necessarily a tip but more of a personal testimony. This week, I want to talk about how the struggle is real and how we all need to give ourselves grace (shoutout to my best friend who has said this to me at least 100 times the last week or so).As a self-diagnosed hypochondriac, COVID-19 has my anxiety on 1,000. I’ve struggled getting started in the morning, my focus is at record lows, and all I’ve wanted to do is sit and process. Over the last couple of weeks, the narrative we’ve all been hearing from LLC Twitter and Instagramprenuers is that now is the time to be productive. Each time I logged in, no matter the platform, I felt this overwhelming sense of shame. Like I wasn’t doing enough or not taking advantage of this time enough. But I literally have not had the energy to continue with business as normal.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀So, I’m calling BS. While I get that work may be a coping mechanism for many, there are quite a few of us that feel overwhelmed and stuck. We're all experiencing something that the majority of us have never experienced in our lives (and hopefully never will again). It’s okay to give yourself grace.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀This pandemic has thrown us into a whirlwind of uncertainty, and many of us are experiencing loss in more ways than one.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I'm here to tell you; it's okay to grieve…⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀…that graduation…that job you lost…that opportunity you lost…your dwindling savings…your birthday plans…that trip you had planned…physical contact…that person you lost…your freedom...all of those things⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Grief is not a linear process, and I encourage you to take the time to sit still, feel the feels, and process your thoughts. Being still right now doesn't mean you are wasting this time, in fact, I think that many of the people who are acting as if it is business, as usual, are doing so because they don’t know how to process or handle stillness. All of us have been ingrained with a sense of urgency and have tied productivity into our worth. This may be the first and only time in our lives where we as a collective can sit, process, reflect, and just be.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Create time and space for you to unpack and process what’s going on and how it is affecting you. Once I gave myself that time, I’ve found it has opened up more mental and emotional space to be productive because I’ve been able to focus on the things I can control.Remember, resilience is not time-bound. In stillness, we can find peace. Be kind to yourself, stay inside, and stay safe.If you want to connect with me, check me out on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @LayfieldResume or connect with me, Tristan Layfield, on LinkedIn.

Amy C. Waninger fills in for Zach to interview Dr. Robin DiAngelo, author of "White Fragility," about just that. She helpfully unpacks the concept of whiteness and what it means in the context of American society, defines the term white solidarity and discusses its impact on black and brown people at work, and talks about what it looks like for white people to take responsibility for being less fragile. She also touches on the topic of diversity of thought and explains why she believes that it is the way that homogeneous groups protect their hold on institutional power.Connect with Robin on social media! She's on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.Find out more about Robin's book "White Fragility" on Amazon.Check out her website.Read her piece, "Nothing to Add: A Challenge to White Silence in Racial Discussions," by clicking here.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and look, really good news. First of all--the first thing. The first thing, right, 'cause I have two things. The first thing is my wife and I have welcomed our first child into the world. Her name is Emory, and she is great. In fact, her full name is Emory Jean Nunn. Beautiful. Gorgeous. I don't post pictures of my kids on social media, so if you don't really know me like that, if we're not really close, you're not going to get a picture from me. But that's okay, 'cause you don't have to see her. You know? It's okay. It's kind of like--who doesn't post pictures of their kids? Oh, no, Sia doesn't show her face. But, like, you know how Sia doesn't show her face? Like, that's how I'ma do my kids. Like, you know, you'll never see her face, but, like, she'll be covered up with, like, a lamp or something like that. But anyway, really excited about the fact that I'm a father. Really thankful for my wife. I was in the delivery room when she had her daughter, when she had our daughter, and man, just the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Shout-out to you, Candis. You're beautiful. Really thankful and appreciative to you for making me a girl dad, and yeah, that's the first thing. Like, that's the headline, okay? And then the second thing, far distant but still pretty cool news, we were able to get a very special guest today, and her name is Robin DiAngelo, Dr. Robin DiAngelo, and, you know, it was interesting because I was supposed to be the person who was to interview Dr. DiAngelo, but the date that we had to interview directly interfered with me welcoming my daughter into the world. So I was still in the hospital during my interview date. So I was able to prep Amy C. Waninger, wonderful consultant, subject matter expert, executive coach and member of Living Corporate and founder of her own company Lead at Any Level. She actually facilitated this conversation in my stead, and I just think that's really cool for a couple different reasons. One, Living Corporate has now gotten to the size and scope that we're able to attract a Dr. DiAngelo, but also our team is so capable that, you know, someone can check in the game and I can check out without there being a huge issue, and so shout-out to you, Amy. Thank you so much for facilitating this conversation. I know you all are gonna love this conversation, so make sure you check it out, and I'll catch y'all next time. Peace.Amy: Robin, welcome to the show. How are you?Robin: Well, I'm overall well in a very uncertain and frightening time.Amy: So let's get right into it, Robin. So before we talk about white fragility, can we unpack the concept of whiteness? Which is something we don't talk about a lot, and what that means in the context of American society?Robin: Yeah. So let's hold that note that you just made, that we don't talk about it a lot, because it's a key way that it stays intact and protected. So I'm gonna use Ruth Frankenberg. She's a sociologist, and she makes three points about whiteness, three dimensions. So it's a location of structural advantage, a position if you will within society, within institutions. It's a standpoint from which white people look out at ourselves, at others, and at society, and it's a set of cultural practices that are not named or acknowledged, right? And so to say that it's a standpoint is to say that it's a significant aspect of white identity, to see one's self as an individual outside or innocent of race, right? Just human. For most white people it's the last thing. [laughs] We'd have to be prompted to include being white in a list of, you know, "What you need to know about me," right? Characteristics of myself, things that have shaped my life. We're rarely going to name race as one of those things and yet, you know, before I took my first breath, the fact that my mother and I are white was shaping the trajectory of my life, and certainly the outcome of my very birth, right? So all of these things come together to create what you think of as whiteness, kind of the water that we interact within.Amy: I like that you called out "it's unnamed cultural norms," and I know in your book, and we'll talk about this in a minute, but naming those cultural norms, it violates the norms.Robin: It's this odd kind of tension if you will, right, that in talking about whiteness, of course, we're centering whiteness, right? We're kind of, you know, as always, positioning white people in the middle of the conversation, but in a very curious way whiteness stays centered by not being named, by not being acknowledged, and so to disrupt it you have to expose it. You have to make it visible. We can see this with patriarchy, right? The kind of unmarked, unnamed norm is "male" and then everything else is named as a specific position so that maleness is just human, and then femaleness is a variation and a deficient one of that, and the same of race. White is human, and everything else is a particular kind, and to be honest, a less than version of that human, and so by never naming that center from which we're proceeding you protect it.Amy: Absolutely. And I want to be sure and call this out right now, because when Zach asked me to stand in for him, you know, he knew that this interview was happening around the time of the birth of his daughter, and he called me and asked me if I would step in and sub for him, and I laughed and I said, "Really, Zach? You want a white woman--the only white woman on your team--to interview a white woman on a podcast for black and brown people?" You know? And I said "Are you sure that's what you want to do?" And he said, "Lean into that, go with it, and don't be afraid to call it out," and so I want to make sure that the audience knows that I know that I'm white, Robin and I both know that.Robin: Oh, I'm acutely aware.Amy: And yet we are recording this, you know, with the intent of sharing this conversation with a predominantly black and brown audience, and so I want to really, like, unpack this and do this justice, because I think we have such a unique opportunity here. You've used several times, in your book and in your talks, the term "white solidarity." Can you explain to us what that term means?Robin: Yeah. Maybe a couple of remarks about what you had just acknowledged, right? First of all, I actually think people of color know what it means to be white, know about dynamics such as white fragility to a degree that I never will, because they've been navigating it their entire lives. I think about it as it comes from me, not at me, right? And as an insider to whiteness, you and I do have something to offer, right, that people of color can't know or understand, and one piece of what we can offer is just to freaking admit to this, right? I mean, that in and of itself, you know, helps with the gaslighting, right? But I also want to be clear that--and I'm pretty sure this speaks for you too--we were not raised to see ourselves as white. Right now us acknowledging that, it's taken, you know, 20 years of my life's work to come to understand that I am white and that it shapes everything that I do. So it's not something that we are set up to understand at all, which of course is part of how it stays protected. And then to not name this, right? Audre Lorde has a beautiful quote about the master's tools. "How do you dismantle the master's house when you only have the master's tools?" So as you and I are two white people having this conversation, of course we're reinforcing whiteness, right? But for me to not use this position, this platform, this voice, this automatic granting of credibility and benefit of the doubt, to not use that to interrupt whiteness is to really be white. [laughs] And I'd like to be a little less white. And I always want to be really clear. What I mean when I say a little less white, I am not gonna tell you or tell white people that the answer to racism is to claim our ethnic roots, right? I'm not gonna say, "Let's all go and be Italian-American and Irish-American." No, for me to be a little less white means to be--to put it bluntly--a little less racially oppressive, a little less racially ignorant and yet arrogant in my ignorance, right? A little less certain and complacent and apathetic and silent and a little more humble and curious and breaking with white solidarity. So that leads us to that question. I see white solidarity as the unspoken agreement amongst white people that we'll keep each other comfortable around our racism, that we will privilege one another's saving face over actually being in our integrity and interrupted racism. So you say something, I'm cringing, right? I'm like, "Ugh," but I don't want to embarrass you so I'm not gonna say anything, plus I'm so relieved that it wasn't me, right? "It was you, not me!" You know, there's that individual piece where I think "Hey, as long as I didn't say it I'm not complicit with it," but of course my silence is complicit with what you just said, right? Yeah, so it's that dynamic of protecting one another, protecting our positions within this system. No matter how we rationalize it, that is what we're doing through white solidarity. Kind of pulling ranks.Amy: Mm-hmm. And there are real consequences for breaking with white solidarity, just like there are real consequences for not being white, and so as white folks we can either choose to remain protected by standing in solidarity with people that we maybe disagree with or have made us uncomfortable or we can choose to shed that protection and shed some of that privilege, but then we're also opening ourselves up to the same kinds of in the moment--not universally, but in the moment the same types of social outcasting we might receive if we were in fact other.Robin: Yes. You know, let's be really clear. There are consequences to white people for breaking with white solidarity. I mean, the term race traitor has an origin, right? And so that's in large part why we often don't break with it, but I also want to distinguish the differences, right? We're in this moment, right? We're at the dinner table. Uncle Bob says that thing. Everybody's cringing. Nobody wants to ruin the dinner. And I often ask, "Jeez, why would interrupting racism ruin the dinner and not interrupting racism not ruin this dinner," right? And yet, you know, i t's gonna erupt in conflict and so we keep quiet. So, you know, there are consequences, such as being dismissed, being trivialized, "You ruined the dinner," but it doesn't rest on a history. It doesn't trigger a history of harm, right, that it does for people of color when they break that silence, right? So that's one piece, and another piece is I am probably not going to lose my job. I am probably not going to be criminalized. I am probably not going to be institutionalized. But those threats and those fears are out there kind of circulating around people of color when they challenge white people, right? This is very real. The consequences are real.Amy: Absolutely. So let's talk about how white solidarity shows up at work, and specifically what are the impacts to black and brown folks at work when white people are engaging in white solidarity?Robin: Well, one of the ways it shows up is privileging white people's feelings over racism, right? So all of this, you know, tiptoeing and tying people in knots to, you know, make sure that white people are comfortable in this conversation, and we have to create a safe space, and we can't go too fast, and, you know, "Let's not call it racial equity. Let's call it D&I and D&E and DEI and everything, you know, vague other than racial justice, right? Because we need to keep white people comfortable," right? Let's get everything on the table. Well, how does that function? By getting everything on the table you can't do justice to anything, and you certainly can't do justice to race, right? So those are some really common ways that institutions privilege and protect white people's delicate sensibilities over the very real pain that people of color in primarily-white organizations are experiencing daily.Amy: Absolutely, and I want to be very clear about this. So it seems like the higher up people are in the organizational food chain, if you will, the more fragile they are, and the more power they have the more fragile they are in terms of conversations about race, the more they cling to that power and weaponize it. Do you think that's a fair take?Robin: Yes. Certainly, I mean, you see white fragility across, you know, wherever you have white people, but the impact of it is greater the higher your status is, right? So my training is in sociology, and it's just been invaluable to me, right? And there's a question that's just never failed me in my efforts, right, to unpack, you know, how do we keep getting these outcomes despite all the things that white people are gonna claim? And that question is not is this true or is this false, is this right or is this wrong, but how does it function? Who does it serve? So how does it function and who does it serve when the people with the most institutional power are the most fragile? Well, they certainly have the most to lose in a way, right? They are protecting their positions and their status. They likely feel the most threatened by a question, and I'm gonna offer they likely feel the most entitled to what they have, and so they have no ability or stamina to withstand questioning what they have, right? I mean, you're up against now idealogies of meritocracy, that "I have what I have because I'm the cream of the crop, and cream rises, and I've worked hard, and, you know, I'm special, and I went to the finest schools." You're questioning all of that idealogy when you challenge those at the top. Maybe there's something more going on here than just the cream rising. And I just have to say I grew up in poverty, so I didn't go to college until I was in my 30s, and I really did think that the smartest kids went to college. And then I got to college and I was dumbfounded, quite frankly, and then I went on to teach college, and I can assure you that the cream does not rise, that the smartest kids don't go to college, and that Ivy League schools are not filled with the best and the brightest. It's about access and opportunity, but that's a hard thing to look at when all your life you've been told how special you are.Amy: Absolutely. Now, in your book you said--and I'm quoting from your book here--"It's white people's responsibility to be less fragile. People of color don't need to twist themselves into knots trying to navigate us as painlessly as possible," and this seems to fly in the face of a lot of, you know, diversity and inclusion work that's being done in corporations right now. You alluded to this earlier, right? We call it everything but anti-racism, we call it everything but racial equity, and, you know, there seems to be a lot of making people comfortable, you know, setting ground rules so no one gets upset when we have these conversations at work, and kind of the prevailing notion or the unwritten, unspoken rule is "Both sides need to put in a lot of emotional labor to make this change happen." So let me ask you - what does it look like for white people to take responsibility for being less fragile? How do we do that?Robin: Let's back up a little bit and talk about that dynamic, right, where everyone's equally responsible. That does not account for the difference in power, in structural and institutional power. So that's like saying, if we're looking--I draw from patriarchy and sexism a lot. I'm a cis woman. You know, she/her pronouns. I'm white. And it's just so clear when I think about it. Well, both men and women have equal responsibility to dismantle patriarchy. Well, we all play a role, but who controls the institutions, right? Who holds that power? And so the weight of that responsibility I believe is in the hands of those who have more institutional power. And people of color of course have a role to play, in the same way that women have a role to play in challenging sexism and patriarchy, but it's a very different role. In a lot of ways it's about developing critical consciousness. It's about surviving the dynamics, supporting each other, getting away--getting space away from white people. I mean, these are the kinds of things that people of color--that have been in my life--have shared that they need to have, right? This is how they can kind of survive this whiteness that they're embedded in all the time, is to surround themselves with people who understand their experiences and share their experiences, right? So what are some of the things that white people can do? We simply cannot get where we need to go from the current paradigm, which is--this is the average white person's definition of what it means to be racist, right? A racist is an individual who consciously does not like people based on race and is intentionally mean to them. Individual, conscious mal-intent across race. That's racism, or a racist, and I don't know that you could come up with a more effective way to protect systemic racism than that definition, because it absolves virtually all white people. Most of the racism--I would say actually all of the racism--I have perpetrated in my life has been unintentional and unaware. That does not mean that the impact of it hasn't been harmful and painful, right? So you pretty much guarantee defensiveness and denial when that is what you think it means to be racist. You know, the average white person--I mean, I've been asking this question for 20 years - "What does it mean to be white?" - and most white people can't answer that question, and that's not benign or innocent or neutral. You know, the collective inability of white people to answer that question creates a hostile environment, because if I can't tell you what it means to be white, I cannot hold what it means not to be white, right? I'm gonna have no critical thinking on that. I'm gonna have no skills to navigate the conversation, and I'm gonna have no emotional capacity to withstand the discomfort of that conversation, and what that means is that people of color in primarily white environments can't be their authentic selves. They can't talk to us about what they're experiencing because things tend to get worse for them, not better for them, when they challenge us, right? So we white people have to stop thinking about racism as just people walking around saying the N word, you know, and going to rallies in Charlottesville. That's real too. That's another conversation, but again, it's the more--I'm gonna put air quotes around it--"subtle," but it's that inability to understand our own racial perspective and positions that creates that climate for people of color working with us, right? And that leads to this idea that racism is their problem, right? I mean, I was raised to see race as what--oh, let's name somebody. Van Jones has race, right? I don't have race, right? I'm just regular, you know? In my day we said things like "I'm just white bread," "I'm just Heinz 57," right? They have race, and so they also have the problems associated with race, and so you get this idea that they'll have to work that out, but thank goodness I'm not a part of that. I'll never forget a student--I used to always start my classes with that question, you know, how has your race shaped your life? And a white student wrote, "Well, I was really lucky. I grew up in an all-white neighborhood, and so I've never learned anything about racism." Amy: They've learned everything.Robin: Just in that one sentence, I mean, we can unpack--I could teach a whole freaking seminar on that one sentence it's so loaded. We could do some beautiful discourse analysis, right? But this idea that we're innocent of race, that white space is unracialized space and that we've absorbed nothing in that space--Amy: And I think that we're not missing anything by being in that space, right? [?] anything that would benefit us by staying in those, you know, all-white neighborhoods that are privileged, you know? It's just such a sadness to me. It's such a sickness that we have, that we think that by excluding ourselves from the conversation we are in some way privileging ourselves, when I believe the exact opposite is true.Robin: Yeah. I actually think the deepest message of all, of white supremacy--and let me just pause for a minute, because that's a charged term for a lot of white people. Yes, it includes people wearing white hoods. You know, that's how I was raised to understand the term, but it's actually a highly descriptive sociological term for the society we live in, one in which elevates white people as the norm for humanity, a lot of what we've already been talking about, and I think one of the deepest messages of white supremacy is this idea that there's nothing of value lost in white segregation, and in fact, that segregation is what we use to define that space as good. The whiter it is, the more it will be perceived as "good," valuable, safe. The profundity of that message is so deep. I just wish white people would just sit with it for a minute. "Wow," right? To call white segregated space good, right? We just came out of February, which was Black History Month, where we talk about the tragedy of enforced segregation of blacks in the Jim Crow South, and every day we talk in celebratory terms about white segregation. Those are very deep messages that we have to look at. Again, it's not the N-word for somebody like me, but it's that. Amy: Right, it's the coded language of good schools, good neighborhoods, low crime, you know, nice areas of town, good parts of town, right?Robin: Mm-hmm. "Oh, I'm shocked that crime happened here." Well, where is it supposed to happen?Amy: Right, or we don't even define it as crime when white people do it. White collar crime is its own kind of crime because certainly people who are in white collar jobs who are white people are not engaged in normal crime, right? Normal crime is for other people. And yeah, the vernacular around this, we could go on forever, but I want to get to Zach's questions because he's my boss. Robin: Yeah. Well, I want to say something about the ground rules. You mentioned ground rules, right? 'Cause we're talking about corporate settings. So you have these seminars and workshops and, you know, these guidelines for having a conversation, but they always assume equal power relations, right? There's no one set of guidelines that will ensure a quote-unquote "safe space" for everybody. Usually what they are all about is niceness, and a culture of niceness is just kind of deadly in terms of racial justice because challenging racism, naming racism, will not be perceived as "nice," right? "You've hurt my feelings," you know? "How could you assume I would be racist?" And so as long as everybody has to be nice, we can have no conflict or no strong feelings and we can't express ourselves in any kind of strong way. And so usually those ground rules function to stifle authentic conversation, authentic expression of pain that people of color are often in in primarily white spaces, particularly primarily white-controlled spaces.Amy: Well, it becomes another form of gatekeeping that white people do on conversations that don't center them. And so we keep those conversations to a minimum, we make sure that we reframe it so that it's palatable for the people that pay our salaries and that sort of thing, and, you know, I think to me one of the things that we can do as white people is to put ourselves less often in gatekeeper roles where we are, you know, less responsible for things like merit decisions or, you know, pay decisions, promotion decisions, content or tone decisions, right? Where we're not policing those things, we are handing that off to someone who is, you know, superbly capable of doing it from a completely different perspective, and I think especially in those kinds of conversations where we're in racial equity conversations, I think it's incumbent upon white folks, just like when you're in a performance review and your boss gives you feedback you don't like, you don't argue with them and cry and throw things and, you know, tell them, you know, "I can't believe you thought I did a bad job on that report," right? We don't do that because it would be ridiculous to do that in any other professional context, but then somehow we put ourselves in the position of gatekeeping on those conversations again through the weaponizing of our emotions in those conversations.Robin: Yeah, it reminds me of--as a woman in a male-dominated environment, I am not going to cry. No way. I might go in the bathroom and cry, but I am not gonna cry in front of those men. And yet, white women, how free do we feel to cry in front of people of color when charged with racism, right? When held accountable for our behavior, which is very revealing about our understanding of where the power lies, right? What is the difference between my tears in each of those contexts, right? And so your question about, you know, "How do we get there?" And I was saying we can't get there from the current paradigm, right? We just have to start from the premise, white people have to start from the premise, that we have been thoroughly indoctrinated and socialized into white supremacy and into ways of seeing and being that uphold white supremacy, and once you start there it's actually incredibly liberating, right? It's just transformative. I can stop defending, denying, debating, you know, and start just getting to work trying to unpack, well, how is that indoctrination into white supremacy manifesting in my life, in my work? It's such a different question because it rests on a very different premise, right? And so when you talk about white people kind of turning over some of those decisions in the workplace, I want to put in a plug here for, you know, if you're gonna put people of color on committees and, you know, token representation, they need to be paid more for that work, right? They need to be compensated for the psychic, emotional and intellectual labor that they're doing and the expertise that they're bringing that the rest of us don't have, right? And tart acknowledging--Amy: And not just one person of color on that board. You need a critical mass of people who can, you know, almost be a block of voices, because one person cannot do that work alone. I mean, that's violent to put one person in that position.Robin: Yes, yes.Amy: So let me ask you this while we're on the subject of corporate America and the way that we talk about diversity concepts. You know, we hear a lot about--so there are a couple places I want to go with this. The first is "Well, what about diversity of thought?" And I have so many things I'd love to save about that, but the other is, you know, this focus on gender as if gender equity is one thing. And so I want to leave that there and kind of get your response to those two terms. Robin: So we might as well just go for it. Diversity of thought is ridiculous - ridiculous. That is the way that homogeneous groups protect their hold on institutional power, right? "Yeah," you know, "There's all kinds of things," you know? "Somebody likes soccer and somebody likes volleyball." There are many forms of difference between us, but those seem, like, personality kinds of things, right? Race is very, very real. Racism is very, very real. That lack of representation is very real. We have to get real about it, right? Hold on, though. The other piece you asked--Amy: The gender equity piece.Robin: Yeah, I have to be careful here. So I think there's--Amy: Stop there for a second. I want to know, why do you feel you have to be careful there?Robin: Because there's a lot of social power behind the push for acknowledging gender binaries and gender diversity as you call it, and I do believe that there's a reason that that has spread. Look, I do not want to downplay patriarchy and sexism and heterosexism and transphobia. I don't want to downplay those things, and I think there's a reason that that has flourished in a way that you're gonna see on people's signatures their gender pronouns, but you are not going to see their race, and I'd like to see their race on there too. I'd like if, before we start a meeting, we go around the room, we say our gender pronouns, sure, but we also say our race, so we start noticing who's at this table and who's not at this table, you know? What decisions are being made at this table and who are they going to impact in what ways, and how do we know, and who's missing? So I think, again, I want to acknowledge that all of those variations of that oppression are real, but there's still a reason that that has become more widespread and acceptable, and I think it's because everyone pretty much knows somebody who is queer or non-binary. They're your brothers, your sisters, your family members, your cousins. So there's a human face to that, but most white people live profoundly racially segregated lives, and so we don't see that humanity in the same way.Amy: I think that's fair, and I think, you know, a lot of the gender equity focus, like, when a lot of companies do diveristy initiatives in their companies or inclusion initiatives, they start with gender because gender seems the most safe thing or the most relatable thing, and typically the beneficiaries of those initiatives are white women only, because what works for white women in corporate settings doesn't work for black women, Indian women, you know, Chinese-American women, indigenous women, Latinx women, right? And it's another way, I believe, of reinforcing the primacy of whiteness in the space as opposed to really making gains broadly in diversity and inclusion. Would you agree with that?Robin: Well, I see a lot of white gay men in positions, you know, head of diversity and equity in organizations, and I also notice that many of them have no racial analysis. So again, you want to use your oppressed experience, right, your oppressed identities, as a way in, not as a way out, right? So how can you use that understanding to see, "All right, well, where am I complicit in somebody else's oppression?" And I move back to gender and patriarchy a lot because I've thought about it most of my life. I was in my 30s before I ever considered how I was complicit with somebody else's oppression. So great, a white, gay man who has a strong anti-racist analysis? That's fantastic, but without that you're just gonna reproduce the same kind of daily agony for the people of color in your organization.Amy: Right, absolutely. Absolutely. And I want to get into this just a little bit, Robin, because, you know, we do similar work in that we are trying to, you know, build a more equitable culture, build more inclusive cultures within organizations, within our communities, within our country. You know, there is this fine line that people like you and I walk in speaking truth to power and getting paid, and I'm curious, because I know that that's a struggle not just for us, right? And we are maybe a little--it's maybe a little easier for us to do that because of our whiteness, but folks who really want to speak truth to power but have value to offer an organization and, you know, expect to be paid for their work, how do you balance that? What advice do you have for folks who are out there every day kind of balancing on that razor's edge?Robin: Yeah. Well, the first thought is relating to--we were just talking about who tends to be in these positions, right, and I want to be really clear that I don't think it's automatically people of color should be leading all of the diversity efforts. I think that's also problematic, right? We put them in those positions. We'll cover everything else, and we'll give them race work, even as they're not going to be listened to and heard in the same way. So it's not a given, right? So again, a white person in that position with a very strong anti-racist analysis can be incredibly effective, in some ways more effective in certain areas. My ideal is interracial teams that you actually put the resources behind, an interracial team at the head of your diversity initiative, because each member of that team can bring something and challenge something differently than somebody else, right? So I used to be a co-director with a black woman of equity at an organization. You know, there were things that I could push that she couldn't, and there were things of course that she could bring that I couldn't, and so that's for me a much more ideal than any just one person, 'cause that's a setup, you know, regardless. How I have reconciled that dilemma, right, in various ways. So first of all, sometimes people say "You're being paid for racism," and I would basically say, "Well, I'm being paid for anti-racism." My work is anti-racism, and we could make a case that everybody--if you are not anti-racist, you are racist, right? So as Ibram Kendi beautifully says, "The opposite of racist isn't not racist. It's anti-racist." So in a society in which racism is the norm, not an aberration, all of us are contributing to that if we're not explicitly challenging it, right? So the one way that I think about what I do, when I come into an organization and I give a presentation on whiteness and white fragility, I'm tilling the soil, if you will, as an outsider, as somebody with a lot of credibility behind my name and as a white person, there's a way in which I can challenge white people that I couldn't if I was inside that organization and that people of color are not gonna be able to, so let me come in and do that really hard, say that really hard stuff and soften the soil in a way that then people can hear the people of color inside that organization, right? And the white people inside that white organization. That is one of the ways I think about what I do, but let me name some of the ways that I seek to be accountable. I donate a percentage of my income to racial justice organizations that are led by people of color. I channel work to people of color. I promote the work of people of color. I have a platform to do that. When I am presenting more than a few hours I co-present in an interracial team. I have white people in my life with a strong anti-racist analysis that I consult with and work through my feelings with. You know, I'm not saying I don't get called in and have feelings about it and need to work through those feelings, but I also have a circle of people of color coaches who have agreed to coach me, to be there for me if I need to work through something, and I pay them for their time. That is critical. It is not something that I turn to them and expect for them to give me. And this is another challenge in organizations, is that labor is just expected with no sense of compensation. So I pay them for that time. Now, occasionally the people of color in my life say, you know, "We're friends, I'm not taking your money," and I say, "Great. I'm donating for the hour you just spent with me to a racial justice organization." I also pay rent in Seattle to the Duwamish people, who are the original peoples. This is the ancestral territories of the Duwamish, and I pay rent to the Duwamish people because they have yet to be federally recognized in the Seattle area. So I could go on, but those are some of the ways I seek to be accountable.Amy: Thank you for that, and, you know, I think that as we look at, you know, it is so easy to not be held accountable, right, as white people in this work and in this society. So one of the things that I've noticed--and Zach and I were talking about this the other day--you know, if certain things that I wrote in my book or that you wrote in your book that you say to white people, you know, is really ground-breaking, right, in an all-white room. Like, people are like, "Oh, my God. That's so radical. I can't believe we're having this conversation," right? They've never heard it before, you know? They've gotten to their mid-fifties and they've never heard somebody say some of these things before, and this is dinner time conversation for black families, right? And so one of the things I've noticed is a lot of times white people can't hear it if a white person doesn't say it, but--and I'll say that out loud, I'll say that in a group of people, and, you know, I'll see women of color especially nodding their heads, but, you know, how much of this work do you feel you're creating something new versus--and I don't mean this as a criticism. I think about this a lot myself. How much of this is you're creating something new versus you're taking what's being said around dinner tables in black families every day and just saying it in a different space where no one's heard it before?Robin: Yeah. Well, so the first thing I think about is that there's simply no clean space. In other words, there's no place outside of this. This is always going to be a [both and?]. You know, as we seek to de-center whiteness, we're centering whiteness, right? Again, we're in it. We're inside this construct. So you do your best to be as accountable as you can, but I don't know that we can ever get it exactly right, right? And the way that I think about what I do, absolutely, years and years and years of mentorship from people of color, years and years of being in rooms and hearing and bearing witness to the testifying of people of color, you know? Years of studying the works of people of color and years of self-analysis, self-reflection, talking to other white people. I do have the ability to take fairly high-level academic concepts and make them very accessible, right? I did put language to something that pretty much everybody recognizes, right? I mean, even people who are fragile around whiteness kind of recognize once you give language to it, and a lot of people of color have said, "Thank you for that language. I absolutely see this. I've dealt with it. I didn't even know how to express it," right? So I have something to contribute, and yes, I stand on the shoulders of countless people of color, right? I can't live with not expressing this, right? I can't live with being silent because of those dilemmas. I try to be as much in my integrity as I can. I try to get it as right as I can as often as I can by as many as I can. [laughs] And I'll never get it right by everybody. It's way too loaded. It's way too charged. It's way too messy.Amy: Absolutely, and I think too in the work of anti-racism it's a moment by moment choice for so many of us, right? That we're either actively deconstructing racism in this moment or we are actively not, and it's something that, coming from a place of privilege, we can choose to do or not, right? We don't have to do that work. No one will think less of us if we don't except that we'll think less of ourselves for those of us who are committed to this kind of thing, but at the same time it is--there's a balance there, right, of taking up space when it's needed and taking up space that we should or should not, and I think there's a lot of calculus that we need to do there, and I see you doing a lot of that in your work. Robin: Yeah. You know, I have a piece called "Nothing to Add: The Role of White Silence in Cross-racial Discussions." You know, I think silence from a position of power is a power move, right? So that's not the alternative either, and one of the things that I'm arguing in that piece is that any way that I engage that is a default, right, like, "Okay, I'm not gonna say a word in this conversation," right? "I don't want to get it wrong. I don't want to make a mistake. I don't want to dominate." Whatever my rationale is, "I'm just gonna listen." Or the other end, right? "I'm gonna speak up whenever I feel moved to speak up." Those are defaults. Those are not "I'm paying attention in every moment, and in each moment I'm asking myself what's happening in the room right now? What are the dynamics at play? What is my position within those dynamics? And given that, what would be the most strategic, constructive, anti-racist move?" And sometimes it would be silence, and sometimes it would be speaking up, and I'm not going to get that call right by everybody in the room, but that's the call I need to be constantly making. Paying attention and, to the best of my ability, using my position in strategic, anti-racist ways, right? Any default is problematic, I believe. Any kind of just--Amy: I agree, yeah. Because once you stop making conscious decisions, you're making decisions without realizing it, and making decisions without realizing you're making them is always a problem.Robin: Well, they tend to function for your own comfort. The "I'm not gonna say a word in case I make a mistake," come on. You don't want to take any risks. You know, you're looking to save face. "I don't want to show myself," right? "Lest you think I'm racist," and I always like to laugh. "Look, I already think you're racist, all right? I start from that premise." Let me just go there - all white people are racist in the sense that all white people have been socialized into a racist world view because we were born into a racist culture in which it's embedded, and we're back to just start from that premise and then get to work trying to impact how you were socialized into it and how you might challenge it rather than this constant denial, you know? That just because you don't want to be means you aren't.Amy: Right, absolutely. So I want to go back to this notion about people of color twisting themselves into knots to avoid, you know, weaponized whiteness so to not be punished. So recognizing of course that we're both white women having this conversation, you know, what do you think is left for people of color to do?Robin: Honestly? Like, survive this, navigate this in as healthy a way as possible. You know, I always feel a little uncomfortable, a little sheepish around telling people of color what is there for them to do, but Glenn Singleton, he is a black man who founded Courageous Conversations, and I've done a couple presentations for him at his conferences, and he has, like, a principle that everybody has a role, and he pushes me to speak to that very question. So with Glenn, I'll imagine him standing beside me saying "Go for it, Robin." [laughs] I mean, my work is to challenge white people, right? But there are a couple of very sensitive questions I do offer people of color, and one is what does anti-blackness look like among your group? Because anti-blackness runs across the spectrum of race, and anti-blackness runs amongst people of color. It runs amongst black people. So what does it look like amongst your group, and who have you aligned with? In particular for Asian heritage people who are often more likely to be comfortable for white people. This does not mean they don't experience racism, but the reality is that white people are more comfortable, in some ways because of our particular racism, because of the invisibility, some of the stereotypes we project onto Asian heritage people, but nonetheless, we are more comfortable overall, right? So I would offer that question to Asian heritage people in the workplace. Who have you aligned with? Have you taken up with the struggles of African-Americans in this country or have you aligned with whiteness, and what have been the rewards, and what has been the price that you paid for that alignment? So there's that work. There's the work of challenging the messages, you know? For white people, we need to challenge the messages of internalized superiority, and there's an opposite message for people of color to look at, and also just, like I said earlier, to get away from white people and build community in people of color spaces, you know? I'm a big believer in affinity work in the workplace, right?Amy: Mm-hmm, yes, and I would like to add to that if I may. I think it's incumbent upon people of color, when you find an ally, hold us accountable.Robin: Oh, yes. Thank you. Mm-hmm.Amy: Because we need that, right? We don't always see, and we may not be holding ourselves to a high enough standard, and, you know, if you have someone you consider a true ally, please, you know, call me on it. I want to know. And, you know, I will do my best to process it in a way that doesn't involve you, right? [laughs] But, you know, please hold us accountable as allies in this work, because, you know, if we aren't getting it right, we have, you know, a pretty poor shot of helping anyone else get there.Robin: Yeah, and what I would add is that then we also have to help each other as white people to hold each other accountable, because it's a tall order for people of color, right? Not only, you know, are there risks that we will respond well, but, you know, we're all inside this construct, so in the same way that, sure, I can seek as a woman to hold men accountable for sexism, half the sexism that's going around me I don't even see because I've been conditioned to collude with it, right? So if you just put it on my shoulders--you know, sometimes you can imagine a man saying, "Hey, just let me know if I do anything sexist," and then he's covered, right? Off he goes, and now I get to carry that, right? So we have to watch that piece of it, right, where a lot of white people will say, "Hey, let me know if I do anything," and now we can relax because they'll let us know. Well, that's a pretty tall order, right? So we have to do our work and hold each other accountable too, develop the capacity so that I can also call myself in, I can realize that I just stepped in it. I'm not completely dependent on people of color helping me with that.Amy: Absolutely, and, you know, there will be times when we step in it with each other, and there will be times we step in it when we're not around for each other, and so I think it's a team sport here, accountability is. So, you know, it's election year again here in 2020, and, you know, Zach says, you know, we're gonna relive the same frustrations and feelings of hopelessness and ostracization that black and brown folks felt in 2016. In addition to that, we have generational shifts coming in the workforce. We have a lot of changing demographics, right? We're at a tipping point demographically in this company in a lot of different fronts. Do you see this as a unique point in time, and if so, what are some things that leaders can do to capitalize on this moment in history to build more equitable outcomes for the future?Robin: Yeah. I think yes, I see it as a unique time in the sense that it's so much more explicit than it's been in a while. So what this is helping us see is that history is not just this arc of progress the way that I was taught to see it, that it's cyclic, and that you can never rest and never be complacent, right? So even the Voting Rights Act has almost been dismantled, something that you'd like to take for granted but you cannot take for granted. So this kind of "We're post-racial because we had Obama as a president," we're done with that nonsense, right? I mean, nobody pretty much that I'm working with is in denial. It was actually harder to do my work during the Obama years because so many people used that as their evidence that we were post-racial. Well, you know, we're so far from post-racial right now, so the explicitness of it, the permission that I actually think the resentment about Obama brought to the surface--it was always simmering under there, but there wasn't permission to express it, you know, post-civil rights. Well, you know, from the highest point we have that permission now, so that has exposed both the enduring nation of white hostility, white resentment, the cyclic nature of history so that we can never be complacent. And in the same way that it has made it more acceptable to be openly racist, it has put on--I never thought in my lifetime, on a debate stage, people would be talking about reparations for African-Americans, right? So there are also ideas that have been given air and legitimacy that we could never bring up before. So it's kind of this push/pull, right, that's going on. As far as the generational shift, I think one of the things we're up against with younger people is they believe that they are post-racial because "Oh, I'm fine with black people. I was on a sports team in school and it's no big deal," and so they have this really simplistic idea, again, of what it means to be racist, and one of the things that stood out to me--I did a year of intensive workshops for a large tech company that for some legal reason must remain unnamed, and what really struck me was that most of the employees there were under 30, and when we would have these workshops and people of color, black people in particular, would share the pain that they were in, their white colleagues under 30 years of age were dumbfounded. They were, like, flabbergasted that their colleagues were in so much pain. They simply had no idea, which means they have no critical thinking and they have no skills and they have no awareness even as they say, you know, they party on the beach with their black friend. That doesn't mean they're able to engage with what their friend is experiencing. This is a challenge we have with the new generation. And so organizations have to truly demonstrate that they're committed to this. They have to put some teeth behind their claim that they value diversity and take a stand, right? If you're gonna work for this company, you have to be able to engage with some complexity and nuance in this conversation, and if you can't you are not qualified to work here. If it was a qualification to be able to engage with some nuance in conversations about race, most of the people leading the organizations that are listening right now wouldn't have their jobs. Let's be honest. It doesn't mean you can't gain that, but you better show some capacity to gain that nuance and complexity or you're not qualified to work here. That's what I would love to see in corporate America.Amy: That would be beautiful. And with that, Robin, I thank you for your time. I thank you for joining us on Living Corporate. On Zach's behalf, I'd like to thank you for being here, and I know that he's thrilled to be home with the baby right now, but I know that he was so disappointed that he had to pass this off, so. It has been an absolute honor and privilege to talk to you today. Thank you so much.Robin: Well, you are so welcome.

On the twenty-third installment of The Link Up with Latesha, our incredible host Latesha Byrd, founder of Byrd Career Consulting, talks about how to deal with your co-workers and bosses as you work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. She also stresses the importance of setting boundaries to help ensure you get your work done and maintain your peace. Listen to the full episode to find out why she's a big advocate for over-communication and a lot more!Learn more about Latesha on the BCC website or connect with her through her socials. LinkedIn, IG, Twitter, FBStop by LateshaByrd.com. Click here to check out Latesha's shop, and don't forget the 60% discount code GETTHECOINS!Check out Latesha's YouTube channel.BCC's socials: LinkedIn, IG, Twitter, FBFind out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTLatesha: Hey, hey, guys. Welcome to another episode of The Link Up with Latesha. How are you all doing? I really wish that I could hear your response right now. I know that this is a really difficult time. This is a challenging time for many of us because our world has been flipped upside down with the spread of--and I know y'all are even tired of hearing about it, seeing it, reading it... I'm just gonna say it one time and that's it--with the spread of coronavirus. It has literally impacted every single person in this country. We are being forced to work from home. For many, that may have not even have had experience working from home. And I'm in North Carolina. Well, I'm in Charlotte, and our mayor just put out a stay-at-home order for 14 days, and then today we were told that the governor has now put out a stay-at-home order for all of North Carolina for 30 days starting on Monday, so all we can do is go to the grocery store and go on walks. [laughs] When I tell you I have never lived in a more crazier time ever, and what I wanted to talk about today is with this new, you know, thing that everyone's doing right now, which is working from home and working remotely and working virtual, I want to talk about not just how to stay productive and get your work done, because that's all that I've been seeing around this whole, you know, working from home movement, is "Here's how to stay productive." I want to take a different spin on it today based on my experiences in corporate and also as an entrepreneur, but then also hearing and seeing my friends and what they're going through and what my coaching clients are going through now having to work from home where they may not have had to previously. So this is a different spin on working from home. It's about how to work from home and deal with your annoying, nagging co-workers and boss and how to set some boundaries so you can get your work done and maintain your peace. That's what we're talking about today. Our work from home experience is going to look different from some--definitely referring to people of color here, right? We are often micromanaged, underutilized, overworked, looked over for promotions and mentorship, and so our day-to-day in our careers look vastly different in terms of our communication, in terms of our relationships. Now, this is me making a general assumption here, but everyone has their own experiences. I do just want to put that disclaimer out there. But here's just a few tips on how to work from home and maintain some peace through it all. #1 is to give yourself some grace. Extend yourself some grace. I know that companies may be operating as business as usual, but this is not business as usual. Let's just be clear. This is not business as usual. We are going through a very difficult time for many. We have had family members that have gotten sick, we may have gotten family members or friends that have been laid off, right? So this is impacting all of us, our friends, our families, our communities, and so I want you all to know that it is okay if you don't have it all the way together 24/7 for work, and I want to make sure you are managing your energy. So first, you know, the first tip is to extend yourself some grace, but the second tip is to manage your energy, not just your time. Manage your energy, not just your time. Now that you may be working from home, you may have to do a lot more self-management, right? So no one is there saying, you know, "Go to this meeting. Do this. Do that," right? You might have to be managing your own priorities and deadlines a little bit more than usual. So with that being said, see if you can structure your workday around getting the things done that will take the most creative energy, the most brain power, so that you can focus that energy on things that will require to do a little bit more heavy lifting mentally. What I mean by that is I took a few days and I just kind of jotted down how I was feeling throughout the day. I'll be honest, I did not come up with that idea. My therapist told me to do that. [laughs] But what I got from that was I was realizing that there were certain times and dips in my days where I was feeling really pumped up and then when I was feeling low energy, so what I have done to structure my schedule is when I first wake up in the morning or when I first start my work day, I spend that time creating content. I spend that time creating ideas, you know? I spend that time really focusing on brainstorming strategies. At the times where I'm feeling a little lower-energy, I'll do more administrative. Sending emails, signing contracts, you know, reviewing something. [laughs] Not creating, but maybe reviewing something. That is when I will spend time doing that. So, you know, manage your energy, not just your time. Going along with managing energy is take breaks. Take breaks. I was talking to my friends the other day and they were telling me about their experience now having to work from home, and they said, "Man, I barely get up. Like, I go to the bathroom and I sit. I feel like I'm trapped at my computer. I feel like I'm trapped at my desk and I can't go anywhere, and when I was working in our office, you know, I was able to take walks and take breaks and--" Listen, you are not a machine. We are not machines. We are not programmed to work 12, 15, 16 hours straight, or even just honestly, like, four hours straight. We are not programmed and conditioned that way. We need constant breaks. So make sure that you are scheduling breaks in your day. I like to do an hour and a half of straight work, and then I'll take, like, a ten to fifteen minute break. And make sure too that you have a routine every day. Make sure that you have a routine every day, but understand that many of you may have children at home now since all the schools are canceled, so your work day at work may not look the same as it does now being at home. Maybe you have to take a break to get your kids set up for school, you know, take care of their lunch, their dinner. Once they go to bed you hop back on for a couple of hours, but you may lose a couple of hours during the day. Please, please, please think about what schedule works best for you and your family and have a conversation with leadership about that. Have a conversation with your boss or your manager. It's really unfair if companies are, like I said before, operating business as usual when there are so many other, you know, circumstances in place right now. So we're now moving into talking about boundaries. Let your manager know that you will be operating on an amended schedule just due to the things that you're having to take care of in the household. The other thing is that I'm sure you are all experiencing many more Zoom meetings and virtual meetings being scheduled. I want you to think about how you can be more proactive versus reactive in your work. What can you do within your power and your work day to make sure that those meetings don't become meetings? They can be done in email. Y'all know the memes that we see that's like, "Okay, this meeting could have been an email." That happens so much more, especially now that folks are like, "Ooh, let's get on Zoom and hop on a meeting." Like, we don't have time to sit in Zoom meetings all day. We just don't. So if you can, be more proactive with communicating your work, your deadlines, your progress, anything that may be holding you up. This is a great time to over-communicate. I'm a big advocate for over-communication. You never want your boss wondering what you're doing and what you're working on, so make sure you establish those touch-points where you can reach out. I'm not saying you need to email them every 5 minutes, but, you know, find out what works best for them and figure out what works best for you, and then start reaching out to them just saying, "Hey, I just want to give you an update here," you know? Being in the same office, it is so much easier to just walk up to someone and say, "Hey, how's this project going?" Or "Hey, you still working on so-and-so?" Right? We don't have that--you know, we just don't have that face-to-face contact anymore, so that is why it is important just to remember to communicate. Communicate, all right? Don't let anyone have to take a guess about the bomb work that you are doing. Other things. Setting boundaries. I want to talk about communication with coworkers. For some reason coworkers think, "Oh, well, because you're at home and you're not doing anything like me, like, you're available, and you'll text me back, and--" No. Mm-mm. Unless your co-workers are your friends, but they don't have to be your friends. I'm definitely an advocate for having good relationships with co-workers, but texting back and forth? No. Be careful about the things that you're accepting, new behaviors that you are accepting from your co-workers and from your boss at this time, and reel them back in to, you know, strictly business, and once you settle and once you kind of let them operate in a certain capacity that you're not comfortable with, they will continue to do that unless you say something, so it's best to go ahead and nip it in the bud when it happens. So if you realize that a co-worker is texting you after hours, don't respond, and let them know, "Hey, you know, you text me when it was pretty late. I typically turn off my work devices/stop checking email/I'm not taking care of work after this time because I'm with my family." "Yes, I'm--" You don't have to say all this, right? [laughs] 'Cause I'm about to go in. "Yes, I'm home, but that doesn't mean I have time to talk to you. I have my kids here. I have my spouse here. Or I just have myself here and I need to give myself a mental break and a little emotional recharge." [laughs] Don't say all that. Keep it short and sweet and say, "Hey, I don't respond to X after 5:00, 6:00, 7:00," right? So be mindful of that. The other thing I will say is remember that this is not just business as usual, and if you feel like you are getting slammed with work or you feel like you're being micromanaged, it all comes back to communication. If you see that you are having six Zoom meetings thrown on your schedule in one day, that takes up a lot of time, to prepare for the meeting, to sit in the meeting that could have been an email, right? If you feel that your workload is not feasible with all the new meetings going on, with the adjustments at home, have a conversation and let your boss know, "Look, this is everything that's going on right now. We're having all of these meetings. It's taking away from me actually being able to get work done," or "It's taking away from me being able to execute on X, Y and Z. If I continue to keep this same momentum of meetings on my calendars, I don't want to fall short of any deadlines here, so can you help me with prioritizing or figuring out how I can get some of these meetings pushed off of my plate so that I can spend more time dedicated to getting these projects done?" Now, that was a pretty straight-forward way of saying it. [laughs] So figure out the best way to say it to your boss, but all I want to make sure that I reiterate here is that it's communication. Communication. Being proactive. Not being afraid to set those boundaries and extending yourself some grace. So good luck, good luck with setting those boundaries. Please reach out to me with your experiences with working from home and your challenges, or maybe you will enjoy it. I love working from home. I don't love it under these, you know, precautions, but I have a home office, and I'll be honest, for me, when I first quit corporate over two years ago and I was working for myself, I actually was really struggling with staying productive and, you know, being effective, and so I ended up getting a co-working space, and because I realized for me I needed somewhere to go--of course we don't have that luxury right now, but I needed a separate workspace to go because my apartment was very small so that I could be productive. So okay, I guess this is, like, a bonus tip, but making sure that you do have a separate workspace in your home other than your bed, right, or other than your couch. If your couch has to be it, I mean, I really don't want it to be, but maybe you could do, like, the dining table. Maybe if you have a bar in your kitchen. [laughs] Somewhere other than a place where you're super comfortable, but saying all that to say it was actually a hard struggle for me, and I had to find the routine, I had to find a method and a schedule that worked with me. So you will find it. You will find your stride, and I wish you all the best of luck. All right.

On the fifty-eighth entry of Tristan's Tips, our amazing host Tristan Layfield shares some helpful advice with us to help pivot our job searches during the pandemic. With COVID-19 changing the way that we do pretty much everything, that means that we are constantly having to shift and adjust right now. One of the major areas impacted will be your job search, so let’s jump into a few tips on how to shift.Connect with Tristan on LinkedIn, IG, FB, and Twitter.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTTristan: What's going on, Living Corporate?! It's Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting, and I'm back to bring you another career tip. With COVID-19 changing the way that we do pretty much everything, that means that we are constantly having to shift and adjust right now. One of the major areas impacted will be your job search. So let’s jump into a few tips on how to shift.First, when searching for jobs you want to consider which industries will be adversely impacted and what industries will be positively impacted. Industries you might want to reconsider right now include Retail, Event Planning, Film, Live Sports, Restaurants, Automobile, and Travel & Transportation companies including airlines, cruise lines, trains, hotels, Airbnb, Uber, Lyft, etc. Now there are some industries that will boom or transcend the isolation during this time including Tech Companies like Zoom, Amazon, Stream Services, News Companies, Healthcare technology like telemedicine, and even tax companies since all of us will need to file and most of us will be looking for virtual options.With everything transitioning to a virtual platform, that means online applications and your LinkedIn profile are becoming increasingly important. Now anyone who knows me knows that I usually tell my clients that online applications are not the best way to land a job but right now, they are quite important. So we need to be very diligent about tailoring our resume to each and every job to ensure we make it past the applicant tracking software. You can utilize tools like the website jobscan.io to identify keywords and infuse them into your document.Now is also the time to optimize your LinkedIn profile. Since most of us have started social distancing and working from home I’ve been seeing an uptick of activity on the platform from recruiters and hiring managers. Take the time to update your picture, header image, headline, experience, and other sections to make yourself competitive. If you can, utilize this time to start building relationships on the platform and build a contact list of people to reach out to once some of this settles down.The last thing I want to talk about is interviewing. If you were in the middle of an interview process when all of this began, I would suggest reaching out with compassion to let them know that you are still interested and willing to transition to a virtual platform to make this process easier for them. Moving forward, your interviews will more than likely be virtual and virtual interviews present their own unique challenges, many of which Latesha addressed on her Link Up a couple of weekends ago and I’d really encourage you to go back and listen to it. The only additional virtual interview tip I would provide is to record yourself answering your questions. This will give you an opportunity to practice your answers, check your body language, and ensure your audio and visual quality.Things are shifting and changing really rapidly. If you need some assistance making the adjustments make sure to reach out to me!This tip was brought to you by Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting. Check us out on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @LayfieldResume or connect with me, Tristan Layfield, on LinkedIn.

Zach sits down with former StubHub and Facebook alum Bärí A. Williams to chat about intersectional identities. Bärí also talks about her upcoming book "Diversity in the Workplace: Eye-Opening Interviews to Jumpstart Conversations about Identity, Privilege, and Bias" dropping March 31st. She shares what inspired her to write it and talks a bit about the challenge she faced in efficiently categorizing so many intersectional identities when it came to the 25 people she interviewed for the book.Pre-order Bärí's book on Amazon.Connect with Bärí on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Check out her personal website by clicking here.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? This is Zach with Living Corporate, and, you know, you know what we do, right? It's a Tuesday. Hopefully you're bunkered in somewhere, not panicked--what's the word? Oh, using an abundance of caution and, you know, keeping away from folks that don't wash they hands. You already--okay, anyway, we're not gonna talk about that. The point is you're taking care of yourself. Maybe you're listening to some smooth jazz and you realize, "Oh, snap, I need to listen to the Living Corporate podcast," and here we are, so what's up? You know that we are centereing black and brown voices at work, and we do that by having authentic conversations with folks across a wide array of industries, okay? I'm talking about energy to transportation to telecommunications. I'm talking about lawyers and doctors and professors and, shoot, hourly employees, activists, influencers. I mean, anybody really, as long as they're willing and ready to really talk about the folks that are most impacted, most marginalized, in this world that we live in, and today is no different. We have Bärí Williams on the show. Bärí Williams, you know, she's a lot of different things to a lot of different people. You know, for me to try to, you know, wrap that up in a quick little intro would be inappropriate, so we're gonna get to know Bärí in this conversation and talk a little bit about what she has going on, and we hope you enjoy it. And with that being said, Bärí, what's up? Bärí: How are you doing?Zach: I'm doing really good, I'm doing really good. I know we were talking off-mic about, you know, staying rona free. Bärí: Man... that rona.Zach: That rona. [both laugh] It's not playing doe. They said Chuck got the rona?Bärí: Yeah. Yeah.Zach: Chuck got that rona... When Tom Hanks--Bärí: Tom Hanks got the rona.Zach: When Tom Hanks--when Tom Ladarius Hanks got the rona I said, "Okay, we need to slow down."Bärí: Fire yourself. [both laugh] Tom Ladarius. But also yes, because he's from Oakland.Zach: He's from Oakland. And this is the thing, when he called [?] I said, "Oh, okay."Bärí: Oh, no. So here's the thing. The funny part about that is Tom Hanks was in my uncle's graduating class, in the same high school and all that. So that's a real thing. Like, Tom Hanks knew about [?].Zach: Man. Well, see, I knew--so, you know, the apple don't fall far from the tree.Bärí: That doesn't explain Chet Hanks though.Zach: We not gonna talk about Chet? [laughs]Bärí: I don't have anything for Chet.Zach: Man. Boy, that blackness went away when he realized his parents was sick doe.Bärí: Right. That patois was gone.Zach: That patois was--I didn't hear--no patois ting--[laughs]Bärí: "Mom and Dad are sick, guys. Thanks for your prayers."Zach: Snap. He was tatted up doe. But yeah, [laughs]--Bärí: He tried.Zach: He did, he did. But yeah, okay, okay, okay. Look, there's a variety of things we could talk about, right? Like, a lot of stuff is going on. This is not typically a current events podcast. I do want to talk a little bit about the book that you have.Bärí: Yeah, yeah. Out March 31st. Diversity in the Workplace: Eye-Opening Interviews to Get Your Conversations Poppin'. I interviewed 25 different people, and what was super interesting about it was it was 25 people that I picked, and I got probably five or six interviews deep and I told the editor, "Hey, I know we want to segment these into five different categories, but all of these people are intersectional. So you can figure out where you want to put 'em. I'm not gonna make that determination." Because who am I to say that somebody being LGBTQ and Christian outweighs, you know, maybe how they're genderfluid or express themselves? I'm not gonna--Zach: Yeah, you're not gonna rank that.Bärí: Yeah, or how when I talk to two black women in the spirits industry I'm not gonna rank whether they feel that they're black first or a woman first. "So you put them where you want them, but here they are."Zach: You're absolutely right. I mean, I think when you force--I think about, like, Feminista Jones. Like, she talks about this from time to time. It's, like, this idea that you make black women choose between their femininity, their womanhood or their blackness, and, like, that's violence, right? Like, you need to let people be all of who they are.Bärí: I totally agree. I would say what's hard for me with that though is that I can only speak for my experience, but I have always been black first, and the reason being is that all of the experiences in my life would not be different if I were still black and a man, and that's, like, wow.Zach: Let's talk about that. Break down that down a little bit for me.Bärí: Child, we can talk about it. My mama literally just texted me and said "I feel asleep reading your book. This is really good. I didn't know people were out here living like this." [both laugh] But yeah, I feel like--and I've been told this before, and it probably isn't a secret to you. I can have a bit of a dominant personality. [laughs] And that is--but I feel like that is not abnormal for black women. Period. Zach: It's not. My mom is like that.Bärí: Exactly, and my mom was like that, and my son's mom is like that. Which means me. [both laugh] So... I mean, if you're used to it you know how to deal with it, but the harder part, at least for me, is working within that framework in a corporate environment. What does that mean, to be a strong black woman in a white, predominantly male, sort of passive aggressive environment? And the answer is I still don't know, 'cause they say they want one thing, and then when they get it they're like, "Ooh... this is a little-- This is more than I thought."Zach: Well, I think a lot of folks do say that they want certain things, but it's like--you know, when you finally experience this, particularly when it comes to--you know, people say they want diversity, they want inclusion, and it's like, "Yeah, but until you're--"Bärí: Until it makes you uncomfortable.Zach: "You're in a room and you're doing a presentation and then three people who don't look like you raise their hand asking you a bunch of questions that you weren't prepared for. Then all of a sudden you ain't really like that," right?Bärí: Yeah, that's exactly it. And, like, I touch on that a lot in the book. So, in the book, it's segmented into five different categories. So it's Race, Gender, Age and Ability, Religion and Culture, and LGBTQ. And when I say that there were only--I interviewed 25 people. I actually interviewed more than 25 and let the editor decide what she thought--the editor was also a black woman, which was, like, fantastic. So, like, she got me, and that's very rare, particularly in publishing. And she read it and she was like, "Yeah, these are really, really good, and this is hard to figure out where to put folks," because you have people who are, you know, dealing with issues around culture and race, and then you have issues dealing with, you know, sexuality and race, and then you have people dealing with gender and religion, and so yeah, where do you put them? So out of the 25 people that we ended up selecting, in the end, only two sit cleanly in one bucket, and what was interesting about that is they were both Asian men. Zach: Okay, yeah. Bärí: Everyone else, you know, fit into multiple categories, and that's one thing we talk about is, like, how do you navigate being in multiple categories and fitting into a predominantly straight white male able-bodied world?Zach: And, you know, I think also, like, it pushes up against this narrative of, or just this binary mindset that we have about everything, right? You're either this or you're that or it's this or it's that, and it's like, that's just not the way the world works, and, like, people are really complex, but I think, like, part of, like, this decentering of whiteness, particularly white male straight able-bodiedness, is forcing people to realize that not only--like, these concepts are not new. It's just that certain things are happening now where you can't ignore those non-white male groups anymore.Bärí: Yeah, and I think people are very, very uncomfortable with that, very, and so part of it is in the book there are takeaways from each chapter. There are key--it starts with definitions in terms of, like, what are some things you're gonna see in here that people have said in their interviews that's gonna be prevalent and super relevant? Like white saviors, okay? And I didn't feel afraid to go there. Like, I know some people are gonna be like, "Ooh, white savior? So you're insulting--" No, I'm not, but you also think you're wearing a cape and you can save us all, and that's now what we're asking you to do, and also, like, you need to know that you're doing this. It's white saviors, it's understanding the difference between, you know, being cis and--like, people just--just terms and things that people may not be familiar with and to get them comfortable with the idea of that terminology and then how to use it.Zach: I think that's really important too, right? So, you know, we talk about white fragility. There are different types of fragility too. Black men can exhibit a certain level of fragility. I think, like, people who are in any position of relative privilege--relative privilege, now. Relative privilege. Have a potential to exhibit fragility, and I think folks don't necessarily like being educated when they're wrong. So, like, having something, a resource... and, like, Google is free, y'all, so don't... but anyway.Bärí: Child, I tell people that all the time.Zach: [laughs] Even if, like, getting corrected in public or by another human makes you uncomfortable, I mean, you could at least--I mean, you could engage with your own fragility in prviate. But anyway, the point is, having a book--Bärí: I will tell you, my husband is a product manager for Google, and he works on the Android wearables team, so he doesn't even actually work for the search engine, but when I ask him a question and he thinks it's dumb, he'll just send me the link--I'm trying to remember the acronym, but basically the acronym stands for "Let me Google that for you." Zach: Yeah, somebody sent that to me one time and--like, but this is the thing about that... and that's cute, and that's your husband and stuff, but let me tell you something. I remember one time I was at work and I asked somebody a legitimate question--Bärí: If somebody did that to me at work though I would want to fight.Zach: I said, "Wait a second. Let me tell you what it's not gonna be. You gonna answer my question, okay?" Don't play. Don't play with me. [laughs] Bärí: Like, there is a whole song out here in the Bay that was made that's called "What You Ain't Gon' Do," so... [Zach laughs]Zach: That's 'cause if I didn't have to talk to you I wouldn't, so don't--Bärí: Go YouTube that, and you might want to make that the outro music, 'cause--[laughs] 'Cause yeah, it's fine for Jamie to do that to me, but if somebody else did that to me I would probably roll up on your desk. Zach: [laughs] "So explain this. Why did you send this?"Bärí: Right? "So let's talk, Bob. Let me tell you what you ain't gon' do."Zach: And what ain't gon' be. Okay, so no, that's--let me ask you this. So, like, what was the inspiration to write the book?Bärí: Many things. I think--and this is gonna be long-winded and, but I remember being five years old--and my mom is a retired teacher from the Oakland [Unified?] School District, and she and a couple of colleagues sat around our dining room table in our apartment and they created what ended up being the oratorical festival, which to our surprise was made into a documentary on HBO last month. And she didn't know and I didn't know, and she was like, "Oh, look at this!" And I was like, "Yeah! Also, why are you not in it?" But I let that go. I let that go. I'ma let that go and let God. [both laugh] And she actually--what's funny about it is she was like, "I don't care." Like, if somebody's talking about this and it still exists, like, that's enough. Like, that was her goal. And so I remember sitting there looking at that, and I remember participating in the first year, and I won in the first grade for, like, my category, and I was like, "Did you rig this?" And she was like, "No," but what it did was it gave me a voice, and she cultivated that throughout my entire life when I wasn't, you know, doing debate time in high school and junior UN League. Like, all of that. So I always felt like I had something to say and, you know, everything doesn't deserve a response. I mean, I'm still learning that at 40. [laughs] But she taught me, like, when something does deserve a response, make sure you have a very calculated thing to say about it, and so I started to do that, and then I decided to write, and it was writing articles and op-eds in New York Times and Fast Company and Fortune and Forbes, and it made me think, "There's a [?] there, and there are things that people are not discussing in these tech companies that I see because I'm in them, and we can't fix it if more people don't know it's a problem." So that's what led to it, but it was more than that. It was like, there are other people going through different struggles and different departments in other companies, in other industries, and what does that look like? And that's why I ended up talking to, you know, two black women in the spirits industry. The spirits industry is dominated by older white men. And these are two, you know, 30-something-year-old black women with their own spirits, and they're Christian, and so that was one of the things where I told the editor, "I don't know where you want to put them. Do you want to put them in race or gender or religion?" But yeah, they've had people ask them in their church, like, "What are you doing? This is wrong" They've had people talk to them in the spirits industry, like, "Hey, girl, do you know what you're doing?" You know, they get it on all levels, and then I was talking to [Rabya?]. She's fantastic. She's the woman who did the defense for [?] in... what is the name of the podcast? I'm blanking now. That's terrible. Serial, and she talked about being, you know, a woman, being Muslim, wearing a hijab, and people--she knows she's a good attorney, but people would want her to write the briefs and do the background work but not show up in court. Zach: It's interesting, 'cause that's the kind of stuff--there's a pattern of that, right? Of exploiting black labor or using black folks' thought capital, wringing them dry for it, only for you to then take center strage and publicity and really interface, right? like, you see it--I'm sure that you've--'cause you've [?] in tech. Like, you've been with StubHub and Facebook. Like, you've been all over the place, right? Like, you've seen where, like, a lot of times black folks will come from, like, these HBCUs or, like, with these engineering degrees and then, like, work in the back in security. Security, y'all, is not--like, not tech security. Securing the building. Anyway. [?, both laugh]Bärí: I will tell you the funniest thing to me when I got to Facebook was it was 2014--Facebook started in 2004, so it was 10 years afterward. I was the first black woman in legal. There weren't black people in legal, so I was the first black person and the first black woman. There were no AKAs at all in the company, so I was the first AKA in the company. They had no Links in the company. I was the first Link in the company. Like, what are you doing? Like, if you want a highly qualified workforce, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated will get that done for you, The Links, Incorporated will get that done for you. And there were only, like, three Deltas in the entire company.Zach: Shout-out to my sorority sisters. What's up, y'all? You know, and my mom is also an AKA, but you're really repping. Like, you really got on this podcast and, like, inserted that plug. I respect that. I like that a lot. Bärí: You know, plug plug plug, but that's the thing that I wanted people to understand too was, like, if you want a highly qualified workforce--and yes, they may not have direct, on-point experience, but we all have analogous experience from doing this non-profit work, and that's the thing that people discount or don't see. So, like, you want to hire Brad in accounting and he, like, did an internship for two months at his dad's firm. Like, what do you value?Zach: Right? Well, when you start holding them accountable--so when you hold them accountable to the standards that they give you, right? So if you say, well, "You know, you don't really have X, Y and Z. Show me somebody else who does have X, Y and Z experience." Bärí: Yeah, show me what's comparable. Zach: Yeah, and they pull 'em up and it's like, "Yo, this person was... he was, like, a DJ, or he worked at a GNC. Like, what are you talking about?" And so then things just crumble because it's like, "This is not about this." Like, you're creating rules--Bärí: Yeah. Like, that's not really what you want, and that's fine, but, like, let's call a thing a thing.Zach: I think, again, it just fits the meta narrative of white people, like, creating new rules for marginalized people. Bärí: Well, it's something that I actually told a long bost and said, like, every time I hit the benchmark, you move the goal posts. Are you aware of that? And he was like, "What are you saying?" And I said, "What I'm saying is what I said." Zach: I just said it, first of all.Bärí: Yeah. Like, child, when I tell--and that's the thing, like, my mom should've never told me I should advocate, because I literally said, I was like, "No. I hit this benchmark, and you told me if I did this it would be that. If I did X, it would be Y, but now you're saying, "Hm, but in order to get to Y you really need to do--" And I was like, "Nah, bruh. You said this, and I have it in writing." And I did that. So now what are we doing? And he was like, "Why are you so angry?"Zach: What do you mean?Bärí: I was like, "What do you mean? I'm not angry. I'm just telling you this is what you said and now you're going back on it," and he's like, "But you're angry," and I said, "I'm not angry. I'm just holding you accountable, and maybe you're not used to that, but that's also not my job. Like, that, you should go home and talk to your mom or your wife about that."Zach: But you know what though? Like, just as a thought exercise, let's just say I am angry. Okay. Bärí: Then what?Zach: Then what? I am angry, because you said you were gonna do something and you didn't, or you said it was gonna be one way and it isn't, or I have written documentation and you're gaslighting me by acting like this isn't real. So yeah, maybe I am angry. Does that make my point less valid?Bärí: And it doesn't. Like, these are stories that people go through in the book about how people gaslight them in the same way, whether it's about them being a woman or about them being black or about them being LGBTQ. There is such a powerful story in there from a woman who's Asian who talks about, like, how her family essentialy made her feel like she had to whitewash herself to be successful, and then when she got to college it was like, "I don't know how to relate to Asian people now." And then when she got in the workplace she's like, "Now I have to relate to both, and how does that work?" I mean, that's real. Like, you know, how you're socialized is how you end up projecting yourself to the world.Zach: That's right, unknowingly or unknowingly, and that's the scary part, right? Like, you end up doing this thing, like, where you're raised. You're just growing up. Like, you're raised a certain way, and then you hit the real world and you realize like, "Dang, I have a lot of internalized depression and, like, I didn't even know that." Bärí: Mm-hmm, and that is--that honestly is one of the--it's funny, 'cause my son, he's now 9-and-a-half, but when I had to finish this book towards the middle of October, I was so tired. When I tell you, child, on the last day before I had to hit the bit I was like, "Ugh." I stopped to watch, like, a Real Housewives marathon, and he came to me. He was like, "What are you doing?" And I was like, "Excuse you?" And he said, "Mommy, what are you doing?" And I said, "I'm taking a break." And he's like, "Are you done yet?" And I said, "Do you understand what break means?" And he was like, "Well, you let me take a break, but you give me a time. Like, you've been watching this for, like, three hours. Have you hit Send?" And I was like, "No, I haven't," and he's like, "Okay, so then you get one more hour and then you need to finish." But to me, what I took that as was, like, he wasn't being defiant, he was actually imposing the rules that I put on him, which I was like, "Oh, so my parenting isn't totally failing."Zach: No, he has internalized that level of accountability and he is giving you that same energy back.Bärí: Yeah, but the same energy I had to give him was, like--I listen to so many stories about, you know, marginalized communities, interviewing these folks, particularly black men and their experiences, and you don't get to mess up, and I've told him that, and so he's like, "Why are you sitting here watching a Real Housewives marathon for three hours? You haven't pressed Send. Like, girl, get it done." And I was like, "Okay, yeah. You're right." But it's that same energy. Like, you have to be twice as good to get half as far, and that story was all of these people in the book, which was crazy, because it cuts across everything. It cuts across disability. It cuts across sexuality. It's like you have to make up for who you are by doing more work.Zach: You know, I think about a conversation we just had with Ruchika Tulshyan, and we were talking about how black men are often times left ot of the corporate D&I initiatives, right? So now, sometimes people think they're being really radical when they talk about "the angry black man." It's like, okay, I get it. That is a thing, and that's real, but, like, just the larger conversation about how black men are treated, and like you said, we don't have opportunities to mess up, and the same thing could be said for black women of course, for sure. It's just this idea of labor and, like, having to do more just to--Bärí: And you're not getting farther. It's just--Zach: Oh, my gosh. Thank you. It's like, "I'm not doing more to get further or to get farther ahead. I'm doing more just to be equal. I'm doing more just to receive what I've earned," right?Bärí: I can tell you, my husband, he interviewed at a former employer of mine. My husband is 6'6" and, like, 235 pounds on a good day.Zach: Oh, he's lean lean.Bärí: Eh... I said on a good day. [laughs] But the way that he's built though is, like, very Michael Phelps. So he's broad. So he looks bigger than he is, and the feedback that they had is--and also, because of his size and because he is black, he has been socialized--and also he's light as hell. Like, I've had people ask me multiple times, "Oh, so your husband's biracial?" No, he isn't, but people just assume that he is. And so based off of his profile, he's very light-skinned, he's 6'6", he's built like a swimmer, and people--so he has been socially conditioned to basically... I don't want to say tamp down who he would be, but he's more docile. Super reserved, which is why our dynamic works, because I'll be, like, the person in your face, and he'll--Zach: Yeah, it's tough to be big when--yeah, I've learned that in a variety of different ways, but yeah. I keep that--I would say I'm probably more like you, Bärí. I'm like, "Ayo," but I'm like, 6'2", like, 280, so I'm like, a big dude. [laughs]Bärí: And you know that scares people.Zach: And I'm not that--and I'm lighter-skinned, but I'm not, like, light-skinned, right? So it's like, you know.Bärí: And that is so scary for me with our son, because our son is--he is darker than I am, and I'm brown-skinned, and he's already 5 feet and he's 9. Zach: Yeah, he's gonna be a big boy.Bärí: Yeah, he will be. And I believe he'll be taller than his dad, and even if he isn't, it's like, if you are 6'6" and you're a brown-skinned boy and you're in Oakland, I have to keep you safe. And so everything I do is about "How do we keep you safe?" And that sucks, 'cause, like, I wish you could just be free, but--Zach: And it's not... and not even to be a super downer, but I say this as someone who, shoot, maybe by the time of this podcast my daughter's gonna be here, but, like, I think about having black kids in this world and, like, there's the physical safety, but then there's a certain level of, like, psychological safety that you really can't protect them from, and, like, there's certain things they're gonna just have to--again, I'm not trying to be fatalist or, like, super down or whatever, but they just have to go. They're just going to have to experience. And it's, like, the feeling of being isolated or alone or otherized or not quite fitting in spaces. Like, that's a thing, right? That's a thing, and somebody that I really admire--like, there are a bunch of folks I really admire, but I think about, like, Bomani Jones, right? Like, he's somebody I see, like, in these spaces, and he never, like--on his platforms, like, ever talks about being one of the onlys or whatever. And some people are just built like that. He's just like, "I don't really whatever." He doesn't come across, like, really vulnerable in that way, and I don't know--and this is not about Bo specifically, but I think about, like, other black men in media or, like, in these really big profile spaces, and I wonder, like, to be successful in these hyper-white spaces, do you just have to have, like, a certain level of just, like armor, and just almost be really calloused?Bärí: I think you do. That's one of the things also that I learned from doing interviews in the book, and that's not even unique to us. Like, the folks who are dealing with LGBTQ gender issues and gender expression, they had to deal with that in terms of, like, people questioning them and, like, what are you doing? Why are you doing that? Like, all of that stuff. And full discretion, like, I know Bo. Like, Bo and I are cool, and we've had that conversation, and part of it is like--to your point, it's not intentional. He doesn't mean to not say that. He just is like, "I am who I am, and you're gonna take it or you're not." And honestly, I've talked to him and have said, like, I want that energy for my son. I don't want him to feel like you have to have the burden of all black people ever on your back. Like, [?] does Bo, but he still reps us, and that's what I want, and that's what I want. Even, like, that I see with my husband. It's funny because I look at him--we're very, very different. He has had probably every advantage you can have in life. Like, he has gone to private school since he was born until he graduated. Like, he literally went to private pre-school, then he went to a private elementary school, private high school, he went to Harvard and then he went to Stanford, and I was like, "Bruh. You do not know, like, what it's like to live in, like, a real dorm." But he still came to--like, and he's from here too. He's from Oakland and came back and, like, tried to get in the valley and couldn't beat down the door. [Zach: Hm.] Right. And this is what everybody says that they want, right? These credentials. [Zach: Yeah, you know, he's checked every box.] And also, this is a light-skinned dude, right? So he's less-threatening. Zach: Right, and I'm sure he talks very proper. He enunciates his words well.Bärí: Child, I call him MC Carlton.Zach: So, like, literally his only knock is that he's black, and light black at that. Diet. [laughs]Bärí: Well, not even that. Also that was one of the things--so when I said my former... I had an employer who interviewed him. He got to the end of the round, and they decided that they didn't want him. They cut him. Like, they were hiring between him and one other person. They cut him because they said, "Oh, he didn't show enough passion. He wasn't willing to bang on tables." So when they gave me that--no, no, no, when they gave ME that feedback, I said, "Okay, so let's stop and envision this. Do you want a 6'6" 235-pound black man banging on tables? You're gonna be comfortable with that?" [Zach: And they said what?] They were like, "Well, what are you implying?" And I said, "I said what I said."Zach: Yeah, don't play with me. I'm not implying anything.Bärí: I said what I said. I didn't imply anything, I just said what I said. So if you saw that, you would feel safe? You would be cool? Zach: I mean, real talk. Would you? Answer the question.Bärí: They were like, "I mean, he just didn't show passion," and I was like, "That's not what I asked. What I asked was that if you saw a 6'6" bald black man banging a table to motivate engineers, you're cool with that?" And nobody could answer it definitively, and I was like, "And that's why you didn't hire him, so thank you, and I'ma go catch the shuttle." Like, I'm not gonna participate in this. This is bull. Zach: Yeah, this is ridiculous. It's super ridiculous.Bärí: 'Cause he's super reserved, and he's super reserved because he knows that he is a large black man and he can't do that. Zach: I remember I applied to--this is when I was first getting into consulting and it was between a few different firms, and one of the firms--and they were all, like, Big 4, right? So one of the firms I applied to, I went through the process and they said, "Oh, he was too passionate. He was too excited about the job. He smiled too much." So I'm just laughing at you, laughing at this situation, because it's like, okay, so you can't win for losing, right? I literally was the one smiling talking about how excited I was, and they said, "Well, he looked like he knew what he was doing, but he just seemed a little too smiley, a little too excited. He was a little too passionate for us." Bärí: But if he had been extra excited y'all would have been like, "Oh, my god. The black guy scared me because he's so big." [Zach: Exactly. [laughs]] And what I hate about this is, like, having to teach my son these rules of the road, because it's different in certain ways. He has my complex--actually he's darker than my complexion and he has his daddy's stature, and so you're gonna be extra targeted because you are a super brown boy and you're gonna be very tall, so you have to be on your P's and Q's at all times. Zach: Yeah, you're not wrong.Bärí: And he's so mad, because he does Kumon in addition to his regular schoolwork, and he's like, "Ugh, Mommy, I'm tired all the time," and I was like, "What do you think my life is? What do you think your daddy's life is? What do you think brown people's life is? Like, that's what it is, and like, I hate to tell you that, but you have to do more and do it faster and do it better, and you're gonna have to do it even faster and even better than your dad, because your dad gets some sort of benefit from having been, you know, a Harvard legacy, and he's light-skinned. Like, when you're light-skinned--light-skinnned [?] go farther, I'm sorry. It's true.Zach: We have yet to talk about colorism on the podcast, like, explicitly, but we need to talk about it because--Bärí: Let's talk about it. We can do it right now. [both laugh]Zach: I want to respect your time 'cause we went over, but nah, it's a global phenomenon, right? And I think, like, it goes beyond just, like, the African diaspora.Bärí: That's true. That's so true for our Indian comrades. That is very true for our Latinx comrades. Like, that's just the truth.Zach: I was in the HEB. HEB, for the folks who are not in Houston, is a huge grocer. So I was in HEB and I was getting some different, like, sauces and stuff, and I was in, like, the cultural food aisle and walked right on by some lightening cream. You know what I mean? So it's super common, and I think, like, even when you look at, like, these corporatized D&I groups, the Latinx folks are typically European--like, white-presenting, you know what I mean? Like, they're not, like--you don't see a lot of... again, it's common, but because it's so pervasive and--I don't want to say subtle, 'cause it's not subtle if you're paying attention, but it's just common, right? Like, the lighter-skinned people... it's hard to be dark and in power, you know? Bärí: Yeah, and that is for me just a personal thing that I want my son to embrace, and the reason being is, like, you know, everybody--my mom is light-skinned, and my dad was not, and they got divorced when I was three, so I don't even remember--like, I have no memory of living with them together, and so it was really my mom and her family, and everybody in her family is light-skinned and I'm the only brown person, and I was like, "What's going on here?" Yeah. But what's interesting here is my husband is light-skinned and I'm brown. Our daughter is lighter than my husband and our son is darker than me, so it's like... they don't match at all. [laughs] Zach: I love that y'all have, like, a whole kaleidoscope going though. Bärí: We do, and we actually have shirts. I have a whole shirt. Like, I need to send you one. It's real--it's ghetto. [laughs] It's a unicorn throwing money [?], and there are different shades of the unicorn, and I picked the different shades off the people in our family. So yeah, but I mean, like, get this money. Do this work. You can do it whatever shade you are. That's my point. But for him, I want him to understand there's gonna be different restrictions for you, because you're likely to walk out of here one day when you're sixteen and you're gonna be 6'6" and you're gonna be super brown, and you're really fine, and people need, you need, to be aware of the danger. And then opposite is like, "Your sister is light-skinned. She has very loose, curly hair, and so people are gonna treat her in a completely different manner and think she's fine even though she may not be, and--" Not that I'm saying she's not cute, she is, but I'm like, "You know, people--" Zach: Yeah, there's biases that come with being [?]. Yeah, there's a certain aesthetic that she could fit into that then makes it easier.Bärí: And she does, and I want to make sure that she doesn't buy into that and, you know, that's what we're dealing with her, and that's what I deal with in the book, like, how do you handle this? You have people in multiple categories. What are the proper terms? What are the issues that are around them? How do you deal with it? Like, even something as simple as the fact that I literally have never had braids or crochets or anything in my entire life, and I decided to get it last summer because I was tired of doing my hair and then my daughter's hair. And my daughter has a looser curl than I do, but her hair is thick. Like, I'm not spending three hours on a Sunday doing this, so I took her to the salon so that they could do it, and then I started getting crochets, but now she's like, "I want to go to the salon!" So now it's like, okay, now we have to reset in terms of privilege, right? Because everybody doesn't get to go to the salon. Like, my momma did my hair until I was 13, so holla at Grandma. [both laugh]Zach: So let's get back to this book, right? It's coming out March 31st. Eye-opening interviews. The goal is to help jumpstart conversations about identity, privilege and bias, y'all. The book is called Diversity in the Workplace. Listen, y'all, make sure you check it out. Right now, maybe because of that rona we might be having these conversations on Zoom or Skype. I don't--Bärí: Now, I think you're gonna be quarantined 'cause of that rona anyway, so you might as well read this while--Zach: You definitely should. You know what, why don't you challenge yourself?Bärí: And there's an audiobook version too if you don't even want to read it. Somebody can just read it to you. Zach: Come on, now. Like, challenge yourself to read the group, and then that way when you go back to work--Lord say the same, the rona won't be here forever, okay? So you eventually will have to go see people, right?Bärí: I mean, the rona won't. It will be replaced by something else.Zach: Oh, goodness. You're right though.Bärí: I mean... it's Trump, so...Zach: Yeah, that's true. [laughs] Bärí: Something else might kill us in the meantime, I don't know.Zach: Who knows? I don't know. They said they got all these locusts over in Africa. There's, like, hundreds of billions of them over there. I don't know.Bärí: I saw that too, and I was like, "What disease are they carrying?"Zach: Listen. Bärí: Okay, I'ma let that go. Zach: Shutter the thought. [laughs] So look, y'all, this has been Living Corporate. We do this, right? We have conversations. We're really excited and we're thankful--you know, all jokes aside, please make sure you're washing your hands, okay? We have information from the CDC in the show notes. You know, hopefully you're washing your hands as you listen to this podcast. Like, wash your hands, okay? Soap is important also. Now--Bärí: Very. Water is not--Zach: Water is not soap. I want to--hold on. Sound Man, put that little record scratch in here. [record scratch] Water is not soap, okay? So you want to use some--you know, use the hard, industrial stuff. Use that Irish Spring if you need to. I personally use [?] because I am bougie, but you can use--Bärí: I use Olay, but, you know, whatever.Zach: Use something that is frankly a little abrasive, okay? Get that first, like, half-layer off your skin. Like, wash your hands, y'all. And then, you know, just take care of yourself, you know? Fist bumps and head nods only. You know, this would actually be a good opportunity for allyship and learning.Bärí: Well, here's the thing. So even with the fist bumps... so with the social distancing blah-blah-blah, it's supposed to be six feet. If you bump into someone, no, you're not within the six feet.Zach: You know what, you're right, no fist bumps. So this would be a good time actually for those--Bärí: Head nod at people and wave.Zach: So we all know how to do a head nod, but this may be the time for my less-melanated folks, my aspiring allies, to learn how to effectively head nod. Don't throw your neck out of your body when you do it. Bärí: Oh, I didn't know that was a thing.Zach: Just nodding too hard, right? Like, the head nod is supposed to be subtle, nuanced. Right? Like, maybe it's a cultural thing. I feel like in the South, like, our head nod is different, and I definitely believe, between the various melanin levels, head nods can be various levels of aggression. That's all. That's all I mean. Maybe a little salute also, with two fingers at the head. Just "Hello, I see you over there." But just be careful. Take care of yourselves, and we'll get through this together. In the meantime, make sure y'all check out the links in the show notes as well for Diversity in the Workplace: Eye-Opening Interviews to Jumpstart Conversations about Identity, Privilege and Bias written by Bärí A. Williams. Until next time, y'all, this has been Zach. Peace.