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Tweetable quote from Zach“There's no such thing as free will. But the human being is gifted with the infinite free will to decide how it's going to experience its reality.”SummaryIn this powerful conversation, Dr Espen is joined by Zach Bush, MD, an internationally recognised educator and thought leader. They discuss the profound connections between gut health, the microbiome, and our relationship with Mother Earth. Zach emphasizes the importance of holistic medicine,  emotional aspects of health, how unresolved emotions can manifest as physical ailments and the importance of reconnecting with nature for healing.About our guest:Zach Bush, MD is a physician specializing in internal medicine, endocrinology and hospice care. He is an internationally recognized educator and thought leader on the microbiome as it relates to health, disease, and food systems. Zach Bush, MD founded *Seraphic Group and the non-profit Farmer's Footprint to develop root-cause solutions for human and ecological health. His passion for education reaches across many disciplines, including topics such as the role of soil and water ecosystems in human genomics, immunity, and gut/brain health. His education has highlighted the need for a radical departure from chemical farming and pharmacy, and his ongoing efforts are providing a path for consumers, farmers, and mega-industries to work together for a healthy future for people and the planet. His work in for-profit and nonprofit arenas is creating avenues for collaborative action for all stakeholders in our global community for a regenerative future of health for the planet and our children.

Thanx is a leading loyalty and guest engagement platform for restaurants. The company, founded by Zach Goldstein in 2011, helps businesses embrace digital purchasing, capture greater customer data, and take action on that information to personalize guest engagement. Restaurants can take a page from the Delta playbook – which includes the potential for free first class upgrades (a perk that costs nothing to Delta) – including the use of secret menu items. Loyalty programs should not be dependent upon an app because most consumers won't download the app. Instead, the loyalty program should be embedded in the web ordering experience. The app is still useful, as users of a restaurant's app have high lifetime value. Consumers respond to non-discount offers quite effectively. For example, a restaurant can offer loyal customers a VIP experience that allows those customers to try new menu items (along with a non-VIP friend) before the items are available publicly. The entry point into a loyalty program shouldn't be by downloading an app. What Thanx does is builds the loyalty enrollment into the digital ordering experience because 70% of online ordering comes via the restaurant's website, not via an app. Quotes “The playbook is pretty simple. You need to own the relationship with your customer, because if you sacrifice that to the third party, then you have no control over their lifetime value.” (Zach) “Loyalty is no longer about just rote rewards programs and discounts and more around personalization. That really matters, because as you deliver more personalization, you become less dependent on discounts as your loyalty mechanism and can still be effective.” (Zach) “Can you imagine what McDonald's top one percent customers would do if they had year round McRibs? That's the type of thing people care about.” (Zach) “There are a lot of restaurant leaders who have been convinced that the app is the answer. It's actually not the answer. It's one answer to a bigger need.” (Joseph) “Data is king. At the end of the day, you have to have data. And there's no other way in the restaurant business to capture that data unless you have a loyalty program.” (Zach) “It's really hard to drive repeat purchasing if you don't know who your best customers are. That's the value of data. It's a risk to not have it and it's an opportunity when you have it.” (Zach) Transcript 00:00.00 vigorbranding Everyone today I am joineded by my friend Zach Goldstein he is the Ceo and founder of thanks a system that we are going to dig into but we're going to talk about a lot of other things today too before we do Zach say hello give a little bit of backstory. 00:15.63 Zach Goldstein Yeah, pleasure. Really happy to be with you. My background started before thanks and working with restaurants and retailers to to really build customer lifetime value and that has become a passion of mine. Ah, That's really what thanks does targeted at Restaurants. How do we help them identify where their best customers are and make more of their customers. Those best customers. 00:38.65 vigorbranding I Love it. So a few years ago you you penned an article and I think this this is what really struck me and um, you know serves as a basis for the episode a little bit but that article is called the 4 horsemen of the restaurant apocalypse which of course is a very doom gloom. It's very like whoa. Um, what does that mean and I think the article centers on taking some lessons from the travel industry and the effect that online travel agencies otas for short had on evolving our experiences as travelers. Um. 1 of those big influences that the ots had was I think it shifted the industry into a pricing game. It made it a commodity Essentially so restaurant leaders now are talking about what you kind of reference here which is taking queues like dynamic pricing. For instance, how do you think. Dynamic pricing can actually benefit the i

Show Notes 00:00 Introduction 00:22 Medicare part A 06:39 Medicare part B 15:35 Medicare part D Links Referenced: medicare.gov: https://medicare.gov Zach's email: mailto:zach@getsbi.com Nick's email: mailto:nick@getsbi.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seniorbenefitinc Webpage: https://seniors-livinghealthy.com/ TranscriptAnnouncer: Welcome to our fireside chat with Seniors Living Healthy, the podcast that helps prepare and educate you as you enter and live out your golden years. With over 10 years of experience, Nick and Zach are experts in the senior market and are here to help you live a healthy, full life. And now fireside with your hosts, Nick Keene, and Zach Haire.Nick: Hello, and welcome to season two of Seniors Living Healthy, episode one. I'm Nick. And I have Zach, our co-host with us.Zach: Hey, folks.Nick: And for episode one of season two, we want to cover parts A, B, and D of Medicare, and the changes for 2022. So Zach, let's jump right in.Zach: Sounds good. So, kind of start off there from the top, Part A, just like in the alphabet, starting out with the first letter there, you know, that is our hospitalization, sir. You know, Nick, what are some common things that Part A covers?Nick: Yeah, so Part A kicks in when individuals are admitted to the hospital. It's worth mentioning, Zach, that they're admitted because we are seeing more commonly that people are being put in the hospital under observation. And that is actually covered under Part B. So, very simply, anytime someone is admitted to the hospital, not under observation, Part A kicks in.Zach: Got you. So, let's say, you know, I'm getting ready to turn 65 in a few months. I'm still working things like that, how do I get Part A? What do I have to do to qualify for it?Nick: Great question, Zach. We do get this question quite frequently. So, the most common way to qualify for Medicare is those individuals that have worked 40 quarters or ten years and paid into Medicare via payroll taxes, right? Those individuals get Medicare the month of their 65th birthday.Zach: Got you. So, no matter what, they're going to get Part A. I know you said you paid into it while you're working. Is there any additional costs added to that?Nick: Right. So, great question there, Zach, and worth mentioning here as well. For those individuals that qualify traditionally for Medicare, they worked 40 quarters, ten years, and paid in, Part A is premium-free, think of it as prepaid. But also you have those individuals that may qualify based on their spouse's, right? Their spouses may have worked 40 quarters or ten years, they also qualify for Medicare Part A the month of their 65th birthday.Then the third situation, there is a cost. And those individuals that don't have a spouse that qualifies for Medicare they can draw off of and don't have the credits themselves, depending on how much they have worked and paid in, Part A can be purchased.Zach: Yeah. So, you do still have the ability to get Part A, if you don't ‘qualify', you can always pay for that and pick it up.Nick: Absolutely.Zach: So, we know that in most cases, there's no additional premium; you've paid into it as you were working. Are there any other, you know, common costs associated with using Part A, whether it be a deductible, whether it be you know, skilled facility care, things such as that?Nick: Absolutely. So, yeah. So, basically with Part A, the way it works is it's designed with what we call a Medicare period of care, right? So, when those individuals that have Part A are admitted to the hospital, they are immediately responsible for a $1,556 deductible in the year 2022 that covers their first 60 days in their period of care, right? So, for those individuals, they go in, they pay that $1556 deductible, they're covered for the first 60 days, right?But it's worth mentioning that if they go beyond day 60 they do have additional cost, right? And that period of care doesn't end until they go a continuous 60 days without accessing care under Part A. So, assuming their period of care extends, day 61 through 90, those individuals are going to be responsible for $389 a day that they're in the hospital, and day 91 and beyond using those 60 lifetime reserve days, they're going to be responsible for $778 a day. You know, and the other thing to touch on here, Zach, that you mentioned is skilled facility care, right? So, we've seen a major transition in our market over the last five to ten years.You can recall when we were little, people had extended stays in the hospital, you know, people were in their one, two, four, six months. That doesn't happen really anymore, right? What we're seeing, the trend is individuals are being admitted to the hospital, they're being stabilized, and they're being shipped off to skilled facility care centers, right? And you know, whether that's for a hip replacement or a knee replacement, they fell and they broke something, speech, occupational therapy, whatever it may be, these individuals are staying at the skilled facility care centers for extended periods of time, not in the hospital. So, to qualify for Medicare to cover skilled facility care, they have to be in the hospital for at least three days and be admitted to the skilled facility care center within 30 days of being discharged. If those criteria are met, Medicare will cover day 1 through 20, one hundred percent, and then day 21 through 100, the individual is responsible for $194.50 per day.Zach: Got you there. So, you know, once someone is on Part A [everything 00:05:16], is there any limits where they can go, networks, anything like that?Nick: Yeah, one of the beauties of Medicare, Zach, and you know, we tell clients this all the time is Medicare's a nationwide program, right? California, North Carolina, Michigan, to Florida, and everywhere in between. They can access care, right? And that's one of the great things about Medicare is almost all facilities, almost all doctor's office accept Medicare. So, they have no restrictions, they can go just about anywhere they want.Zach: Got you. So, kind of wrapping up Part A there is, anyone can get that as long as you've worked 40 quarters or your spouse has worked 40 quarters. You're able to get that the month you turn 65, the first day of the month.Nick: Absolutely.Zach: And no matter whether you're continuing working or what you've got Part A?Nick: Yep.Zach: And with Part A alone, there was a $1,556 deductible on that they'd be responsible for but then, you know, it does help you in the skilled facility care things such as that, along with your 60-day continuous window of care. And again, no network so you can go wherever you want to go if you've got that Part A; pretty much every hospital, I'd say, in America takes Medicare.Nick: Absolutely, Zach. And just to wrap up on Part A, you know, one of the things that people need to remember is Part A is just hospital admittance insurance. Most of your typical services that are everyday needs are happening on outpatient care, or Part B, which we will be covering shortly.Zach: All right, so now we're going to roll into Part B, again, following our alphabet here, B comes right after A. So B, if you look at your red, white, and blue Medicare card, it is going to say medical, but we refer to it as outpatient.Nick: Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we try to eliminate confusion there because the Medicare card says ‘hospital' for Part A and ‘medical' for Part B, but we kind of feel both of those are medical, right? So, we like to explain Part B as anything that is outpatient care, or care that is not admitted into the hospital.Zach: Exactly, yeah. So, kind of got that cleared up. What exactly does it cover when it comes to different things?Nick: Yeah. So, Part B is by far the most common Medicare part, right? It's the most common used, and it literally covers any Medicare-approved charge outside of being admitted to the hospital, right? So, that could be hospital admittance under observation, that could be lab work, physical therapy, CAT scans, MRIs, doctor visits, primary care, or specialists, durable medical equipment, diabetic testing supplies, all those things encompass Part B.Zach: So, we know in Part A you get that automatically when you turn 65. Part B work the same way, or is there a few more hoops to jump through for that?Nick: Yes. So, for Part B, you know, that individual that qualifies for Medicare, either off their work experience or off of a spouse's work experience, they still are eligible to get Part B the month of their 65th birthday, right? However, with Part B, there is a premium, so Medicare does allow it to be elective.Zach: So, with it being elective, how does that situation play out? Do I have to take Part B when I turned 65? If I have creditable coverage, am I fine? You know, if I don't take am I going to get penalized? How does that work?Nick: Yeah, so we're seeing this question come across our desk more and more, Zach. It seems like in this day and age, more and more people are working post-65. We didn't run into this a lot five years ago. But basically, the way it's working is for those individuals that are Medicare-eligible, turning 65, they qualify for Medicare, they can still take Part B the month of their 65th birthday, but if they're still working and have credible coverage, right, which is defined as coverage, at least equivalent to Medicare, they do not have to take Part B. They can postpone it without penalty, assuming they have credible coverage.Zach: Got you. So, you said, you know, 2022, that average premium is $170.10.Nick: Yep.Zach: Which leads you to say if that's the average, there can be some outliers. Is there a way to make that cost lower?Nick: Yeah. So, you know, for a lot of individuals out there, they qualify for what's called Medicare Savings Programs, right? And we know those different programs, whether that's QMB, SLMB, Extra Help those types of things, those programs are designed to reduce or eliminate the premiums, deductibles, and copays associated with Part B, right? So, there are individuals that pay less, there are individuals that pay nothing if they qualify for those Medicare Savings Programs. And it's worth mentioning, to qualify for those programs, you need to reach out to Medicare, the Social Security office that goes through them.Zach: I'd be willing to bet it works the other way, too. I bet they can get a multiplier on you also.Nick: Yep, yep. So, what we see—you know, and once again, we're seeing it more and more as people are coming out of the workforce later in life—those individuals have what's called an IRMA, right, Income-Related Medicare Adjustment. So, if you have income levels above certain thresholds, Medicare is actually going to charge a multiplier, right, you're going to pay more than that $170.10 in 2022. medicare.gov is a great resource, they have the chart right there on the website, showing what those brackets are to get higher Part B costs.So, we certainly encourage people that think they may fall into that bracket, get on medicare.gov, reach out to us, you know, we can ask a couple questions and tell them what they would be looking at.Zach: Got you. So, kind of how we're on the cost of Part B—Nick: Sure.Zach: You know, if someone doesn't have credible coverage and they don't take Part B, then down the road they take Part B, what kind of penalty are they looking at?Nick: Yeah, so the government is penalizing those individuals that don't have Medicare and don't have credible coverage, right? And the penalty that they impose is 10% of the cost of Part B, per full year not covered either via Part B or creditable coverage, right? And it's worth mentioning, if they try to apply for Part B down the road, they're still going to pay that standard premium, they're going to pay that penalty on top of it, and unless they qualify for one of those Medicare Savings Programs like we were talking about, that's never going away.Zach: Yep so looking there, at you know—there are different times to enroll, in that, you know, when people do turn 65, a lot of times they take A and B at the same time.Nick: Yep.Zach: You can delay Part B, as we've talked about. What are those—that situation look like? If someone delays Part B, does that vary from when they turn 65?Nick: Absolutely. So, for individuals that are taking Original Medicare when they're turning 65, those individuals, you know, they get it the month of their 65th birthday. But for those individuals that are delaying Medicare, right, there's two different groups that it's worth mentioning here. For those people that have credible coverage that are still working, you know, they can take Part B anytime concurrent with their loss of coverage, or retirement, right, they have what's called a special election period. But the thing to mention is for those individuals that delay Part B that don't have credible coverage, they can only apply for Part B at certain times throughout the year, right?And that's what's called the general election period. Zach, right? And basically what that is a period from January 1st through March 31st each year that they can apply for Medicare Part B to go into effect 7/1 of that year.Zach: Right. So, you know, kind of look at you have your annual enrollment period, which is every year, October 15th, December 7th, which doesn't really play into this, but then you have your initial enrollment, which people might hear a lot about when they first turned 65, or take their Part B of Medicare. So, looking at, you know, we've kind of we've gone over what the premium can be as well as what possibly the penalty could be. As a whole, what does Part B have? What is it going to cover? What's going to be your out-of-pocket with that?Nick: Yeah, so you know, back to what we kind of mentioned earlier, just to kind of recap this is, Part B is going to cover anything that's not admitted into the hospital, right? So, you know, once again, that's hospitalization under observation; CAT scans; MRIs; lab work; physical therapy; doctor's visits, whether primary care or specialists; diabetic testing supplies; durable medical equipment. And the way Part B is designed, it's an 80/20 coinsurance, right? So, Medicare's covering 80%, the client is responsible for the remaining 20%, plus the Part B deductible, which is, in the year 2022, $233, right? So, it's worth mentioning here—and we tell this to people all the time, this is why we encourage people to get supplemental policies—that 20% that we speak of is uncapped.Now, if you're going to the doctor once a year, that's not a big deal, right? But if you're going through cancer treatments, if you're going through some sort of outpatient surgery, you got to pay 20% of all of that cost, which certainly leaves people with some exposure, right?Zach: Got you. So, you know, no max out of pocket; you know, you're going to keep paying that 20—Nick: Absolutely.Zach: —until—and again, Part B is very similar to Part A, there's no networks.Nick: Absolutely.Zach: They take Medicare, they're going to take in. As long as you may have been doing this, I don't think I've ran into a doctor's office that doesn't take Medicare, yet.Nick: Yeah. In ten years, I've ran into one facility that didn't accept Medicare.Zach: Yep. So, kind of wrapping up Part B there. Know no, it is, in a sense, elective; when you turn 65 or retire from work losing credible coverage, you can pick up Part B at that time. If you don't pick up Part B without credible coverage, they are going to give you a nice little permanent penalty to add onto that, which for 2022 is $170.10. Probably going to see an increase in that down the road.Nick: Mm-hm. Absolutely.Zach: It's going to cover everything for you 80/20, whether that be durable medical equipment, diabetic testing, outpatient surgery, or anything like that. But that 20% is not going to be capped.Nick: Yep, absolutely.Zach: All right. And kind of moving on down the line. Here we've done A, we've done B. We're going to skip over C, so we're going to hit in Part D of Medicare. Easy to remember what it covers because covers your drugs. Part D: Drugs, easy to keep up with there. So, we have talked about, you know, in Part A and Part B, how you get it, what you qualify for. How does that work with Part D?Nick: Yes, so Part D, you know, it's worth mentioning, Unlike Supplemental Coverage, or Medicare Advantage coverage, which we will be covering in next episode, With Part D, the individual only has to have a minimum of Part A or B of Medicare, although most people have A and B, right? But it's worth noting for those individuals that are still working that are delaying Part B, just having Part A is enough to purchase Part D. And it's also worth mentioning, you have to live in the plan's service area, right? Part D drug plans are network-based, so you have to have a minimum of A and/or B, and live in the plan's service area to purchase a drug plan it.Zach: So, also we've talked about cost. When it comes to cost, A and B for the most part, are standardized. Is Part D the same way, or you know, what is its cost?Nick: Yes. So, one of the things that, you know, we're always telling people as we're speaking with them is all prescription drug plans are different, right? And, you know, we see drug plans anywhere from $6.50 a month in premium in the year 2022 All the way north of $100 a month, right? And, you know, it's like we say, if one plan was the best for everybody, right, they would put the rest out of the business.So, as far as costs, it certainly has a wide range, and that all depends on what the scripts, what medications those individuals are taking, right? But it's also worth mentioning, just like Part B of Medicare, right? Medicare Savings Programs can cover some or all of the costs of the drug plans and can also either reduce or completely eliminate the cost of those medications people are taking as well, right? So, it can come down. And it's also worth mentioning, IRMA coming back into play here, right, that Income-Related Medicare Adjustment, for those individuals that are higher-level earners, right, they have a multiplier on that Part D premium, so they would pay that multiplier on top of the standard premium for Part D.Zach: Pretty easy to see why Part D is the most complicated part of our job—Nick: Absolutely.Zach: When it comes there. So, you know, kind of covered, premiums are going to vary, and then on top of that you could get help through Medicare, or you could get a multiplier on Medicare there. So, what does it take to qualify for Part D? I know you said yet to have Part A and/or Part B, one or the other, but what if I'm-you know, what, if I'm in that boat where I'm still working? Do I have to take Part D if I have Part A, or can I forgo it?Nick: Yeah. So, very similar to Part B, Part D is elective right? Now, you have to have credible coverage to not be penalized, but you can delay it. So, if you're 65, you're becoming Medicare eligible, you're still working, or maybe you're retired and you're still carrying group insurance, you don't have to take a drug plan as long as your coverage is credible. And once again, credible [unintelligible 00:18:59] coverage is defined as coverage at least equivalent to Medicare's basic coverage, right?So, for those individuals that are still working, they are not needing Medicare Part D, they will not be penalized for not taking a Medicare prescription drug plan.Zach: So, you said they—you know, if they have credible coverage, they're not going to be penalized, which therefore means there's a penalty.Nick: Yep.Zach: What is that penalty?Nick: Yeah. So, it's a little bit different than the way Part B works. So, for Part D, the average cost of a per prescription drug plan in 2022 is approximately $34. So, every full month that they go without credible coverage, or coverage, they are going to be penalized 1% of that $34 premium in the year 2022, times the amount of full months they went without coverage. Now, it's worth noting that average premium costs switches year-to-year, right? We've watched that steadily creep up over the last few years.So, you know, it's very hard for us to be able to give people an exact penalty, what they would be looking at. Medicare is who's going to determine those, Medicare is who's going to issue those, so we can give people an idea, but ultimately that information has to come from Medicare, right?Zach: Got you there. So, you know, we know when you first turn 65 going into Medicare, you can get Part D, if you go that route.Nick: Yep.Zach: What if I've been 65 for a while and I get some new prescriptions, it's not covered well on my plan, when can I make changes to those?Nick: Yes. So, for those individuals that are new to Medicare, they're in that initial enrollment period, right? That window runs three months before their effective date up to three months after. Once that period ends, right, they're very limited in the ways that they can make changes, right, the most common is annual enrollment period, right? Anybody that's been in this business, knows anything about it, they get bombarded, you know, in that timeframe.But from October 15th through December 7th, those individuals can make changes, as many as they want, and when the sun goes down December 7th, the last application that was signed and turned in becomes effective 1/1, right? But now over the last few years, you know, Medicare introduced the Medicare Advantage open enrollment period, right, which is now running January 1st through March 31, and during that timeframe, individuals that are on Medicare Advantage plans can make a change to their drug coverage in two different forms, right? So, they can change from one Medicare Advantage plan to another Medicare Advantage plan, or if they so choose, they can drop Medicare Advantage back to Original Medicare and pick up a prescription drug plan. But outside of those two windows, Zach, the only other situation, typically, that we see people can make changes is they have a special election period, right? And in our business, what that means is, A, they're moving, right?In our area, we see people coming down from the north moving here, or maybe they're snowbirds, they're moving from here or the north down to Florida. Those individuals get a special election period because they're moving out of that plan's service area, right? And then the other caveat would be those individuals that are post-65 that are still working, that are still carrying group insurance, those individuals have a special election period when they retire and/or lose coverage that they can make a change to their drug coverage as well.Zach: So, kind of off that point, there are networks on these drug plans that does give you the ability to change if you do move because you would be out of your network service area—Nick: Absolutely.Zach: There. Yep. So, you know, we talk to people all the time, especially [AEP 00:22:44] about prescription plans. When you're talking to us, talking to your agent, whoever, when you're going through this, one, you know, what are some things you need to make sure you have handy to make our lives easier as an agent, but then what—tell them on our end what we're looking at, to help them make a decision?Nick: Yeah, so I'm going to answer that question backwards, Zach, okay? I'm going to answer your second question first, and we'll fire away on the second one. So, for those individuals that are looking, right, to get prescription drug coverage, there's several things that they need to understand about a plan, or at least grasp, right, to know why it is what we're doing, right? It's easy for us to recommend a solution, but we feel—I know, we've always discussed this—we feel that ultimately, you know, it's our job to educate people, but it is ultimately their decision, right?So, for us, you know, what we're looking at, you know, in the grand scheme here is overall cost, right? I mean, you know, that's what I want to know, what are these plans going to cost you, whether that's in the form of a premium, whether that's in the form of a deductible on your plan, whether that's in the form of the copays you pay to fill your script each year, we're looking at that aggregate annual cost, right? Now, as far as what we need to be effective as a tool for them in searching plans, you know, all plans are different, Zach, as we know. The premium is different, some plans have deductibles, some don't, some offers zero copay on tier one, tier two, some don't, right?So, what we ask of clients to be effective in this manner is we need a list of your prescriptions, we need to know the dosages of each one of your prescriptions, and then we ultimately need to know the frequency that you're taking them or filling them, and we have the ability to plug in and pull all options in their area and discuss those costs with them.Zach: Yeah, definitely. So, kind of wrapping up Part D, put a bow on it there. It is similar to B, it's elective—Nick: Sure.Zach: —in a sense. As long as you've got credible coverage elsewhere, you don't have to take Part D at the time you turn 65. As long as you have A or B, you are eligible for it. And plans vary. This is a plan that you definitely need to reach out to your agent, reach out to us—Nick: We'd prefer if it was us, Zach.Zach: Yeah. [laugh]. Oh, yeah. And so, you know—because they do vary so much by premium, deductibles, copays, networks, things like that, but they will cover your prescriptions; there are ways out there to work that.Nick: Yeah. Just to add, wrapping up here, Zach, you know, one of the things that we always preach to our agents and we always tell our clients is, this is the basics of everything that has to do with Medicare, right? So, we feel that these are important, people need to have a grasp of the way that Original Medicare and prescription drug coverage works before they're really ever going to have a chance, right, to know how that secondary or that Medicare Advantage plan works.So, as you're listening to this, we've kind of been generic, right? We're covering the highlights. For those individuals that have more questions that maybe have a specific question, you know, reach out to us, 844-437-4253. We're here, we're ready to answer your questions, and we'd certainly love to hear from you.Zach: All right, folks. So, this kind of wraps up episode one here. We covered Parts A, B, and D of Medicare. We hope that that helped you out there, answered some questions for you. We tried to cover some of the real basic questions we get on a daily basis.You know, but if you do have more questions or want more information, you know, ready to sign up and looking for help, we'd be more than happy to help. You know, as Nick stated earlier, you can always give us a call at 844-437-4253, or we can always be reached by email zach@getsbi.com or nick@getsbi.com. We hope you found this episode informational and helpful, and as always, we'll catch you guys next time.Announcer: Thank you for listening, and we hope you found this episode informative. If we answered your questions, odds are you aren't the only one wanting to know, so please share this episode with your friends and family. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and rate our show on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts to catch all of our episodes. If you want more information, or want to talk directly with Nick and Zach, you can call them at 1-844-437-4253. You can also find them on Facebook at facebook.com/seniorbenefitinc or on their website. seniors-livinghealthy.com. Thanks for listening, and have a great day.

Recorded by Robert Miles: http://robertskmiles.com More information about the newsletter here: https://rohinshah.com/alignment-newsletter/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfGGFXwKpr-TJ5HfxEFaFCg   HIGHLIGHTS Program Synthesis with Large Language Models (Jacob Austin, Augustus Odena et al) (summarized by Rohin): Can we use large language models to solve programming problems? In order to answer this question, this paper builds the Mostly Basic Python Programming (MBPP) dataset. The authors asked crowd workers to provide a short problem statement, a Python function that solves the problem, and three test cases checking correctness. On average across the 974 programs, the reference solution has 7 lines of code, suggesting the problems are fairly simple. (This is partly because you can use library functions.) They also edit a subset of 426 problems to improve their quality, for example by making the problem statement less ambiguous or making the function signature more normal. They evaluate pretrained language models on this dataset across a range of model sizes from 0.244B to 137B parameters. (This largest model is within a factor of 2 of GPT-3.) They consider both few-shot and finetuned models. Since we have test cases that can be evaluated automatically, we can boost performance by generating lots of samples (80 in this case), evaluating them on the test cases, and then keeping the ones that succeed. They count a problem as solved if any sample passes all the test cases, and report as their primary metric the fraction of problems solved according to this definition. Note however that the test cases are not exhaustive: when they wrote more exhaustive tests for 50 of the problems, they found that about 12% of the so-called “solutions” did not pass the new tests (but conversely, 88% did). They also look at the fraction of samples which solve the problem, as a metric of the reliability or confidence of the model for a given problem. Some of their findings: 1. Performance increases approximately log-linearly with model size. The trend is clearer and smoother by the primary metric (fraction of problems solved by at least one sample) compared to the secondary metric (fraction of samples that solve their problem). 2. Finetuning provides a roughly constant boost across model sizes. An exception: at the largest model size, finetuning provides almost no benefit, though this could just be noise. 3. It is important to provide at least one test case to the model (boosts problems solved from 43% to 55%) but after that additional test cases don't make much of a difference (an additional two examples per problem boosts performance to 59%). 4. In few-shot learning, the examples used in the prompt matter a lot. In a test of 15 randomly selected prompts for the few-shot 137B model, the worst one got ~1%, while the best one got ~59%, with the others distributed roughly uniformly between them. Ensembling all 15 prompts boosts performance to 66%. 5. In rare cases, the model overfits to the test cases. For example, in a question about checking whether the input is a Woodall number, there is only one test checking an actual Woodall number (383), and the model generates a program that simply checks whether the input is 383. 6. When choosing the best of multiple samples, you want a slightly higher temperature, in order to have more diversity of possible programs to check. 7. It is important to have high quality problem descriptions as input for the model. The 137B model solves 79% of problems in the edited dataset, but only solves 63% of the original (unedited) versions of those problems. The authors qualitatively analyze the edits on the problems that switched from unsolved to solved and find a variety of things that you would generally expect to help. Now for the controversial question everyone loves to talk about: does the model understand the meaning of the code, or is it “just learning statistical correlations”? One way to check this is to see whether the model can also execute code. Specifically, we provide the ground truth code for one of the problems in the MBPP dataset along with one of the test case inputs and ask the model to predict the output for that test case. Even after finetuning for this task, the 137B model gets only 21% right. This can be boosted to 27% by also providing example test cases for the code before predicting the output for a new test case. Overall, this suggests that the model doesn't “understand” the code yet. We can take the model finetuned for execution and see how well it does on program synthesis. (We can do this because there are different prompts for execution and synthesis.) For the 8B model, the finetuning makes basically no difference: it's equivalent to the original few-shot setting. However, for the 137B model, finetuning on execution actually leads to a small but non-trivial improvement in performance (from ~59% to ~63%, I think). This is true relative to either the few-shot or finetuned-for-synthesis setting, since they performed near-identically for the 137B model. So in fact the 137B model finetuned on execution is actually the strongest model, according to synthesis performance. So far we've just been looking at how our model performs when taking the best of multiple samples. However, if our goal is to actually use models for program synthesis, we aren't limited to such simple tricks. Another approach is to have a human provide feedback in natural language when the model's output is incorrect, and then have the model generate a new program. This feedback is very informal, for example, “Close, but you need to replace the underscore with an empty string”. This provides a huge performance boost: the 137B solves ~31% of problems on its first sample; adding just a single piece of human feedback per problem boosts performance to ~55%, and having four rounds of human feedback gets you to over 65%. The authors also introduce the MathQA-Python dataset, which provides arithmetic word problems and asks models to write programs that would output the correct answer to the problem. They only run a few experiments on this dataset, so I've mostly ignored it. The main upshot is that a finetuned 137B parameter model can solve 83.8% of problems with some sample. They don't report metrics with a single sample, which seems like the more relevant metric for this dataset, but eyeballing other graphs I think it would be around 45%, which you could probably boost a little bit by decreasing the sampling temperature. Rohin's opinion: I enjoyed this paper a lot; it feels like it gave me a good understanding of the programming abilities of large language models. I was most surprised by the result that, for the synthesis task, finetuning on execution helps but finetuning on synthesis doesn't help for the 137B model. It is possible that this is just noise, though that is more noise than I would expect for such an experiment. It could be that the finetuning dataset for synthesis was too small (it only contains 374 problems), but that dataset was sufficient for big gains on the smaller models, and I would expect that, if anything, larger models should be able to make better use of small finetuning datasets, not worse. It's also notable that, for the 137B model, the knowledge gained from finetuning on execution successfully transferred to improve synthesis performance. While I agree that the poor execution performance implies the model doesn't “understand” the code according to the normal usage of that term, it seems like this sort of transfer suggests a low but non-zero level on some quantitative scale of understanding. I also found the human feedback section quite cool. However, note that the human providing the feedback often needs to understand the generated code as well as the desired algorithm, so it is plausible that it would be easier for the human to simply fix the code themselves. Measuring Coding Challenge Competence With APPS (Dan Hendrycks, Steven Basart et al) (summarized by Rohin): The APPS dataset measures programming competence by testing models the way humans are tested: we provide them with natural language descriptions of the code to be written and then evaluate whether the code they generate successfully solves the problem by testing the proposed solutions. The authors collect a dataset of 3,639 introductory problems (solvable by humans with 1-2 years of experience), 5,000 interview problems (comparable difficulty to interview questions), and 1,361 competition problems (comparable difficulty to questions in programming competitions). In addition, the test set contains 1,000 introductory problems, 3,000 interview problems, and 1,000 competition problems. They use this benchmark to test four models: two variants of GPT-2 (0.1B params and 1.5B params), GPT-Neo (2.7B params), and GPT-3 (175B params). GPT-3 is prompted with examples; all other models are finetuned on a dataset collected from GitHub. The authors find that: 1. Finetuning makes a big difference in performance: GPT-3 only solves 0.2% of introductory problems, while the finetuned GPT-2-0.1B model solves 1% of such problems. 2. Model performance increases with size, as you would expect: GPT-Neo performs best, solving 3.9% of problems. 3. Syntax errors in generated code drop sharply as model performance improves: for introductory problems, GPT-3 has syntax errors in slightly under 40% of generations, while GPT-Neo has under 1%. 4. Performance can be improved by sampling the best of multiple generated programs: a beam search for 5 programs boosts GPT-Neo's performance from 3.9% to 5.5% on introductory problems. 5. While no model synthesizes a correct solution to a competition level program, they do sometimes generate solutions that pass some of the test cases: for example, GPT-Neo passes 6.5% of test cases. Rohin's opinion: While the previous paper focused on how we could make maximal use of existing models for program synthesis, this paper is much more focused on how we can measure the capabilities of models. This leads to quite a bit of difference in what they focus on: for example, the highlighted paper treats the strategy of generating multiple possible answers as a fundamental approach to study, while this paper considers it briefly in a single subsection. Although the introductory problems in the APPS dataset seemed to me to be comparable to those in the MBPP dataset from the previous paper, models do significantly better on MBPP. A model slightly smaller than GPT-3 has a ~17% chance of solving a random MBPP problem in a single sample and ~10% if it is not given any example test cases; in contrast for introductory APPS problems GPT-3 is at 0.2%. I'm not sure whether this is because the introductory problems in APPS are harder, or if the format of the APPS problems is harder for the model to work with, or if this paper didn't do the prompt tuning that the previous paper found was crucial, or something else entirely.   TECHNICAL AI ALIGNMENT AGENT FOUNDATIONS Grokking the Intentional Stance (Jack Koch) (summarized by Rohin): This post describes takeaways from The Intentional Stance by Daniel Dennett for the concept of agency. The key idea is that whether or not some system is an “agent” depends on who is observing it: for example, humans may not look like agents to superintelligent Martians who can predict our every move through a detailed understanding of the laws of physics. A system is an agent relative to an observer if the observer's best model of the system (i.e. the one that is most predictive) is one in which the system has “goals” and “beliefs”. Thus, with AI systems, we should not ask whether an AI system “is” an agent; instead we should ask whether the AI system's behavior is reliably predictable by the intentional stance. How is the idea that agency only arises relative to some observer compatible with our view of ourselves as agents? This can be understood as one “part” of our cognition modeling “ourselves” using the intentional stance. Indeed, a system usually cannot model itself in full fidelity, and so it makes a lot of sense that an intentional stance would be used to make an approximate model instead. Read more: The ground of optimization (AN #105) Rohin's opinion: I generally agree with the notion that whether or not something feels like an “agent” depends primarily on whether or not we model it using the intentional stance, which is primarily a statement about our understanding of the system. (For example, I expect programmers are much less likely to anthropomorphize a laptop than laypeople, because they understand the mechanistic workings of laptops better.) However, I think we do need an additional ingredient in AI risk arguments, because such arguments make claims about how an AI system will behave in novel circumstances that we've never seen before. To justify that claim, we need to have an argument that can predict how the agent behaves in new situations; it doesn't seem like the intentional stance can give us that information by itself. See also this comment. Countable Factored Spaces (Diffractor) (summarized by Rohin): This post generalizes the math in Finite Factored Sets (AN #163) to (one version of) the infinite case. Everything carries over, except for one direction of the fundamental theorem. (The author suspects that direction is true, but was unable to prove it.) FIELD BUILDING List of AI safety courses and resources (Kat Woods) (summarized by Rohin): Exactly what it says in the title. MISCELLANEOUS (ALIGNMENT) Evaluating CLIP: Towards Characterization of Broader Capabilities and Downstream Implications (Sandhini Agarwal et al) (summarized by Zach): There has been significant progress in zero-shot image classification with models such as CLIP and ALIGN. These models work by effectively learning visual concepts from natural language supervision. Such models make it possible to build classifiers without task-specific data, which is useful in scenarios where data is either costly or unavailable. However, this capability introduces the potential for bias. This paper is an exploratory bias probe of the CLIP model that finds class design heavily influences model performance. The first set of experiments focusses on classification terms that have a high potential to cause representational harm. In one example, the authors conduct experiments on the FairFace dataset by adding classification labels such as 'animal' and 'criminal' to the list of possible classes. They find that black people and young people (under 20) were misclassified at significantly higher rates (14%) compared to the dataset as a whole (5%). This shows that the choice of labels affects classification outcomes. In a follow-up experiment, the authors add the additional label 'child' and find that this drastically reduces classification into crime-related and non-human categories. This shows sensitivity to minor changes in class design. In the second set of experiments, the authors focus on how CLIP treated images of men and women using images of Members of Congress. Although CLIP wasn't designed for multi-label classification, it's still informative to look at the label distribution above a certain cutoff. When occupations are used as the label set, the authors find that thresholds under 0.5% return 'nanny' and 'housekeeper' for women and 'prisoner' and 'mobster' for men. When labels come from the combined set that Google Cloud Vision, Amazon Rekognition and Microsoft use for all images, the authors find that CLIP returns a disproportionate number of appearance-related labels to women. Zach's opinion: It's tempting to write off such experiments as obvious since it's clear that class design affects classification results. However, upon further consideration, specifying how to address such problems seems significantly more challenging. I think this paper does a good job of pointing out the relative nuance in how class design and bias interact in fairly realistic use cases.   NEWS Research Scientist, Long-term Strategy & Governance (summarized by Rohin): DeepMind (my employer) is hiring for several Research Scientist positions on the Long-term Strategy and Governance Team, across a wide range of backgrounds and skills. (Though note that you do need a PhD, or equivalent experience.) See also this EA Forum post. 2022 IEEE Conference on Assured Autonomy (summarized by Rohin): The ICAA conference seeks contributions on all aspects of AI safety, security, and privacy in autonomous systems. The paper submission deadline is October 18 and the conference itself will take place March 22-24. CSER Job Posting: Academic Programme Manager (summarized by Rohin): CSER is searching for a candidate for a relatively senior role that combines academic, management and administrative responsibilities. The application deadline is September 20.

Some of the highlights of the show include The diplomacy that's required between software engineers and management, and why influence is needed to move projects forward to completion. Driving factors behind Ygrene's Kubernetes migration, which included an infrastructure bottleneck, a need to streamline deployment, and a desire to leverage their internal team of cloud experts. Management's request to ship code faster, and why it was important to the organization.  How the company's engineers responded to the request to ship code faster, and overcame disconnects with management. How the team obtained executive buy-in for a Kubernetes migration. Key cultural changes that were required to make the migration to Kubernetes successful. How unexpected challenges forced the team to learn the “depths of Kubernetes,” and how it helped with root cause analysis. Why the transition to Kubernetes was a success, enabling the team to ship code faster, deliver more value, secure more customers, and drive more revenue.  Links: HerdX: https://www.herdx.com/ Ygrene: https://ygrene.com/ Austin Twitter: https://twitter.com/_austbot Austin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/austbot/ Arnold's book on publisher site: https://www.packtpub.com/cloud-networking/the-kubernetes-workshop  Arnold's book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Kubernetes-Workshop-Interactive-Approach-Learning/dp/1838820752/ TranscriptAnnouncer: Welcome to The Business of Cloud Native podcast where we explore how end users talk and think about the transition to Kubernetes and cloud-native architectures.Emily: Welcome to The Business of Cloud Native. My name is Emily Omier, and I am here with Austin Adams and Zack Arnold, and we are here to talk about why companies go cloud-native.Austin: So, I'm currently the CTO of a small Agrotech startup called HerdX. And that means I spend my days designing software, designing architecture for how distributed systems talk, and also leading teams of engineers to build proof-of-concepts and then production systems as they take over the projects that I've designed. Emily: And then, what did you do at Ygrene? Austin: I did the exact same thing, except for without the CTO title. And I also had other higher-level engineers working with me at Ygrene. So, we made a lot of technical decisions together. We all migrated to Kubernetes together, and Zack was a chief proponent of that, especially with the culture change. So, I focused on the designing software that teams of implementation engineers could take over and actually build out for the long run. And I think Zack really focused on—oh, I'll let Zack say what he focused on. [laughs].Emily: Go for it, Zach.Zach: Hello. I'm Zack. I also no longer work for Ygrene, although I have a lot of admiration and respect for the people who do. It was a fantastic company. So, Austin called me up a while back and asked me to think about participating in a DevOps engineering role at Ygrene. And he sort of said at the outset, we don't really know what it looks like, and we're pretty sure that we just created a position out of a culture, but would you be willing to embody it? And up until this point, I'd had cloud experience, and I had had software engineering experience, but I didn't really spend a ton of time focused on the actual movement of software from developer's laptops to production with as few hiccups, and as many tests, and as much safety as possible in between. So, I always told people the role felt like it was three parts. It was part IT automation expert, part software engineer, and then part diplomat. And the diplomacy was mostly in between people who are more operations focused. So, support engineers, project managers, and people who were on-call day in and day out, and being a go-between higher levels of management and software engineers themselves because there's this awkward, coordinated motion that has to really happen at a fine-grained level in order to get DevOps to really work at a company. What I mean by that is, essentially, Dev and Ops seem to on the surface have opposing goals, the operation staff, it's job is to maintain stability, and the development side's job is to introduce change, which invariably introduces instability. So, that dichotomy means that being able to simultaneously satisfy both desires is really a goal of DevOps, but it's difficult to achieve at an organizational level without dealing with some pretty critical cultural components. So, what do I spend my day on? The answer to that question is, yes. It really depends on the day. Sometimes it's cloud engineers. Sometimes it's QA folks, sometimes it's management. Sometimes I'm heads-down writing software for integrations in between tools. And every now and again, I get to contribute to open-source. So, a lot of different actual daily tasks take place in my position.Emily: Tell me a little bit more about this diplomacy between software engineers and management.Zach: [laughs]. Well, I'm not sure who's going to be listening in this amazing audience of ours, but I assume, because people are human, that they have capital O-pinions about how things should work, especially as it pertains to either software development lifecycle, the ITIL process of introducing change into a datacenter, into a cloud environment, compliance, security. There's lots of, I'll call them thought frameworks that have a very narrow focus on how we should be doing something with respect to software. So, diplomacy is the—well, I guess in true statecraft, it's being able to work in between countries. But in this particular case, diplomacy is using relational equity or influence, to be able to have every group achieve a common and shared purpose. At the end of the day, in most companies the goal is actually to be able to produce a product that people would want to pay for, and we can do so as quickly and as efficiently as possible. To do that, though, it again requires a lot of people with differing goals to work together towards that shared purpose. So, the diplomacy looks like, aside from just having way too many meetings, it actually looks like being able to communicate other thought frameworks to different stakeholders and being able to synthesize all of the different narrow-focused frameworks into a common shared, overarching process. So, I'll give you a concrete example because it feels like I just spewed a bunch of buzzwords. A concrete example would be, let's say in the common feature that's being delivered for ABC Company, for this feature it requires X number of hours of software development; X number of hours of testing; X number of hours of preparing, either capacity planning, or fleet size recommendations, or some form of operational pre-work; and then the actual deployment, and running, and monitoring. So, in the company that I currently work for, we just described roughly 20 different teams that would have to work together in order to achieve the delivery of this feature as rapidly as possible. So, the process of DevOps and the diplomacy of DevOps, for me looks like—aside from trying to automate as much as humanly possible and to provide what I call interface guarantees, which are basically shared agreements of functionality between two teams. So, the way that the developers will speak to the QA engineers is through Git. They develop new software, and they push it into shared code repositories, the way that the QA engineers will speak to people who are going to be handling the deployments—or at management in this particular case—is going to be through a well-formatted XML test file. So, providing automation around those particular interfaces and then ensuring that everyone's shared goals are met at the particular period of time where they're going to be invoked over the course of the delivery of that feature, is the “subtle art,”—air quotes, you can't see but—to me of DevOps diplomacy. That kind of help?Emily: Yeah, absolutely. Let's take, actually, just a little bit of a step back. Can you talk about what some of the business goals were behind moving to Kubernetes for Ygrene? Who was the champion of this move? Was it business stakeholders saying, “Hey, we really need this to change,” or engineering going to business stakeholders? Who needed a change. I believe that the desire for Kubernetes came from a bottleneck of infrastructure. Not so much around performance, such as the applications weren't performing due to scale. We had projected scale that we were coming to where it would cause a problem potentially, but it was also in the ease of deployment. It had a very operations mindset as Zack was saying, our infrastructure was almost entirely managed—of the core applications set—by outsourcing. And so, we depended on them to innovate, we depended on them to spin up new environments and services. But we also have this internal competing team that always had this cloud background. And so, what we were trying to do was lessen the time between idea to deployment by utilizing platforms that were more scalable, more flexible, and all the things that Docker gives with the Dev/Prod Parity, the ease of packaging your environment together so that small team can ship an entire application. And so, I think our main goal with that was to take that team that already had a lot of cloud experience, and give them more power to drive the innovation and not be bottlenecked just by what the outsourcing team could do. Which, by the way, just for the record, the outsourcing team was an amazing team, but they didn't have the Kubernetes or cloud experience, either. So, in terms of a hero or champion of it, it just started as an idea between me and the new CTO, or CIO that came in, talking about how can we ship code faster? So, one of the things that happened in my career was the desire for a rapid response team which, that sounds like a buzzword or something, but it was this idea that Ygrene was shipping software fairly slow, and we wanted to get faster. So, really the CIO, and one of the development managers, they were the really big champions of, “Hey, let's deliver value to the business faster.” And they had the experience to ask their engineers how to make that happen, and then trust Zack and I through this process of delivering Kubernetes, and Istio, and container security, and all these different things that eventually got implemented.Emily: Why do you think shipping code faster matters?Austin: I think, for this company, why it mattered was the PACE financing industry is relatively new. And while financing has some old established patterns, I feel like there's still always room for innovation. If you hear the early days of the Bridgewater Financial Hedge Fund, they were a source of innovation and they used technology to deliver new types of assets and things like that. And so, our team at Ygrene was excellent because they wanted to try new things. They wanted to try new patterns of PACE financing, or ways of getting in front of the customer, or connections with different analytics so they could understand their customer better. So, it was important to be able to try things, experiment to see what was going to be successful. To get things out into the real world to know, okay, this is actually going to work, or no, this isn't going to work. And then, also, one of the things within financing is—especially newer financing—is there's a lot of speed bumps along the way. Compliance laws can come into effect, as well as working with cities and governments that have specialized rules and specialized things that they need—because everyone's an expert when it comes to legislation, apparently—they decide that they need X, and they give us a time when we have to get it done. And so, we actually have another customer out there, which is the legislative bodies. So, they have to get the software—their features that are needed within the financing system out by certain dates, or we're no longer eligible to operate in those counties. So, one of it was a core business risk, so we needed to be able to deliver faster. The other was how can we grow the business?Emily: Zach, this might be a question for you. Was there anything that was lost in translation as you were explaining what engineering was going to do in order to meet this goal of shipping code faster, of being more agile, when you were talking to C level management? How did they understand, and did anything get lost in translation?Zach: One of the largest disconnects, both on a technical and from a high level speaking to management issue I had was explaining how we were no longer going to be managing application servers as though they were pets. When you come from an on-premise setup, and you've got your VMware ESXi, and you're managing virtual machines, the most important thing that you have is backups because you want to keep those machines exactly as they are, and you install new software on those machines. When Kubernetes says, I'm going to put your pods wherever they fit on the cluster, assuming it conforms with the scheduling pattern, and if a node dies, it's totally fine, I'm going to spin a new one up for you, and move pods around and ensure that the application is exactly as you had stated—as in, it's in its desired state—that kind of thinking from switching from infrastructure as pets to infrastructure as cattle, is difficult to explain to people who have spent their careers in building and maintaining datacenters. And I think a lot—well, it's not guaranteed that this is across the board, but if you want to talk about a generational divide, people that usually occupy the C level office chairs are familiar with—in their heyday of their career—a datacenter-based setup. In a cloud-based consumption model where it really doesn't matter—I can just spin up anything anywhere—when you talk about moving from reasoning about your application as the servers it comprises and instead talking about your application as the workload it comprises, it becomes a place where you have to really, really concretely explain to people exactly how it's going to work that the entire earth will not come crashing down if you lose a server, or if you lose a pod, or if a container hiccups and gets restarted by Kubernetes on that node. I think that was the real key one. And the reason why that actually became incredibly beneficial for us is because once we actually had that executive buy-off when it came to, while I still may not understand, I trust that you know what you're doing and that this infrastructure really is replaceable, it allowed us to get a little bit more aggressive with how we managed our resources. So, now using Horizontal Pod Autoscaling, using the Kubernetes Cluster Autoscaler, and leveraging Amazon EC2 Spot Fleets, we were only ever paying for the exact amount of infrastructure that was required to run our business. And I think that is usually the thing that translates the best to management and non-technical leadership. Because when it comes down to if I'm aware that using this tool, and using a cloud-native approach to running my application, I am only ever going to be paying for the computational resource that I need in that exact minute to run my business, then the budget discussions become a lot easier, because everyone is aware that this is your exact run-rate when it comes to technology. Does that make sense? Emily: Absolutely. How important was having that executive buy-in? My understanding is that a lot of companies, they think that they're going to get all these savings from Kubernetes, and it doesn't always materialize. So, I'm just curious, it sounds like it really did for Ygrene.Zach: There was two things that really worked well for us when this transformation was taking place. The first was, Ygrene was still growing, so if the budget grew alongside of the growth of the company, nobody noticed. So, that was one really incredible thing that happened that, I think, now having had different positions in the industry, I don't know if I appreciated that enough because if you're attempting to make a cost-neutral migration to the Cloud, or to adopt cloud-native management principles, you're going to probably move too little, too late. And when that happens, you run the risk of really doing a poor job of adopting cloud-native, and then scrapping that project, because it never materialized the benefit, as you just described, that some people didn't experience. And the other benefit that we had, I think was the fact that because there were enough incredibly senior technical people—and again, I learned everything from these people—working with us, and because we were all, for the most part, on the same page when it came to this migration, it was easy to have a unified front with our management because every engineer saw the value of this new way of running our infrastructure and running our application. In one non—and this obviously helps with our engineers—one non-monetary benefit that helped really get the buy-in was the fact that, with Kubernetes, our on-call SEV-1 pages went down, I want to say, by over 40 percent which was insane because Kubernetes was automatically intervening in the case where servers went down. JVMs run out of memory, exceptions cause strange things, but a simple restart usually fixes the vast majority of them. Well, now Kubernetes was doing this and we didn't need to wake somebody up in order to keep the machine running.Emily: From when you started this transition to when you, I should say, when you probably left the company, but what were some of the surprises, either surprises for you, or surprises for other people in the organization?Austin: The initial surprise was the yes that we got. So, initially I pitched it and started talking about it, and then the culture started changing to where we realized we really needed to change, and bringing Zack on and then getting the yes from management was the initial surprise. And—Emily: Why was that a surprise?Austin: It was just surprising because, when you work as an engineer—I mean, none of us were C suite, or Dev managers, or anything. We were just highly respected engineers working in the HQ. So, it was just a surprise that what we felt was a semi-crazy idea at the time—because Kubernetes was a little bit earlier. I mean, EKS wasn't even a thing from Amazon. We ran our Kubernetes clusters from the hip, which is using kops, which is—kops is a great tool, but obviously it wasn't managed. It was managed by us, mainly by Zach and his team, to be honest. So, that was a surprise that they would trust a billion-dollar financing engine to run on the proposal of two engineers. And then, the next ones were just how much the single-server, vertical scaling, and depending on running on the same server was into our applications. So, as we started to look at the core applications and moving them into a containerized environment, but also into an environment that can be spun up and spun down, looking at the assumptions the application was making around being on the same server; having specific IP addresses, or hostnames; and things like that, where we had to take those assumptions out and make things more flexible. So, we had to remove some stateful assumptions in the applications, that was a surprise. We also had to enforce more of the idea of idempotency, especially when introducing Istio, and [00:21:44 retryable] connections and retryable logic around circuit breaking and service-to-service communication. So, some of those were the bigger surprises, is the paradigm shift between, “Okay, we've got this service that's always going to run on the same machine, and it's always going to have local access to its files,” to, “Now we're on a pod that's got a volume mounted, and there's 50 of them.” And it's just different. So, that was a big—[laughs], that was a big surprise for us.Emily: Was there anything that you'd call a pleasant surprise? Things that went well that you anticipated to be really difficult?Zach: Oh, my gosh, yes. When you read through Kubernetes for the first time, you tend to have this—especially if somebody else told you, “Hey, we're going to do this,” this sinking feeling of, “Oh my god, I don't even know nothing,” because it's so immense in its complexity. It requires a retooling of how you think, but there have been lots of open-source community efforts to improve the cluster lifecycle management of Kubernetes, and one such project that really helped us get going—do you remember this Austin?—was kops.Austin: Yep. Yep, kops is great.Zach: I want to say Justin Santa Barbara was the original creator of that project, and it's still open source, and I think he still maintains it. But to have a production-ready, and we really mean production-ready: it was private, everything was isolated, the CNI was provisioned correctly, everything was in the right place, to have a fully production-ready Kubernetes cluster ready to go within a few hours of us being able to learn about this tool in AWS was huge because then we could start to focus on what we didn't even understand inside of the cluster. Because there were lots of—Kubernetes is—there's two sides of it, and both of them are confusing. There's the infrastructure that participates in the cluster, and there's the actual components inside of the cluster which get orchestrated to make your application possible. So, not having to initially focus on the infrastructure that made up the cluster, so we could just figure out the difference between our butt and the hole in the ground, when it came to our application inside of Kubernetes was immensely helpful to us. I mean, there are a lot of tools these days that do that now: GKE, EKS, AKS, but we got into Kubernetes right after it went GA, and this was huge to help with that.Emily: Can you tell me also a little bit about the cultural changes that had to happen? And what were these cultural changes, and then how did it go?Zach: As Austin said, the notion of—I think a lot—and I don't want to offer this as a sweeping statement—but I think the vast majority of the engineers that we had in Seattle, in San Jose, and in Petaluma where the company was headquartered, I think, even if they didn't understand what the word idempotent meant, they understood more or less how that was going to work. The larger challenge for us was actually in helping our contractors, who actually made up the vast majority of our labor force towards the end of my tenure there, how a lot of these principles worked in software. So, take a perfect example: part of the application is written in Ruby on Rails, and in Ruby on Rails, there's a concept of one-off tasks called rake tasks. When you are running a single server, and you're sending lots of emails that have attachments, those attachments have to be on the file system. And this is the phrase I always said to people, as we refactor the code together, I repeated the statement, “You have to pretend this request is going to start on one server and finish on a different one, and you don't know what either of them are, ahead of time.” And I think using just that simple nugget really helped, culturally, start to reshape this skill of people because when you can't use or depend on something like the file system, or you can't depend on that I'm still on the same server, you begin to break your task into components, and you begin to store those components in either a central database or a central file system like Amazon S3. And adopting those parts of, I would call, cloud-native engineering were critical to the cultural adoption of this tool. I think the other thing was, obviously, lots of training had to take place. And I think a lot of operational handoff had to take place. I remember for, basically, a fairly long stretch of time, I was on-call along with whoever was also on-call because I had the vast majority of the operational knowledge of Kubernetes for that particular team. So, I think there was a good bit of rescaling and mindset shift from the technical side of being able to adopt a cloud-native approach to software building. Does that make sense?Emily: Absolutely. What do you think actually were some of the biggest challenges or the biggest pain points? Zach: So, challenges of cultural shift, or challenges of specifically Kubernetes adoption?Emily: I was thinking challenges of Kubernetes adoption, but I'm also curious about the cultural shift if that's one of the biggest pain points.Zach: It really was for us. I think—because now it wouldn't—if you wanted to take out Kubernetes and replace it with Nomad there? All of the engineers would know what you're talking about. It wouldn't take but whatever the amount of time it would to migrate your Kubernetes manifests to Nomad HCL files. So, I do think the rescaling and the mindset shift, culturally speaking, was probably the thing that helped solidify it from an engineering level. But Kubernetes adoption—or at least problems in Kubernetes adoption, there was a lot of migration horror stories that we encountered. A lot of cluster instability in earlier versions of Kubernetes prevented any form of smooth upgrades. I had to leave—it was with my brother's—it was his wedding, what was it—oh, rehearsal dinner, that's what it was. I had to leave his rehearsal dinner because the production cluster for Ygrene went down, and we needed to get it back up. So, lots of funny stories like that. Or Nordstrom did a really fantastic talk on this in KubeCon in Austin in 2017. But the [00:28:57 unintelligible] split-brain problem where suddenly the consensus in between all of the Kubernetes master nodes began to fail for one reason or another. And because they were serving incorrect information to the controller managers, then the controller managers were acting on incorrect information and causing the schedulers to do really crazy things, like delete entire deployments, or move pods, or kill nodes, or lots of interesting things. I think we unnecessarily bit off a little bit too much when it came to trying to do tricky stuff when it came to infrastructure. We introduced a good bit of instability when it came to Amazon EC2 Spot that I think, all things considered, I would have revised the decision on that. Because we faced a lot of node instability, which translated into application instability, which would cause really, really interesting edge cases to show up basically only in production.Austin: One of the more notable ones—and I think this is the symptom of one of the larger challenges was during testing, one of our project managers that also helped out in the testing side—technical project managers—which we nicknamed the Edge Case Factory, because she was just, anointed, or somehow had this superpower to find the most interesting edge cases, and things that never went wrong for anyone else always went wrong for her, and it really helped us build more robust software for sure, but there's some people out there with mutant powers to catch bugs, and she was one of them. We had two clusters, we had lower environment clusters, and then we had production cluster. The production cluster hosted two namespaces: the staging namespace, which is supposed to be an exact copy of production; and then the production namespace, so that you can smoke-test legitimate production resources, and blah blah blah. So, one time, we started to get some calls that, all of a sudden, people were getting the staging environment underneath the production URL. Zach: Yeah.Austin: And we were like, “Uh… excuse me?” It comes down to—we eventually figured it out. It was something within the networking layer. But it was this thing, as we rolled along, the deeper understanding of, okay, how does this—to use a term that Zack Arnold coined—this benevolent botnet, how does this thing even work, at the most fundamental and most detailed levels? And so, as problems and issues would occur, pre-production or even in production, we had to really learn the depths of Kubernetes. And I think the reason we had to learn it at that stage was because of how new Kubernetes was, all things considered. But I think now with a lot more of the managed systems, I would say it's not necessary, but it's definitely helpful to really know how Kubernetes works down in the depths. So, that was one of the big challenges was, to put it succinctly, when an issue comes up, knowing really what's going on under the hood, really, really helped us as we discovered and learned things about Kubernetes.Zach: And what you're saying, Austin, was really illuminated by the fact that the telemetry that we had in production was not sufficient, in our minds, at least until very recently, to be able to adequately capture all the data necessary to accurately do root cause analyses on particular issues. In early days, there was far too much root cause analysis by, “It was probably this,” and then we moved on. Now having actually taken the time to instrument tracing, to instrument metrics, to instrument logs with correlation, we used, eventually, Datadog, but working our way through the various telemetry tools to achieve this, we really struggled being able to give accurate information to stakeholders about what was really going wrong in production. And I think Austin was probably the first person in the headquarters side of the company—I'm not entirely certain about some of our satellite dev offices—but to really champion a data-driven way of actually running software. Which, it seems trivial now because obviously that's how a lot of these tools work out of the box. But for us, it was really like, “Oh, I guess we really do need to think about the HTTP error rate.” [laughs].Emily: So, taking another step back here, do you think that Ygrene got everything that it expected, or that it wanted out of moving to Kubernetes?Austin: I think we're obviously playing up some of the challenges that we had because it was our day-to-day, but I do believe that trust in the dev team grew, we were able to deploy code during the day, which we could have done that in the beginning, even with vertically scaled infrastructure, we would have done it with downtime, but it really was that as we started to show that Kubernetes and these cloud-native tools like Fluentd, Prometheus, Istio, and other things like that when you set them up properly, they do take a lot of the risk out. It added trust in the development team. It gave more responsibility to the developers to manage their own code in production, which is the DevOps culture, the DevOps mindset. And I think in the end, we were able to ship code faster, we were able to deliver more value, we were able to go into new jurisdictions and markets quicker, to get more customers, and to ultimately increase the amount of revenue that Ygrene had. So, it built a bridge between the data science side of things, the development side of things, the project management side of things, and the compliance side of things. So, I definitely think they got a lot out of trusting us with this migration. I think that were we to continue, probably Zack and I even to this day, we would have been able to implement more, and more, and more. Obviously, I left the company, Zach left the company to pursue other opportunities, but I do believe we left them in a good spot to take this ecosystem that was put in place and run with it. To continue to innovate and do experiments to get more business.Zach: Emily, I'd characterize it with an anecdote. After our Chief Information Officer left the company, our Chief Operating Officer actually took over the management of the Technology Group, and aside from basically giving dev management carte blanche authority to do as they needed to, I think there was so much trust there that we didn't have at the beginning of our journey with technology and Ygrene. And it was characterized in, we had monthly calls with all of the regional account managers, which are basically our out-of-office sales staff. And generally, the project managers from our group would have to sit in those meetings and hear just about how terrible our technology was relative to the competition, either lacking in features, lacking in stability, lacking in design quality, lacking in user interface design, or way overdoing the amount of compliance we had to have. And towards the end of my tenure, those complaints dropped to zero, which I think was really a testament to the fact that we were running things stably, the amount of on-call pages went down tremendously, the amount of user-impacting production outages was dramatically reduced, and I think the overall quality of software increased with every release. And to be able to say that, as a finance company, we were able to deploy 10 times during the day if we needed to, and not because it was an emergency, but because it was genuinely a value-added feature for customers. I think that that really demonstrated that we reached a level of success adopting Kubernetes and cloud-native, that really helped our business win. And we positioned them, basically, now to make experiments that they thought would work from a business sense we implement the technology behind it, and then we find out whether or not we were right.Emily: Let's go ahead and wrap up. We're nearing the top of the hour, but just two questions for both of you. One is, where could listeners find you or connect with you? And the second one is, do you have a can't-live-without engineering tool?Austin: Yeah, so I'll go first. Listeners can find me on Twitter @_austbot, or on LinkedIn. Those are really the only tools I use. And I can't really live without Prometheus and Grafana. I really love being able to see everything that's happening in my applications. I love instrumentation. I'm very data-driven on what's happening inside. So, obviously Kubernetes is there, but it's almost become that Kubernetes is the Cloud. I don't even think about it anymore. It's these other tools that help us monitor and create active monitoring paradigms in our application so we can deploy fast, and know if we broke something. Zach: And if you want to stay in contact with me, I would recommend not using Twitter, I lost my password and I'm not entirely certain how to get it back. I don't have a blue checkmark, so I can't talk to Twitter about that. I probably am on LinkedIn… you know what, you can find me in my house. I'm currently working. The engineering tool that I really can't live without, I think my IDE. I use IntelliJ by JetBrains, and—Austin: Yeah, it's good stuff.Zach: —I think I wouldn't be able to program without it. I fear for my next coding interview because I'll be pretending that there's type ahead completion in a Google Doc, and it just won't work. So, yeah, I think that would be the tool I'd keep forever.Austin: And if any of Zach's managers are listening, he's not planning on doing any coding interviews anytime soon.Zach: [laughs]. Yes, obviously.Emily: Well, thank you so much. Zach: Emily Omier, thank you so much for your time.Austin: Right, thanks.Austin: And don't forget Zack is an author. He and his team worked very hard on that book.Emily: Zack, do you want to give a plug to your book?Zach: Oh, yeah. Some really intelligent people that, for some reason, dragged me along, worked on a book. Basically it started as an introduction to Kubernetes, and it turned into a Master's Course on Kubernetes. It's from Packt Publishing and yeah, you can find it there, amazon.com or steal it on the internet. If you're looking to get started with Kubernetes I cannot recommend the team that worked on this book enough. It was a real honor to be able to work with people I consider to be heavyweights in the industry. It was really fun.Emily: Thank you so much.Announcer: Thank you for listening to The Business of Cloud Native podcast. Keep up with the latest on the podcast at thebusinessofcloudnative.com and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever fine podcasts are distributed. We'll see you next time.This has been HumblePod production. Stay humble.

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.

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.

Zach has the pleasure of chatting with FranklinCovey's Pamela Fuller in this episode themed around the topics of engagement and inclusion. She shares with us why she thinks that we're often talking about unconscious bias rather than just bias, and she also gives us a practical example of what it means to tie inclusion to performance. Listen to the full show to hear Pamela's definition of employee engagement and a whole lot more.Connect with Pamela on LinkedIn and Twitter!Find out more about FranklinCovey via their website or socials: LinkedIn, IG, Twitter, FacebookVisit our website!TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and look, we're back. It's Season 3. It's 2020. You know, you're probably riding in your hover jet or, you know, petting your cloned pig. I don't know what's happening in the future, but, you know, it's 2020 is my point. It's a new year, and, you know what we do. We have authentic conversations that center underrepresented voices in the corporate space--and corporate space is just another word for saying "work," so a 9-to-5 job. So underrepresented voices at work, that's what we do. We amplify those through having authentic conversations with black and brown executives, hiring partners, entrepreneurs, creatives, activists, artists, musicians. Like, anybody, right? And we're having, like, these evergreen conversations. Like, we're taking these evergreen topics rather, but we're centering them on black and brown / underrepresented perspectives, and we have, like, really great guests. Like, Season 1 we had some really incredible guests, Season 2 we had some really awesome guests, and Season 3 is no different. We have with us today Pamela Fuller with FranklinCovey. For more than 15 years, Pamela has worked in both the public and private sector supporting clients and solving complex problems. She currently serves as FranklinCovey's Thought Leader, Inclusion and Bias as well as a Global Client Partner responsible for supporting some of the organization’s most strategic accounts. Her solutions-oriented and client-centric approach has resulted in unique solutions that exceed client expectations and achieve results. Pamela works with clients to match the right solution to organizational strategic priorities and is particularly adept at designing tailored, competency-based programs to solve her client's most pressing needs. Through this work, Pamela has designed programs that have made an impact on hundreds of thousands--yo, hundreds of thousands--of participants to include FranklinCovey’s newest offering, Unconscious Bias: Understanding Bias to Unleash Potential. Prior to her current role, Pamela served as an EEO & Diversity Analyst and Trainer where she conceived and implemented proactive diversity programs to include human capital planning, training on unconscious bias and microaggressions, and statistical workforce analysis. She also served the non-profit community for nearly a decade, executing marketing, communications, special events and fundraising strategies. She is a highly sought-after consultant--I mean, come on, after everything I read, clearly she is a highly sought-after consultant--speaker and strategist, having addressed leaders across the world on leadership topics to include unconscious bias, high potential leadership and building an inclusive and effective culture to include the United Nations System, U.S. federal government and the Fortune 500. My, goodness. I mean, come on, y'all. Like, if that doesn't get you off your seats, if that don't get you paying attention to something, I mean... [ow sfx] Goodness. Pamela, welcome to the show. How are you doing?Pamela: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I am good. I don't know if you ever get used to hearing your bio read. I think there's a humility that we're all raised up with that makes that feel so strange. So, um, anyway, I'm just thrilled to be here and engage in this conversation.Zach: Man. You know, let's just get right into it, right? Like, a critical part of any conversation is language and clear definitions. I think, like, you know, the D&I space has been existing for a while, but I feel like that we're seeing a shift in the past handful of years where, I don't know, just the intention around the work is just that, more intentional. And so before we even get into this whole conversation, like, can we get your definition of inclusion and bias?Pamela: Absolutely. I think inclusion--as I think about inclusion, I think we know we're being successful with inclusion when it is a metric of performance. If everyone in the organization feels included, valued, respected, then they are able to perform at their best, and I think that's really important, that connection to performance, because quite often people talk about diversity and inclusion around sort of a moral responsibility or it being the right thing to do, and while I firmly believe all of those things, I think that a conversation about the right thing to do is not as compelling in an organization as the impact on performance. So yes, it's the right thing to do for lots of reasons. Ultimately as a business or an organization, the reason it's most important is to ensure that we are positioning everyone to perform, to meet whatever our goals or results are for the organization, and people can't do that if they feel inhibited or encumbered or disrespected or ignored or tolerated, right? So inclusion is a sense that everyone feels they can contribute their best selves and that they desire to do so, because if I'm not included I don't even want to give you my best ideas, right? And I think bias, as we talk about bias, we define bias at FranklinCovey and in our new offering around--we define it as a preference, a preference that we might have about a person or a place or a thing, a circumstance, and the word preference I think is really important to the definition, because when we think of bias we often think of it being inherently negative. We think biases of prejudice or a stereotype, and if it's inherently negative we get a little bit defensive about it. So people bring up bias and a lot of people in organizations, particularly people who don't feel like they've been on the receiving end of bias, might get really defensive. You know, "I don't have bias," or "I don't have prejudice. I don't have stereotypes. I sort of treat everyone fairly," but if we define it as a preference we speak to what bias really is. It's a natural part of the human condition, of how the brain works, and we have preferences that on their face don't have value, but they impact our behavior, and that behavior has a result that can be negative or positive. So bias is preferences we have about kinds of things, whether your desk is messy or gender or race, you know? Bigger, heavier issues, or the sorts of qualifications people have or where they went to school, where they're from in the country, all kinds of things, and that impacts how we interact with other people, how we handle circumstances, how we make decisions, and those decisions, or that impact, again goes back to performance. So I think that these terms are really valuable when we can tie them to performance, because that's the result of inclusion and bias.Zach: No, and I'm right there with you, right? I think so many times--let me take a step back. So I think premises, discussing premises is really important. So I do believe, in my experience and also from what I've read as well as conversations that I've had with other leaders, [that] a lot of times when we talk about diversity and inclusion it's framed around the comfort of the majority, right? So, like, just now when you framed inclusion around performance, that in itself is a differentiator--this is not even an ad for FranklinCovey by the way, y'all. This is not an ad. I'm just trying to shout--but, I mean, with respect, [laughing] it's a differentiator because with the tie-in to performance there's also, like, an underlying theme of accountability, right? Like, if I'm tying something to performance, I'm tying to something tangible and measurable, that means that there is an outcome that we're looking to achieve. I think a lot of times when we talk about inclusion though specifically they are moreso tied to, like, feelings or, like you said, moral imperatives, and the reality is, like, the world operates today very exclusively. There are plenty of exclusive spaces, and there are plenty of systems that are built off of exclusivity. So I don't know if that angle of positioning as inclusion as, like, the right thing to do is going to win over the masses, because if the moral imperative was that strong and people really vibed with it, we wouldn't have all the work that we have to do. So it's interesting though, kind of on with the idea of inclusion, a popular definition of inclusion is being asked to dance at the party you were invited to, right? And people say it--I'm sure you hear it often, but people say it with such, like--I don't know, like it's just such a [swaggy?] thing to say, and I'm like, "Okay. I mean, it's cool," but can we talk a little bit about the role that power plays in inclusion? Like, do you think that you can have inclusion of underrepresented employees without granting them some authority within the organization that they operate?Pamela: Uh, no. [laughs] In short, right? But I think it sort of goes back to definition. So when we think about the moral imperative, there's a power dynamic in that as well, right? Because what we're saying if we say it's a moral imperative, we're sort of putting it in the same box as charity. Like, "This is a good will," right? "A charitable act that I will do for these underrepresented groups is to bring them into the conversation." So I think that's another reason I feel very strongly about reframing inclusion and bias around performance, because I think it's not a charity, right? There's an actual end result. There's whole populations we're leaving out of organizations, and that is detrimental to performance, because ultimately organizations cannot serve--you know, I do a lot of work in the federal space. The federal government cannot serve the American people if it's not reflective of the American people. That's a big, grandiose example, but the same is true of private sector. Your customers are reflective of a population or a demographic and you can't serve them if you don't reflect them. So I think that power is an important part of this, and another thing that we see as we work with organizations is that organizations are typically more diverse at the front line. It's difficult to get to diversity and inclusion in the senior ranks, and even as we look at the chief diversity officer or the office of diversity and inclusion or diversity, equity and inclusion, or even chief experience officer, right? I think corporations are going through a bit of a vanguard in terms of what that role is even called, but it's interesting to see where that person sits in an organization and where they report, and I think where they sit and where they report is a reflection of how strongly the organization feels about the value of diversity and inclusion efforts and their linked performance.Zach: Well, so where they sit, who they report to, and then also who they are, right? Like, who they actually choose to be in those positions.Pamela: Yeah, because I think that there is a bit of a--I don't know. There's a lot of talk about that across D&I professionals in terms of the identity of the person in that role and does it need to be someone from a marginalized group, and I also think there's a sentiment sometimes, particularly in highly technical organizations, that HR issues generally are people who are, like, not technical enough, and so there's not always a lot of respect in an organization given to the capability of that person who sits in the role, which again goes to your point about power, that if it's not a highly respected role, if it's not seen as highly valued, then the person is limited in the impact that they can make across the organization.Zach: And, you know, it's interesting because I remember a couple jobs ago I was working, and we had the black affinity group, right? And, you know, there were multiple different affinity groups, and each affinity group had a leader, and for all of the other groups, right, military, women, East Asian, LGBTQ, all the leaders were, like, senior managers or directors, right? So low- to mid-level senior leaders, but then for the African-American affinity group it was, like, an experienced hire. Like, someone who has been, you know, working for, like, four or five years. So off top you're like, "Okay, I don't--y'all don't care about this the same way that y'all care about these other spaces," you know what I mean?Pamela: Yeah, and it sort of violates best practice, right? So best practice around employee resource groups or affinity groups or business resource groups--again, sort of an evolution that organizations are going through, and each of those titles has a different contribution to make to the organization--but best practice across any of those structures is that there be executive sponsorship of the group and that the person who is the executive sponsor isn't necessarily part of the group, because there's research that shows that, when we look at diversity and inclusion efforts, if women and people of color are elevating those efforts and pushing them forward, if people in a marginalized group are pushing them forward, it can actually hurt their career over the long-term, because it seems self-serving, right? It seems like, you know, "I'm a black woman, I'm a Latino woman, and, like, we need more diversity in the senior ranks," right? [laughs] It seems like I'm saying, "Hire me," where as when a white man does that same sort of advocacy for issues of diversity and inclusion it seems benevolent, right? Because they don't actually--at least on its face, they don't have anything to gain from that advocacy. So one of the best practices for impacting any sort of whatever the structure is, affinity group, employee resource group or business resource group, is to have an executive sponsor who's not a member of the group so you sort of counteract this research, right? You have an advocate who's not part of the group and who, you know, for lots of reasons is sort of more trusted at the executive level because it doesn't seem self-serving. Zach: And to that point, I think when you talk about inclusiveness--and we've talked about, on Living Corporate, sponsorship and mentorship in the past. Like, to me, like, that's the biggest opportunity strategically, and then just organizationally, when you talk about, like, the next step when it comes to employee resource groups. Right now it's like these ERGs are spaces where others are able to kind of cluster together and either be kind of, like, other with themselves or just kind of be out of the way, but it puts responsibility on underrepresented employees. It fully charges black and brown, LGBTQ, disabled, it fully charges non-white men, non-straight, white men, to be in charge of their own inclusion efforts, right? Like, we're not really connecting the dots between the folks who actually have authority, access, and power with these underrepresented folks. I often see these groups kind of just operate autonomously, almost like they're an island in of themselves as opposed to them being connected to this larger organizational strategy. Is that something that you've seen often, or do you--like, are you seeing a shift in how these ERGs engage and work within the larger leadership structure?Pamela: I see that as well, and I think--you know, I don't see necessarily, like, a wave of engagement in the larger leadership structure. I think some organizations are just better at it than others for lots of--you know, it's either a longer-standing program or sort of the people at play or there are executives who have made it their business to be a part of these groups. I think one of the challenges with employee resource groups is the burden, as you've highlighted, sits with the population, and even the effort that they put towards it, right? Like, we are all in the workplace. We have--you know, everyone I speak to across public and private sector, you know, small, medium, large companies, multi-national companies, everyone is doing two jobs. Everyone is over-worked, and there's just not enough hours in the day. So then you look at demographics for underrepresented groups in corporate structures, and you're thinking, "Wow," and we've, got, like a handful of our high-performers putting additional effort and energy towards making these employee resource groups meaningful, which feels a bit counter-intuitive, right, when you're trying to sort of close the gap and accelerate in the leadership ranks. So I think employee resource groups need to be a part of a larger strategy, because they do serve a purpose. I mean, when I look--so in our program, and to your point not a plug, but just an example that I think--an illustration that I think might be helpful when you think about this is we do an exercise around a network audit and just sort of looking at your network and doing an audit of your personal and professional network in terms of who you choose to go to, like, when you have a problem or when you have a new project or when you're seeking coaching or mentorship about a specific issue, and when I do that activity for myself, I notice that my personal network is very reflective of me. I mean, it's, like, women of color who are college-educated, often have a higher degree, have an MBA, and are sort of in fast-paced jobs, sort of big jobs, and on paper we look very similar, and that serves a purpose. That's valuable for me for my own sense of belonging and sort of ensuring that I'm navigating things the right way and sharing my personal experience and the challenges I have that are specifically related to my role as a working mother of two brown boys in America, right? My professional network is much more diverse. There are many more men in my professional network. There are men in higher-level positions. There are also women. There's a lot more geographic diversity, because FranklinCovey is a global company and because I've worked and lived in other states outside of Washington, D.C., where I currently live--or Virginia, I should say, just outside of D.C., and so I think that--and when I look at that I ask the question, "Where do I have opportunity? Where do I have opportunity to expand my network, both for my own sense of sort of professional growth and development and belonging and inclusion as well as, you know, for the benefit of my network?" And so I think ERGs serve a purpose. Like, it's valuable for me to have a network that is reflective of me, because sometimes, you know, you don't have to explain things. You can say, like, "This happened," and people in your network who reflect you say, "Oh, I know. When that happens, this is what I've done," you know? Where as when people are different then there's a little bit more effort that you have to put in. You have to explain your perspective or explain why that might be problematic or ask the question differently. So I think they serve a purpose. It's valuable to have that network, and we see that organizations who don't have those sorts of networks really struggle to retain diverse talent and to promote diverse talent, but it can't be the only thing, right? Organizations have to have a multi-pronged strategy that doesn't put the burden only on those people to build a network for themselves. So there needs to also be some formal mentoring and coaching opportunities in place. There needs to be engagement of the majority in minority efforts. There needs to be formal leadership development opportunities and, you know, rotational assignments for people, and surveys that indicate what people's experience is, and then response to that survey data, right? Most organizations do do sort of employee engagement surveys. They don't necessarily respond to what they hear and try to bridge those gaps. So I think when ERGs are the organization's only strategy, that's a problem, but as part of a larger strategy I've seen them be really effective, 'cause there's a purpose that that serves, and it's valuable.Zach: No, you're absolutely right. I think the challenge is that for so many organizations ERGs is, like, the beginning and end of their DE&I strategy, right? Like, it's "Okay, we set these things up for y'all to be different over there. So have your happy hours, let us know what the budget it--you've got about $600 for the year--and enjoy yourself," right? [both laugh]Pamela: You can buy one bottle of wine.Zach: Get your one bottle of wine and celebrate your one promotee and enjoy, right? [laughs] But jokes aside--and that really wasn't a joke, but pessimistic commentary aside--[laughs]Pamela: [laughs] Skepticism aside.Zach: Yes, yes, yes. It's interesting because I think what that doesn't also account for is, like, the emotional labor that goes into, like, one even just being a part of an ERG, but then two working and trying to build one up, right? So like you said, we all have these full-time jobs. I'm a consultant, and so it's like, "Okay, I'm already working on the billable engagement, then I have some additional work that I'm doing to, like, sell something else," and then maybe I'm even working on a whitepaper or some research or something else, and then on top of that you want me to lead a whole ERG? Or you want me to participate in one? Like, even participating, right, I think it's really easy--and I had a conversation with some colleagues some months ago, and they were talking about "Well, we're going to judge ERG engagement by how many people show up to events," and I was trying to explain--I was like, "Well, wait a minute. That can't be your only measure for judging engagement or participation, because some people may just--honestly if you just sent out an email once a month with, like, some type of professional tip or did some type of blogging series, or--like, there are people who maybe just like to observe. They might not necessarily want to show up physically and hang around and hang out after a whole week-long of work," because even showing up in spaces where we're the majority can sometimes be performative, 'cause we don't know everybody. Like, "I don't know you." Like, yes, you and I both might be black, but we're not a monolith. Like, I still need to build up trust, and that in itself can be an emotional exercise. So how do we--you know, how do we account for the labor that's involved in just being present in these spaces, right? I'm already exhausted from being present everywhere else, so now I'm going to be present here? This is going to be positive, but we need to make sure that we're accounting for that effort, because it is an effort. It's not just automatic. I think it's really easy, outside looking in, just to think that everybody wants to just pop up to everything or do a happy hour or do insert-whatever-activity it is when it's like, "Man, you know, honestly I would just benefit from somebody just sending me a note," or "I would just benefit from a phone call or just listening on a conference call or," like, again, reading a newsletter. I don't necessarily know if I need to, like, be physically present somewhere on top of all of the things that I'm doing for me, right? Again, I'm not dismissing the reality that these events are great, they can be, but everybody's different and, you know, I've yet to talk to one black person, black or brown person at work, who hasn't, like, significantly dealt with some B.S. at their job that they're actively trying to manage through and smile through, so, like, when you think about that kind of stuff, and then now I gotta kind of do this other thing, it can just kind of be a bit much, you know what I mean?Pamela: Yeah, I agree. And I think personality-wise--so it's hard because, you know, understanding the value that ERGs play and how they are helpful for some people and then, like, being personally an introvert, it's a little bit hard for me. [both laugh] To go back to something I said earlier, they just need to be part of a more holistic strategy, and even I guess how they run. Like, so many times companies are using the term employee resource group and it really is an affinity group. It's a club. And there's sort of a--there's a cliqueyness that can come from clubs that is not helpful. So I think--I believe really strongly in meaningful connection. I think that sometimes the D&I community can sort of become a little bit insular in terms of how it thinks about--you know, you sort of get a group of D&I professionals together and they're like, "This is the answer," right? Because we've seen, you know, it's a decades-old profession, and we haven't seen monumental, humongous shifts in representation, right? So there's a list of best practices, and I think the D&I community--you know, myself included as part of it--it's like we latch onto these things and say, "Well, let's do this," but there is--like, each organizational structure is really different, and it's important to take into account what is gonna work in the organization to solve those specific challenges. I think, you know, we look at, like, Lean Six Sigma, and it's a process that you can apply to processes, you know, process improvement. It's a mechanism you can apply to process improvement to find efficiencies across any number of processes. I don't think diversity and inclusion is the same in terms of, like, having sort of one process that can be applied to everything. I think understanding the organizational culture and context is really important, and then understanding what the people at the organization want is really important. So I think ERGs have their purpose, but I also think I guess in the measure of that it's important to do some evaluation around, like, is this an affinity group, and do the people who are a part of it want it to be an affinity group, or do they want it to be more of an employee resource group that is focused more on mentoring, coaching, and sponsorship? Or more sort of meaningful connection versus safe space, right? I think affinity groups are like safe space. Come to this thing, this happy hour, or here's this sort of best practices or, like, who to go to for what. Employee resource groups are more building your network and influence across an organization, sponsorship, coaching, mentoring, sort of an intense focus on promotion and leadership development, and then business resource groups are very tied to strategy, right? How are we--like, is this, the black business resource group, the BRG, going to, you know, build us a nwe customer channel or a new revenue stream, right, based on their connection to the company? So I think organizations are not always clear on, like, what it is they're actually setting up and is that in alignment with the participants and what they're looking for. I just think it takes some extra work, right? It's easy to say, "Let's set up these things." It's harder to say, "Let's do some analysis around what kind of thing we need to set up and what it needs to do."Zach: You know what? I don't think that I've had any conversations with anyone really--let me take that back, I've had one conversation with someone who has--like, in private, and we were talking off the mic about the difference between an ERG and a BRG, but I don't know if I've ever had someone really articulate the difference between these different groups. I think that a lot of times what I'm seeing is that we're just using these terms interchangeably, right? Like, without any type of thoughtful definition as to what they mean, 'cause I can say that, like, there's one huge tech organization that uses affinity group, and they're doing way more than another tech organization that I know that is using the term BRGs, right? But I just gotta give you a Flex bomb, 'cause I've never heard someone, like, just very simply explain why those terms mean different things and why they matter. So hold on one second. Come on, Sound Man. Drop it for me right here. [Flex bomb sfx] You know what I'm saying? That's a DJ Flex bomb. Do you know Funkmaster Flex?Pamela: Yeah. I like it. I'll take it.Zach: I appreciate it. No problem.Pamela: It's like I've won the podcast. [both laughing]Zach: This has actually been a very, like, sound effect-light podcast, but, you know what, we're gonna pick it up here. So let's do this. Let's talk about diversity within the context of inclusion. In your opinion, can an organization be inclusive and not be diverse? Like, is a white boys' club inclusive?Pamela: I mean, I think this is the age-old diversity of thought discussion. So organizations will say, you know, "We don't look very diverse. Like, on our face we all look the same, but we have so much diversity of thought. We all look at things really differently," and I think--I mean, diversity of thought exists across everyone. Like, there's a reality to we're all individuals who are bringing our own contribution to the table, but I did--so I used to work at the U.S. Department of Defense, and I was facilitating, years ago, this senior executive diversity seminar. So it was a group of senior executives from various agencies because DOD is a big agency with a lot of subordinate agencies within it. So it wasn't people who were working together every day. They were, like, in different places across DOD, and we're facilitating this conversation around diversity and inclusion. It's a couple-day seminar, multi-day seminar. And one of the participants--I will never forget this--stood up. It was a woman. And she said, "For whatever diversity that exists across this group of people," like, whatever identity, diversity exists--and it was pretty diverse gender-wise with, like, one or two black and brown people, but otherwise didn't... you know, they were all about the same age, and everyone seemed like they were able-bodied, at least from my--you know, from what I could see, but she said, "For whatever identity and diversity exists in this group, we're all actually exactly the same person." She said, "If you lined up our resumes, there's sort of a path to becoming a senior executive at the Department of Defense. So we've all, for the most part, had prior military service, and we were all willing to move all over the world to serve in our next post," which is sort of, you know, a thing that's important at the DOD, and she sort of rifled through some things and said, you know, "We've all gone to this sort of handful of institutions, right? Naval Academy, West Point. We all probably maybe started--" A big part of DOD is the recruitment happens in the southeastern U.S., right? So we're all, like, from--she just sort of railed through these things about all of the ways that they were the same, and I think that it was a really just interesting thought in the room around, like, how an organization, as a huge organization, how does the DOD, like, build and grow leaders? They often do so, like many organizations, you sort of build and grow leaders one way, and it's the way that's worked before, so you replicate that, right? You know, you hired an engineer for this role and the engineer did really well, and then you look at the job responsibilities and you decide, "Well, they must have an engineering degree to do this well," even though the job responsibilities don't necessarily require the engineering degree. But then, you know, for the rest of eternity it requires the engineering degree, right? So I think that organizations lean in to what they can attest to, right? What they can say they have. I think inclusivity is about behavior, and so I do think the organization can be inclusive, can behave in a way where everyone feels respected, valued and included, they feel like they can [tie?] to performance, but I would push further to say, "But do those behaviors really exist if it's not a diverse workforce?" Because it means that there's some bar of entry, right?Zach: Right, stated or otherwise.Pamela: Yeah, stated or otherwise. Like, and I think organizations will say, "Well, we're based in Iowa, and it's not that diverse," or, like, "We're a family company, and so we're sort of small and, you know, we're just word-of-mouth," and my question is always, you know, "What is the opportunity?" Right? I did some work in rural Minnesota [laughing] a few months ago, and I was like--I thought it was in, like, the Twin Cities, in Minneapolis, and then, like, two days before they were like, "Okay, when you land we need to pick you up, and it's a 5-hour drive north." I was like, "Oh, my God. We're going to Canada." [both laugh] Like, I was not prepared for that, but it was really fascinating because I had a perception of what it's like to live in rural Minnesota and that it was probably predominantly white people, but there's several large Indian tribes. There's a growing, like, Somali population in the state of Minnesota generally. There's, like, this sort of large [?] Chinese enclave and I think a Vietnamese population, right? So during the course of this session that I was delivering and this conversation we were having, I could easily imagine an organization based in rural Minnesota saying, "Well, we're not diverse because, like, the people aren't here," but in the course of this conversation with their community foundations it's like, "Well, it sounds like there's a lot of different people here," right? So I think the thing that I would push on for an organization saying, "We're really inclusive and we have diversity of thought, you know," or "We're just not--a diverse population isn't interested in working here," or, like, "We've tried to recruit and it doesn't work," or, you know, "Most of our hires are through referral or word-of-mouth," I would just push on that and say, "Is that the best way to source candidates? Is that the best way to bring innovation into your organization? Is that the best way to look at things differently?" Like, there's an opportunity in that that I think organizations don't necessarily claim. They sort of talk it away. Like, no. It's your responsibility as an organization to explore that opportunity in my opinion, particularly again as we tie to performance, because if you're not doing it, then you're not doing everything you can to enhance the performance in the organization.Zach: So, you know, and you've talked about performance quite a bit, like, in terms of you've said the term and you've talked about tying it back. Can you give us, like, a practical example of what it means to tie inclusion to performance?Pamela: The easiest thing for people to relate to is an individual example, is to say, "If I feel encumbered in any way, if I feel--" So I worked for... I'll give you an example personally. So I worked for a woman for a long time who, on its face, identity-wise, we were very similar, and she sort of self-identified herself as my mentor, and I worked with her and I would complete projects for her in briefings. In the federal space briefings are a big deal, so you sort of work on them. They're very detailed, and you know in consulting as well, right? Like, you prep a deck, right, for a presentation, and the details are important, and it gets reviewed by all of the important people, and then someone delivers it. And so at the time I was much more junior and I wouldn't be the person who delivered it, but we'd be in these meetings and, because I'm the one who prepared it, right--the person who prepared it knows all the details. They know why the period is in that specific place--and so there'd be questions, and she clearly wouldn't know the answers to those questions. She'd sort of look at me, and I would answer the question, and then sometimes I would, like, throw in my two cents about it because that is my way. [laughs] And whenever I had--like, whenever I sort of got too big in my boots or, like, had too much of a thought about it, she would stop me in front of everyone and say, "Pamela, as your mentor, I think that's a private conversation we need to have. I need to give you some guidance on that. Let's not--" You know, that kind of thing, and so I think that--Zach: Hold on, hold on, hold on. Before you just fly past that. [both laugh] Had someone said that to me, I'd look at them like [record scratch sfx]. Like, what? You can't just--so what did you say? What did you do?Pamela: I mean, I was--so, you know, power was at play, right? Like, I was a--at that time, in that role, I was a contractor. I wasn't even, like a full-time employee. I was an on-site contractor for this work, and so in front of all these senior leaders and, you know, at the behest of my boss, I didn't really feel like I had an option. I mean, I needed my job. [laughs] So I would sort of shut up and just, you know, "Sorry about that. Look forward to talking to you about it privately," right? And just try to move through and control my facial expressions, but when we think about performance, right, that's very limiting, and so, like, that only had to happen a handful--you know, I'm a quick learner. Like, that only had to happen a handful of times before I understood that I didn't really need to be giving anyone my best ideas, and I frankly didn't need to be putting my best ideas into these briefings. Like, if she was gonna do them and she didn't need my thoughts, right? I think it's the same as, you know, you often hear in diversity, in terms of inclusion and best practices, about amplification, which came out of the Obama White House. The senior policy women realized that they were being skipped over. I mean, that is a direct connection to performance. You've got this idea, or you're all trying to solve a problem, you have a suggestion, and it's ignored. I mean, how many times do you keep doing that before you just decide, like, "You know what? I'm not gonna do it." Like, "It's not worth it," right?Zach: Listen, it takes--and it's funny because, like, the older I've gotten, the shorter my fuse is with that stuff, right? Like, if I take the time and I really put together things--'cause, you know, at a certain point, you know, you live life long enough [and] you don't really need validation on every single thing, so you know if you put a good idea forward and people just glaze over it or they ignore you or they co-opt it in some way, it's like, "Ah, okay. All right, I'll keep those for myself from now on." [laughs] Pamela: So I think these sorts of slights are limiting to performance, and I think that if we were to look at, like, team dynamics, right, the boss who minimizes certain people while elevating other people, that inhibits performance, and you rely on--I mean, management is the highest calling. Like, in a manager's role, you have infinite impact because you're impacting the performance of your entire team, and you're very much a connector, right? When you think of sort of middle management, you're a connector between the front line and then the operational or strategic perspective in the organization, and so you look at a manager who's doing that over the course of their, you know, 20-year career as a manager managing people and what sort of impact does that have on the performance of that team over the long term and how that team interacts with other teams and how we solve problems? So I think--and, you know, you look at retail, and of course, like, the common example, right, is the Starbucks incident a couple of years ago or Sephora last year. I mean, if that's not inhibiting performance, I don't know what it is. The performance in retail is whether you have consumers who are buying, and so if you've got whole groups of the population who you've shown through this mishap and through this behavior that they're not welcome in your space or you're not interested in them consuming, I mean, that has a serious impact on performance. Zach: You know what? And it's interesting because as you say that I think about, like, another really practical--like, a performance indicator, it's just around, like, the retention of your team, right? So, like, in tech there's this--at least from a marketing perspective--there's an ongoing push for these tech spaces to be more inclusive, to be more diverse, to be more welcoming of underrepresented employees, not just at the--at the non-manager levels, but at the manager and senior manager and executive levels as well, and yet, like, we're seeing that, like, these tech companies are just burning--first of all, tech is, like, a high-burn--like, consulting, [?], like, those different groups are high-burn places for everybody, and they're particularly high-burn for underrepresented folks, right? Black and brown women, LGTBQ, of course trans individuals. It's high, high, high, high-burn, high-turnover for these spaces, and it's interesting because I don't know--I'm a manager. Like, I'm the manager at a fairly large tech consulting firm, and retention of my team or, you know, how I'm able to help retain or drive retention of underrepresented folks is not measured. Now, I'm rewarded for recruiting people in. If I can refer somebody and bring 'em in, I have very hefty rewards for that, but what isn't measured, for me anyway, explicitly is how we make sure those people say.Pamela: I think, like, also the other reality of sort of consulting environments and high-burn, high-churn organizations is that we often dismiss people who leave as, like, it's a failing on their part, so we feel like people left 'cause they can't hack it, like, they can't cut it, it's too intense. I think more and more organizations are getting better at this, but I think lots of organizational cultures are designed to say, like, "That's not our responsibility." Like, "I got you here. It's not necessarily my responsibility to keep you." They don't say that. Like, on their face--you know, publicly they talk about the value of retention and strategies to retain people and, you know, exit interviews, but culturally the organization--someone will leave and then everyone else will hear, like, "Oh, they weren't really cut out for this anyway," or, like, "It's okay that they're not here anymore." So I think some of that cultural reality makes it tough too. Zach: There's a dollar value though with turnover. It costs money for people to leave, right? So unless, like, someone is, like, a legal risk to the company, 7, 8 times out of 10 it's cheaper to keep 'em, you know what I mean? And so it's just odd--it's odd to me that we're not... and I don't know. You know, I'm not a lawyer. Maybe we'll bring on somebody later in the season around, like, why is it that the recruitment efforts are so, like, so emphasized and marketed but the retention efforts aren't, because--I mean, I know enough about human resources to know that hiring somebody just to have them leave, like, a year, year and a half later is just, like, a crazy cost, right? And so even if, to your point around the culture, like, if we're not talking about from a moral perspective or even an ethical perspective, even if you just look at it from, like, a dollars perspective, there should be some type of focus on that, and I really want to take that and then get into this next piece. So I think that leads me well into my next question about inclusivity and employee engagement. I think it's fair though, before we get into that, for us to define what employee engagement actually means. So as a subject matter expert and just from your perspective, Pam, how do you define employee engagement?Pamela: So I think a lot of organizations talk about fit, and I think in the realm of diversity and inclusion, and particularly bias, conversations, fit is a bit of a four-letter word, and I think organizations put the burden of fit on the person who works in the organization. So, you know, they have to fit in our team. And I would argue that the burden is actually on the organization to create an environment where people fit, right? Like, where they can lean into their strengths and make a contribution, which I think ultimately what everyone wants to do. I mean, we all go to work for a paycheck, but you have a choice about where you get that paycheck from and how you spend your time. So I think the burden is on the organization to create environments where people can fit regardless of their identity, where their identity is not a hindrance to them fitting, quote-unquote, in the organization, and if such an environment is created, I think that helps employee engagement. I think that is a determining factor to employee engagement. If I feel like I belong in the organization, like I fit, like they've made space for me to be exactly who I am and make a contribution that I find meaningful that also contributes to the bottom line of the organization, then I am engaged, and that includes, you know, everything from organizational policies that tell me that I belong there to how my manager treats me or how my colleagues engage with me. Zach: And, you know, it's interesting because I know that, like, this idea around employee engagement, a lot of times--I did some work with... this was, like, before I was a consultant, but I was a part of this energy company, and Gallup was doing this whole, like, employee engagement survey for them.Pamela: Yeah. "Do you have a best friend at work?" [both laugh] That's their, like, infamous question.Zach: Yo, that's, like--boy. And no shade to Gallup 'cause I want y'all to come on here, but when they asked that at the time--this was some years ago--boy, you would have thought they figured out THE question to ask. I was like, "It's one question. It's one question, guys. Like, it's okay. Yep. We get it. It's not a huge indicator of a lot, but okay, great." But in that work with Gallup I remember that, like, one of the key talking points they had was like, "Look, employee disengagement isn't just, like, when the person is crossing their arms at their desk or always taking vacation or always sick or actively searching for another job on their computer," right? It's earlier than that, right? It's not that extreme. So I'm curious, like, what has your experience and research shown you how employee disengagement manifests and then how it's related to inclusive workspaces?Pamela: I think--like, as a manager, when you look sort of out across your team, there are people who are excited to be there. So I think it's less about--I think, again, sometimes we put the burden of employee engagement on the employee. Like, they're on Facebook at work or they're, like, you know, keeping Amazon in business during working hours, or they're showing up late or whatever, and we turn it into a discussion around, like, employee behavior and etiquette, but I think there's, like, a great--I mean, I think many people have great professional integrity, and they'll be disengaged and wouldn't be so belligerent in their behavior, right? [both laugh] They would, you know, search for their new job after hours on their home computer. And I think it's when they come in--and they would even continue trying to, like, do a good job and make a contribution, but, you know, they're doing what's asked and not necessarily coming to you with additional ideas, and they're not collaborating, right? You assign them something and you--I mean, engaged employees are actively engaged with their team, not only when they're directed to do so. So I think the sort of solitary nature of an employee is an early indicator that they're not engaged, right? Because when I'm engaged and I have something exciting--and I work remotely, so you have to be even more sort of deliberate about how you connect with people, but, you know, when I'm engaged and I'm excited about what I'm working on, I mean, I will call my colleagues just to say, like, "I want to hear what you think about this," or, like, "I just got this exciting--you know, a client just asked me for this thing. I'm sort of excited about it and would like to hear your ideas," or "Can I run this by you," right? I think how they're engaging, not just from an, I don't know, administrative standpoint in terms of, like, do they show up on time? [both laugh] It's more about, you know, are they working in isolation? Or are you seeing them actively engage with other people in the office? Do they have things at their desk that are of a personal nature? You know, I think people who don't feel like it's a right fit are much more cautious about that, right? They don't have pictures of their kids up or their partner, their puppy, right? You know, what do they do at lunch? And what does that behavior look like? So I think it comes across in how they're relating to other people in the organization.Zach: Right? And so when I think about what it means for leaders then to not undermine inclusivity or engagement at work, right? Like, I mean, I believe it calls for a much higher level of emotional intelligence and general empathy than we're giving folks credit for, and I question if organizations are doing everything they need to be doing to develop those muscles for leaders to even be sensitive and aware of those pieces that you just outlined, right? Because everyone has their own motivations, they have their own insecurities, they have their own pressures, and so it's--I empathize with the idea that okay, you have these leaders coming in, and they have these different metrics and things they have to hit, and also they need to be highly astute and aware of where their employee is, if they're paying attention, if they as leaders are creating an environment or opportunities for them to collaborate. If they're modeling collaboration, right? Like, in your work with FranklinCovey, have you had situations where you've had to have those types of conversations with leaders on how they can create more engaging environments?Pamela: I talk about that every day. I mean, I think that's a big thrust of our approach around unconscious bias and really all of our content. So I think emotional intelligence had a moment, right? It had a time, and it was a word that people were using, but it's sort of like self-awareness. Like, people say it's really important that you're, you know, self-aware as a lead, and everyone says, "I'm very self-aware," and then you talk to them for 5 minutes and you're like, "I don't know that you know what self-aware means," right?Zach: "I don't think you are." [both laugh]Pamela: "I don't think you're using that term correctly." So I think emotional intelligence is sort of similar. Like, you know, people know the four dimensions of emotional intelligence. You know, it's sort of like their DiSC profile. Like, they'll say, "I'm an EITJ," or whatever, and it just becomes this, like, default of, like, "I am" or "I am not." I believe emotional intelligence is a skill that you can build, and I think empathy is important, but I also think curiosity is important. You know, our CEO Bob Whitman did an interview recently, and he said curiosity is the #1 leadership competency or quality that he looks for in a person, and I just feel so strongly about that, because I think you can't be empathetic around information that you don't have. Like, I can't just--the goal is not to just be an empath who feels everyone's feelings. The goal is to learn something about someone that helps you relate to them. So as we were prepping, you know, for the interview, I talked about my kids, and you mentioned that you are welcoming a child soon. This is a point of connection. We can have some empathy about that, right? I can immediately think about what it was like when my kids first showed up and how lovely that was and the sort of high emotion of that experience, or, you know, you could hear me talk about my three-year-old and think, "Oh, wow. In three years I'll have a three-year-old." [both laugh] So I think that the curiosity piece is really important, and I think as managers--what I talk to managers quite often about is making the time for that. I think managers feel, particularly first-line leaders, you know, they were in a role as an individual contributor. They get promoted to that first-line leadership level, and they often still continue to do their individual contributor role and try to manage people.Zach: Right, on top of that.Pamela: On top of that, and there's just not enough time to do it. So of course you have to delegate and you have to trust your people, and there are strategies for how you can build trust in your people, build the capability of your people, but that has to be your new focus, and part of that is making some real time to cultivate connection among your team. And so, like, we'll talk with managers. We talk quite often at FranklinCovey about the value and importance of having one-on-ones and having a structure for those one-on-ones so that they're meaningful. It's not just a drive-by at your desk, right? It's not a weekly staff meeting, but actually having a one-on-one with people. And I'll talk to managers and they say, "Well, we have our annual performance review," and it's like... that's ridiculous. You can't have this conversation once, and around a performance document no less, right? So the one time that we engage in a one-on-one meeting, it's gonna be a high-stakes conversation, right?Zach: Where your livelihood is directly on the line.Pamela: Exactly. So I talk to leaders all the time about making the time and also being--you know, there are lots of introverts and lots of people to whom personal engagement doesn't feel natural, particularly at work, 'cause I think we're still fighting a little bit of the battle of, like, "I have a work persona and I have a personal persona," and I just--you know, one of the models we use at FranklinCovey to think about that is the whole person paradigm and just that you don't leave parts of yourself at home, right? You're a whole person all the time, and I really ascribe to that. I believe in that level of authenticity, and I think that we need to work deliberately to build that level of authenticity across teams. Managers need to ensure that they do know what someone's career goals are. Like, where do they see themselves in the future, and what are they interested in, and what are they excited about working on, and who do they really like to work with, and who are they challenged by, and, as a manager, can I find opportunities for them to connect with somebody they're challenged by so that we can improve our total dynamic, right? I worked for--in college, you know, I worked in college, and the best manager I've ever had I worked for in college, and she sort of sat me down and was like, you know, "I know that you work here and we have these goals around what we're doing." I worked in the student activity center, and we did programming around diversity and inclusion actually, and she said, "But you're a college student sort of at the beginning of your career and life, and it's important to not be myopic in terms of how you look at your goals." And so she gave me a little handout, and it had all of these different categories. It was like, finances and health and wellness and relationships and my family, and she said, "Every three months, every quarter, we're gonna sit down and just look at this and look at what your goals are. I'm gonna share with you my goals," right? So there was some vulnerability in it. It wasn't just like, "I will divulge my whole life story and you'll coach me through it." She was also sharing her goals, and particularly at a time--like, in college, my goal was, like, "I do not want to get my cell phone cut off again. I need to find a way to pay this bill," right? [laughs] And hers was "We're gonna buy a house." I was like, "Wow, a house," right? Like, the process of getting through a mortgage. Like, there's just--it's a small example of how a manager built connection with me through curiosity and empathy. She was vulnerable about what her goals were. She took the time to have this quarterly conversation with me. She created a space where I could talk about my whole self and everything I was dealing with at that moment in my life, and I think managers can do that on different scales based on the organizational culture and what is and is not appropriate to discuss and all that, but managers can do something like that with every member of their team, and they should, right? We shouldn't be having one annual performance conversation with your team. You shouldn't also--there are lots of employees who say they only speak to their manager to get assignments, right? So their manager just does drive-bys at their desk or calls them into their office to say, "Here, work on this," and never have, like, a more meaningful--Zach: Really transactional.Pamela: Really transactional, exactly, and for managers--managers will also lean into that. They'll say, "Well, no. It's just that I'm really efficient and I don't like to spend time and chit-chat," and that kind of thing, and it's more than that. It's not chit-chat. It's not--there's substance to having a meaningful conversation with somebody.Zach: That's just so true. So you've talked about bias and, like, you've used the term bias. You've even said unconscious bias. It seems as if the default any time we talk about bias within the diversity and inclusion space is that it's unconscious. Do you think that's a fair observation, and if so, why do you think that, when we talk about bias, we're often talking about unconscious bias and not just bias?Pamela: I think that's fair. I think--you know, really critical to any conversation I have about bias is about bringing the unconscious to consciousness, but also acknowledging that conscious bias exists. So I think unconscious bias can sometimes be used negatively, just like diversity of thought, but diversity of thought is really valuable, but it shouldn't be the reason you don't have diversity in other dimensions. And unconscious bias is really important, and it doesn't negate the reality that there are very conscious biases that exist and impact people's decisions. So I always include that in any conversation that I'm having about bias or any facilitation I'm doing, and the distinction is that conscious bias are things we can state directly. And so, like, once you can say it, it's no longer an unconscious bias. So you'll hear people say, like, "I have an unconscious bias around mothers of young children." Like, "I really just don't want to be hiring mothers of young children."Zach: Right, and that's a conscious bias. You just--you just said it. [laughs]Pamela: Right. Once you've said it it's not unconscious anymore, and it's important for people to reconcile that. You know, you're running interviews, and for all of the candidates of color you're asking them about, like, office etiquette, you know? Appropriate dress attire and showing up to work on time and how to, like, provide good customer service, and then for all of your, like, non-person of color, your white candidates, you're asking them about, like, the substantive job responsibilities, right? And then someone brings it to your attention--because interviews are often done in panel. There's usually more than one person at the interview, which is best practice, and they say, "Hey, I noticed that we spent, like, an inordinate amount of time with some of those candidates talking about what time they need to be at work, and I feel like at this level of a position that's not that significant. And I sort of noticed that you only asked some of them that and not others," and they're like, "Oh. Well, you know, I had this black lady working for me once and she was always late, and I just want to make sure that that doesn't happen again." Right? [laughs] Well, sounds like you've got a bias around that. I mean, once it's been brought to your attention, you don't get to keep doing it. Like, you don't get to keep making decisions through that frame, right? You have to work to mitigate the potential negative impact of that bias. So I think that any conversation around unconscious bias should include discussion about conscious bias and some of the real conscious bias that we have about, you know, employees at work and who should be in roles of authority and power, who should be promoted, or what kind of--you know, whether that is, you know, "We have this big project, but it requires lots of travel. We probably don't want Pamela to do that. She's got those little kids," or "She's taking care of her mother who's sick." Like, there's a bias in that. You should have a conversation with me about that. That affects my employment and my potential and possibilities in the organization. So I just think they come hand-in-hand and one can't be used as an excuse to ignore the other.Zach: No, I think it's just a great point, and I think the reason--so for me, it genuinely grinds my gears, because a lot of times I think D&I is often framed from the context of, again, like, majority comfort. So I believe that there's a lot of language where we kind of--and it's subtle, and it's kind of inserted all across. So diversity of thought, unconscious bias, sometimes in ways to just kind of give folks an out, and so I don't ever--I can tell you I don't ever hear conversations around conscious and unconscious bias. I hear it and it almost just automatically defaults to "unconscious," almost in a way to say, like, "It's not your fault," right? Like, it absolves you of responsibility as opposed to, "Okay, you have some actual biases, and they're true. Like, these are actual real biases that you have and you conduct and you're aware of, and they're not all mistakes," and I think sometimes when you talk about diversity and inclusion, when we're not talking about actual biases--and again, not in a way that tries to make white folks feel bad, but in a way that is just honest, I think that can lead to more productive conversations. We're in an era today where, you know, the 2020 election is coming up. We had a whole--a large part of America came to really see itself four years ago, and I think we have, like, another one of these instances coming up. It's, like, one of the rare times I think in this space that we can start pointing to things and say, "Hey, this is a lightning-rod moment. This is a lightning-rod moment." And I think we would be behooved to figure out a way to be a little bit more honest and intentional with calling out some of these things. I think it's really dope that the way that you frame these conversations is in the context of conscious and unconscious, but I can tell you, like, I have never heard anybody do that.Pamela: Yeah. I think a couple of things as you were talking came to mind. I think, you know, making white folks comfortable is an important part of work around diversity and inclusion, right? I do think we have too many internal conversations that, like, leave out that group of people, and it's important for us to--it's important for them to feel like they can join the conversation and help make progress, right, help make impact, and I think it's a fine line, right? Like, it's a fine line, and I walk it every day in my professional life to ensure that people feel like they can be part of the conversation without being accused of anything, and I work hard to create a space where people feel like they can be vulnerable and sort of divulge biases that they may realize, right, over the course of the conversation that we've had. The other thing that I think is problematic, the other sort of side of this, is, like, the call-out culture, that we don't actually--the more sort of "woke" our culture gets for... you know, lack of--I feel like I date myself when I say "woke." I'm like--Zach: No, it's okay. People will be using "woke" for another 10 years and, you know, most black and brown folks will be off it. It's okay. [both laugh]Pamela: But I think one of the challenges with, like, "woke" culture is that, like, we don't let people make mistakes, and people don't--so I think those two things are counter-balancing. Those things are--like, there's tension there in that, where we want to call things what they are, which I feel--you know, I feel strongly about, like, let's not use euphemisms to describe things. Let's talk about what the challenges are. Like, why is it that even in my unconscious bias work, lots of organizations will say, "Well, we really want to focus on gender diversity," right? Or "We really want to focus on our domestic workforce versus our global workforce." I haven't had, to this point, a single organization... maybe that's not true, but I haven't had very many organizations tell me "We want to talk about race," or, like, "We want to talk about trans people," right? So I think that there are some final frontiers around diversity and inclusion that organizations are not interested in addressing, and we have to get them interested in addressing those things. We have to name that and say, "It's important for us to also talk about race," right? We can't limit-

Ade and Zach sit down and have an entertaining discussion geared around Black History Month, and they both share their experiences in being frustrated by an employer's mismanagement of the celebration. Ade also talks a little bit about the body butter company she started, and she and Zach spend some time reflecting on how far Living Corporate has come since its launch in early 2018. Thank you all so much for your support! We owe it to you.Ade's body butter company soft-launches soon, so make sure to follow them on Twitter and Instagram. Congratulations, Ade!Visit our website!TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate. And it's not just Zach. Ade: Ayyyye. It's Ade.Zach: It's Ade alsooo, yo, and we here, man. Look, it's Black History Month. It's 2020. You know, January was big trash, so we're just gonna start over. We're gonna count February as January--nah, just... 2020 is gonna have 11 months, that's all.Ade: Yeah, let's do that. I like that idea.Zach: Yeah, we're just gonna start over. So yeah, you know, it's Black History Month. Whole fresh new decade, and, you know, a few episodes have dropped. Downloads are popping, by the way. Like, they're really good, Ade. The numbers look good.Ade: Yay, that's awesome.Zach: Yeah, pretty good. So we both have a lot of stuff going on. What's up in your world?Ade: God, what isn't up? No, [laughs] I'm just really enjoying the ride. I got--you know, my first bit of code at my job was deployed successfully, went really well. I panicked a little bit near the end of the sprint there, but I got it all the way through, so I'm excited about that. I started my butter company, and my soft launch is February 10th, so I'm also really excited about that, just getting the opportunity--Zach: Hold on. Butter company? Like, what's up? Like, you making animal butter? Or, like, cooking butter? Or--Ade: [laughs] No, although somebody gave me the idea to do that. You know I love cooking and I love experimenting in the kitchen, so that was an idea that hadn't occurred to me. But this is the year of action, so I took action. [laughs] So now I have a company--obviously besides, like, this one--but I'm really excited. I've been connected with a bunch of really great folks within the, like, creative community, and I'm excited to see where this goes. What about you, Zach?Zach: Well, first of all, hold on. We don't have to rush over to my stuff. Excited for you, congratulations on moving in action, moving in intentionality, you know what I'm saying? [air horns sfx] That's great, you know? But anyway, you asked me about myself. Yeah, so look, things are going great. Really focused on getting ready for my wife and I's first child coming in, like... I mean, if she doesn't come early--if she doesn't come early it will be in, like, 6 weeks.Ade: Whoo!Zach: Right?Ade: Oh, my gosh. You're so close to the finish line. And I would like to reiterate here that Ade makes a fantastic first time. I'm just saying.Zach: It's great. I love that, 'cause I'd like to reiterate... [haha sfx] You know? [both laughing] Ade: You are so wildly disrespectful.Zach: Not at all, not at all. I just stay ready, you know? I just stay ready. I think for me it's, like, focusing on, like, the radical change that's about to happen in our family, in our lives, then, like, just doing, like, a reassessment of just everything else around me, right? Because, like, I think initially--and I'm sure most people who are preparing for children, they go through this too--you're kind of like, "Oh," you know, they'll just kind of fit into your plans, and I'm like--as I, like, kind of pause and think about all of the things I have going on, I'm like, "Dang, wait. Certain things are gonna have to shift and change." Like, it's not gonna just be like, "Oh, I'm picking up a new hobby," or starting a new podcast, like, this is a whole new person, a whole person that's about to be, like, active, actively involved and will have active present needs from myself and my partner for at least the next 18 years, right? If not the rest of their lives. So it's like, what does it look like? So y'all, this is not me alluding to the fact that the podcast is about to stop or anything like that, it's just more about life. Like, you know, talking to other fathers who had to make career decisions and think about, like, what did it look like for them to make adjustments, how do you communicate with your teams about being a dad and, like, the new responsibilities as a parent? Those are things I'm really excited to, like, explore and, like, really discover over the next few--you know, over the next months and stuff like that as I get ready for paternity leave and all that kind of stuff. Like, really just, like, being really clear with, like, what does it look like to, like, live in this new world? 'Cause, like, I don't know. Like, I'm 30 years old, so it's not like I'm--I'm not old, so I still have things--Ade: [whispering] Yes, you are.Zach: That's jacked up.Ade: [laughs] I too got shots in my pocket.Zach: That's crazy. I see you. But the thing about it is, like, I still have a few decades more of career to have, and so it's like I don't want to just, like, kind of sit on my laurels because I have kids. Like, what does it look like to still progress and have a career and, like, develop and do all these things while at the same time being a very present and attentive and engaged father? So normal stuff. Like, I think it's a challenge. It's a good problem to have. It's something that is--it's a problem created by growth, so to me that's a--I count that as a good problem. So that's, like, the main--the big, big thing, then the second thing is just, like, continuing to slow down and focus on, like, mental health. Like, my own personal mental health and, like, my mental wellness, right? I think the more and more people I--especially black men--that I talk to who are transitioning out of their twenties, you know, it's like--I've talked to more and more folks who are, black men, who, like, this is the time when they go to counseling, right? Like, if you haven't gone already. And I've gone at certain points in time. We did pre-martial counseling. I've done, like, personal counseling as I got ready to get married, but I haven't really ever gone to, like, see someone, like, a true therapist, right? Like, a true, like, psychiatrist. I think that there's a certain stigma around mental health, right, for black people, and I would say particularly for black men, and so it's, like, getting comfortable with talking to people and, like, really getting help and just talking through things. Like, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think, like, the road of life has all of these different bumps and potholes. You're gonna have mileage and just damage and disalignment that you just need help with just because of the reality of life and the trauma that life brings, especially in the context of white supremacy and patriarchy. So shoot... and then the last thing, y'all, I think I'm just really excited about, again, like, Living Corporate. Like, yo, we got featured on Forbes, man.Ade: Oh, my God. I just--Zach: What is it? So be honest. When you saw it, what did you--Ade: Okay, I just want to put some context. I am not--I don't scream very often.Zach: Did you scream for real?Ade: At the top of my lungs.Zach: Did you really?Ade: I really did. [Zach laughs] And here's why. Like, it genuinely is a life goal for me to make it on Forbes' 30 Under 30, so when you sent that link to me, I was like, "Surely he is just sharing a link of podcasts that we should emulate or, you know, link up with these people and get a sense of what they do, how they do it, how well they're do--" Nope, there's our name. I was like, "Holy--" I was on top of the Moon. It was a moment for me, okay, personally.Zach: I was curious. Well, 'cause I texted you and we didn't, like--'cause we didn't, like, really react in the moment. Like, I reacted. I texted you. I was happy. But you were in the middle of your work day and, like, I had some time in my day, so I was able to step away and, like, actually hit you, right? And so when you--[laughs] But you didn't, like, react, so I was like, "I wonder if she really cared about that." Like, not that you didn't care, but did it do anything for you. But for me I was like, "Oh, my gosh." Like, I was shocked. Ade: Absolutely. No, I need you to--I just want to, again, reiterate the fact that I don't scream on a regular basis. It's not my personality type to just be out here in these streets wildin'--at least in that way, 'cause I do be wildin'. I'ma just be honest.Zach: Right, you do. That's true.Ade: [laughs] You didn't need to agree with me. I was just--Zach: You know, you put it out there. It's on Twitter.Ade: Okay. All right, this is fine. But really, it was such an honor, and it was something that I would not in the--I mean, if we, like, rewind a year and a half or whatever--it was actually about this time two years ago. Are we two years [?]? Wait a minute.Zach: Yeah, it's been, like, two years.Ade: Holy [bleep?]Zach: Right? It's been nuts.Ade: [laughs] I really need you to understand that I'm literally just coming to the realization that Living Corporate is almost two years old. That's wild. That's so wild to me. We need sweatshirts and hoodies.Zach: We need merch, man. We need merch. We should really drop, like, little collections. Like Popeye's.Ade: We should. We should, like, go through and figure out what our favorites from our guests and from our hosts are and then, like, make some sweatshirts, 'cause I would wear my sayings. That's all I'm saying.Zach: You would wear your own sayings?Ade: Absolutely. What? Absolutely.Zach: Nah, that's the definition of a narcissist. You'd put your own quotes on clothing and walk around in them?Ade: Uh-huh, I would.Zach: Wow.Ade: I would. You know why? Because I have some fire, fire sayings. Zach: [laughs] That's crazy. You do, but it's like... you can't say that though. Like, that's crazy.Ade: What? No. 2020 is the year of big upping yourself.Zach: Wow. You know what though? I respect it, 'cause, you know what I'm saying, if no one else is gonna wear your sayings, you may as well.Ade: Exactly. Precisely. Kobe was a fan of big upping myself, and so am I.Zach: He was. That's true though. You know what? That's a good point.Ade: And the way that I do see it is, like--being a little bit more serious about the subject, 'cause I was kind of making fun of the entire concept, but sincerely, like, we preach that you have to be your own best advocate, right? And we preach that you have to kind of take stock and make sure that you are keeping records of your good deeds when you do them so that you can be able to speak to your managers, your peers and your supervisors, all of these things, but when you are an entrepreneur or you are an individual contributor or anything of the sort, you have to do the same, right? Like, you have to be too, and this was something that I had to get comfortable with. And I'm still not comfortable with it, to be frank. Like, I handed people an 8-ounce jar of my product, and they were like, "Well, how much is this?" And I'm, like, waffling around, like, "I kind of don't want to ask anybody for money for this," but it's a product, right? But being able to, like, stand on your two feet and be like, "No, this is a thing that I've done, and I'm worth the time and the investment that you're going to make in my product or in me as a person." It's all a part of being confident in all of the work that you've done. You're not asking people to buy into a single thing. You're asking them to buy into you as an idea, and if you're not willing to, you know, kind of say it with your chest, as Africans will say. [laughs] If you're not willing to say it with your chest, then who's supposed to be willing to stand behind you and say it with their chest? You see what I'm saying?Zach: Yeah, straight up. Like, you have to be willing to advocate for yourself and, like, promote yourself, because--I mean, the Internet is such a big and busy place and, like, the world is so big and busy that, like, yeah, there--and I was just having a conversation with a guest that I will not reveal yet because I like guests being a surprise week-to-week, but a guest I was having a conversation with, we were talking about networking and how, like, the world is connected, but it's connected via a series of, like, closed loops. So it's not like you can just, like--the world is connected, but you still have to, like, be in certain circles for things to even get started, right? And so, like, the idea of like, "Oh, I'ma just do this thing over here in this corner, and then if it's good it will eventually get seen." It's like that's not really true. Like, you have to really actively promote whatever it is that you got going on. Like, period. That's just the way it is. But yeah, to your earlier point about, you know, it being two years and Living Corporate being around almost two years, right? So, like, April will make two years--or is it June? Golly, I can't remember. Anyway, some time--Ade: I think it was April, but we definitely had, like, our inaugural Skype or, what was it, Google chat in February.Zach: There it is. You're right, we did. We did have our inaugural Google chat in February just to talk about things, and then, you know, we kicked everything off a couple months later, but it's crazy 'cause, like--and shout-out to Dr. Gassam, who wrote the piece for us, the article for us, and shouted us out and, like, you know, put us up as #1. I don't know what those little numbers mean, you know what I'm saying? Like, 'cause I really--what I was really shocked about was everybody else on that list, everybody on that list are huge. Like, shout-out to Side Hustle Pro. Shout-out to Code Switch, dawg. Shout-out to Myleik. I was like, "Yo, we're up here with Code Switch? Myleik?"Ade: Code Switch.Zach: Code Switch! And yo, shout-out to NPR and Code Switch, because I remember when we first started thinking about, like, Living Corporate, like, as a podcast, we were like, "What are the ones that really inspire us?" And me and at least one other person was like, "Code Switch," 'cause, like, the format is so fire. Like, shout-out to y'all, man. So, like, even if anybody--for anybody to think about us in the same vein as them, like, I feel like that's a win on its own, 'cause that lets me know--that affirms me that, like, we're achieving [against?] the vision that we had initially set out, but it's crazy 'cause there's been, like, a lot of ups and downs and, like, a lot of stuff going on, but, you know, [Paul Rudd look at us sfx, Ade laughs].Ade: I'm just over here, like, giddy and over the Moon. Yeah, no, and it's funny because you're not the only person who sent me that link, and that's, like, the other thing that [?].Zach: Oh, you didn't tell me that.Ade: No, like, sincerely, you weren't the only one that sent me that link. My friend sent me that link, and I actually encountered someone--shout-out to you, you know who you are--who I literally had just, like, been talking to him. He's transitioning into tech. I just, like, try to make sure I'm giving people advice and help and checking in with people that I know are making the same transition, and I reached out to him, and he was like, "Wait, are you Ade from Living Corporate?" Zach: What?Ade: 'Cause he literally met me from an entirely separate context. And so to be able to encounter someone who, you know, knows of us and knows me in my best light, not, you know--clears throat--anyway. Zach: Dawg, I'ma tell you something. One day--one day, y'all... hey, listen, y'all. Some of y'all are, like, listening to this with a confused face. Trust me, I'm confused too, but one day we're gonna come on this podcast and we're gonna have a real conversation about the crazy life that Ade lives, 'cause why would you come on here and say, "Yeah, this Forbes article, and someone who knew me, and not in my best--" And then this awkward pause. I hear you audibly gulp in the mic. Like, what? [laughs] Y'all, y'all understand the type of work--like, y'all understand the team I have, right? Like, that's crazy. Y'all, don't treat me like--yeah, now y'all know what I'm doing with. What kind of weirdness is that? Go ahead. This person who hasn't seen you at your best and sent you the Forbes link. What?Ade: [sighs] I'ma just move forward. [Zach laughs] No, no, no.Zach: I wonder, is Ade the Mal of this podcast? 'Cause I'm certainly Joe Budden. I realize that. But Ade might--Ade might be the Mal. She might be the Mal of this podcast. She's, like, a little too cool to pod, but then she'll say [?] things.Ade: I demand we move forward. [both laugh]Zach: Goodness, gracious. Go ahead. Keep going.Ade: Anyway, so I'm just really grateful for, you know, where we are, and--first of all I want to give Zach and our writing team and our production team and our social team all the props, like, every single prop that exists, because you have been put in blood, sweat, tears, money, effort, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum into this, and it shows in the quality of our partners, our work, our podcast, our newsletters. Like, everything. Like, you've been really intentional about the direction that Living Corporate would take, and I really respect that, and you are by far one of the most aggressive--but you're not gonna beat me up though--type energies [?].Zach: [laughs] It's true though. It's true. [both laughing]Ade: And Living Corporate has enjoyed that energy, enjoyed the fruits of that energy.Zach: I do have "but you're not gonna beat me up though" type energy, and I've come to peace with that. It's true.Ade: It's my favorite thing about you, and also, like, simultaneously your worst quality when you turn it on me, [both laugh] but--[to this day sfx]Zach: [laughing] Oh, my gosh. It's true. But this is the thing, you gotta have "you ain't gonna beat me up though" energy, because boy, the world will beat you up, boy. The world out here tryna come--it coming for your neck, dude. I mean, every day I'm over here like [Cardi B blatblat sfx] with these haters, man. I'm trying to, like, stay alive out here. I gotta fight every day. Every day. All my life, literally trying to fight and then at the same time avoid--[Law and Order sfx]--like, at the same time. [both laugh] I be so aggravated, man. Do you know the fine line you have to walk as a black man? Man, I'm telling you, being black is so exhausting. Being black and conscious, like--James Baldwin, man. He was not lying, dawg. Not lying at all, because you are in a rage all of the time, and you're over here trying to, like, stand up and just speak to the fact that you're worth something. Listen... eugh. You're over here trying to literally raise your voice loud enough to be heard and respected, but not too loud, right?Ade: 'Cause [?], and here y'all come.Zach: Here y'all come, without at the same time going to jail. So it's, like, this fine line that you have to walk. It's just nuts. Anyway, nah, I appreciate that, Ade. And, you know, I appreciate you as well. You know, you're here. The biggest--Ade: Finally.Zach: Finally, that's true. But look, you was gone for a little minute, but you back in town. You know? It's okay. I think the biggest thing--what do they say, "the biggest ability is availability?" It's corny. It's kind of a coach's--coaches say that, but it's a true statement. Like, just be present, you know? I know one thing, and shout-out to Rod from The Black Guy Who Tips and Karen, his lovely co-host and partner, but one of the things he said, like, from the jump--like, he jumped on our podcast early. He was like, "Yo, being consistent--" He's like, "'Cause people come and leave, like, jump on these podcasts and leave all of the time." He's like, "So having some longevity is hard over time," and if it wasn't for our team - Aaron, Sheneisha, Amy, Latesha, Tristan... like, we have a great, great team, and we put out a lot of content. Like, we're posting three episodes a week every single week, and, like, that doesn't happen without a huge team--or, I'm sorry, relatively huge and a consistently dedicated team. So, like, really proud of them, really proud of, like, just what we've been able to do, and just, like, really thankful for Dr. Gassam, 'cause, like, there's plenty of other platforms that are trying to make content. I really still stay that, like, it's us, Trill MBA and, like... that's kind of it right now that's out here really talking about other in majority-white spaces. Anyway, so look, it's Black History Month. Have you seen any--I'm just gonna ask the question. I don't know why I'm trying to, like, play it safe. Have you been on a job where your employer has annoyed you by how they've handled Black History Month?Ade: Let me count the ways. I--[laughs] Whoo, let me take a breath. All right. I have been aggravated by several firms, actually, simply because--Zach: [laughs] Yes, shout-out "firms." Consulting, we're talking about y'all. [laughs]Ade: Looking right at you, friends. Zach: Looking right at y'all, professional services. Yes. [laughing]Ade: No, I just--there's nothing I hate more than double-talk, and by that I mean firms, corporations, whatever it is that y'all would like to call yourselves--active participants in capitalism--who pay lip service, either through, like, their mission statements, their values, their creed, or even their stated employee resource groups that they care about diversity and somehow consistently fail to make a statement or support or do anything of value, particularly during Black History Month. I noticed this during my employment at a firm I will not name in the past where, you know, July 4th came around, Veteran's Day came around. You know, all of those things were celebrated or commemorated by words from the leadership of the firm going out, but when Black History Month came and went there was nary a bleep, and it was so noticeable because, you know, the firm had something to say on MLK Day, but, you know, when ostensibly there would be time for--and to their credit, the employee resource group put on one... ONE program for the entire month of February. I understand that, you know, funding is a thing. It's difficult to organize sometimes around different people's schedules, but, you know, one event over the course of the entire Black History Month? I cannot tell you how deeply bothersome I found that, simply because you have a body of people who are, whether they consciously or not notice these things, are essentially being utilized as resources by this firm. I mean, you are essentially selling our time to all of these contracts, you're making millions off of us, and you can't take the time during Black History Month to care about Black History, but you can, on July 4th, take time to commemorate these things? Or you can during Veteran's Day or Memorial Day or Labor Day and all of these other things. So it feels like a very intentional slight, because, I mean, I know that your calendar functions the same way that my calendar does, and I know that your Google functions the same way that my Google functions, so it's not like you're missing out on the reminders that these things exist. So when there's an intentional exclusion, or what feels like an intentional exclusion, of black people from, you know, your commemorative messages, it's like, "Heard you. We see where your priorities are." And an even further extension of that logic is that when--you know, during these programming sessions there are no, like, leadership in the room to attend these programs or there's no support, you know? People have to come out of pocket for things, to pay for things. It just feels very ugly. I'ma use that word, ugly. Dusty. Musty.Zach: Raggly.Ade: Raggedy.Zach: And there's a difference now, and this is where--so, you know, you and I, I love the diversity just in our pairing, right? But, like, you know, you're an East Coast black and I'm a Southern black, right?Ade: Precisely.Zach: It's interesting, 'cause you said raggedy, and see, what I said was raggly.Ade: Raggley, mm-hmm.Zach: Raggly. Not raggley, raggly. Now, look, I want--'cause every now and then I teach--and if you're listening to this you know who you are, but for the white folks that I trust, the Buckys out there, the allies, or the aspirational allies, that I trust, every now and then I'll teach y'all a phrase called "fifty-'leven," right? You know who you are. If you're listening to this and you actually, you know, rock with me and you listen to this, I've taught you this. [both laughing] I've taught you all these phrases, and this is another one for y'all to take in. So look, it's not raggedy, nor is it raggley. It's raggly. It's two syllables, and that is often times a descriptor for how companies manage Black History Month.Ade: I will make an amendment to that statement, 'cause I don't necessarily agree. There are, uh, regional differences to dialects, you see. [Zach laughing] So while Zach is correct for his particular region of the Souf--notice I said Souf--Zach: That's true. Souf. That's true. That's fair, 'cause Southern is--'cause we live in America. Southern is a huge region. That's true. That's fair.Ade: Take his advice lightly, you know? Do with that what you will. Zach: [laughs] Be careful.Ade: And, uh, if you get run up on, please don't quote us.Zach: Don't quote me.Ade: 'Cause we will not be popping up [?].Zach: Uh-uh, uh-uh. Don't. And honestly, maybe don't say fifty-'leven around everybody. They'll be like, "Who taught you that?" And don't tell 'em it was me. [laughs] Nah, but no, I'm right there with you when it comes to, like--I've been in situations where, you know, either we don't celebrate Black History Month at all, we don't recognize it in any way, or employee resource groups will get, like, the black people to huddle together and they'll go do something, right? It's like, "Um..." Black history is American history. This should be something company-wide. And I'm not saying we gotta do something every single day, but can we do at least one thing? Can we recognize some of the black pioneers in our own firm, in our own companies? Like, we have our own historical marks that we've made, but I think--I don't know. It's tough, it's tough because--and honestly, like, even I say this, like, I get--like, I'm hearing... 'cause there's some executive leaders and folks who listen to Living Corporate, right? And they listen to it for different points of insight or whatever, and so there's a part of me who--and they're like, "Well, dang, I can't even win for losing," 'cause, like, the other part of me is gonna say, "And even if you are doing something for Black History Month, what are you doing for the rest of the year?" Right? 'Cause it can just be, like, an acknowledgement. Like, what are you doing? What are you doing to, like, actually advance having a more equitable and inclusive culture that drives belonging in your place of work? But I do think, like, at just the--I mean, I'm talking, like, floor level, if we could just start with some acknowledgement, you know? Like, you don't have to always quote Martin Luther King. You could actually, like, integrate and be intersectional with your Black History Month if you wanted. [Ade laughs] You can! Like, you can actually, like, quote trans rights, trans activists who happen to be black, and you can tie that in with, like, your LGBTQ ERGs. You could quote, like, Afro-Latinx civil rights activists and, like, historical people, and, like, integrate them. Like, there's all types of ways. You know there's ways that you can actually--you could use Black History Month to drive intersectional conversations and activities for your whole firm, 'cause black people are not just black. Black people are black and gay, black and Latinx. They're black and straight. They're black and female. They're black and disabled. Like, it could actually be something that could be--you know, you could use Black History Month similarly to how you use black and brown people anyway, which is really kind of like just the glue that holds everybody together. You could just use us if you want. You could use the month how you use black and brown people. Like, let me just be super cynical, right? You could actually--like, from a programming perspective, from, like, a networking and engagement perspective, from, like, even leveraging--like, getting more thought leadership, like, you could do all types of things with that month. You have a whole month, and this month you have a whole extra day. So it's like--Ade: No excuses.Zach: No excuses, right? Like, you could do something. And, like, if you need any help with ideas, then, I mean, you could talk to your own leadership. You could talk to--I don't know. There's just so much out there now. There's just so much--maybe we just need to drop an article on ideas for your Black History Month. Maybe that's what we do, 'cause, like, I don't--Ade: You know what? That's a good idea.Zach: I mean, maybe that's what we do, 'cause, like, I'm over here just thinking about it more and more. It's like, "I don't know if I've been a part of any company that I have walked away and felt like, "Wow, I really feel seen this Black History Month." I don't think that's ever happened to me. In fact, I remember last year I tried to quote a--like, I was on a project and there was a quote board, okay? So you put a little quote up there, and I was like, "Oh, it's Black History Month," and I tried to quote--I think I quoted, like, Oprah Winfrey or something like that, and, like, they literally erased it and put up some white man's quote and they were like, "This is more relevant." I said, "But I thought it was a quote board." Ade: Right?Zach: Like, what? What are you talking about? What do you mean it's more relev--okay... and again, that's where I had to make a choice between, like, okay, am I about to die on this hill? Am I gonna go to jail? Like, what am I gonna do? 'Cause, like, I just--I don't--nope. So I had to make a decision, but anyway. So okay, what else do we have going on? So what's the name of the company though? The body butter company. I'm jumping all around now. What's--'cause we didn't talk about that before.Ade: [laughs] Right. So my company is called Solari, S-O-L-A-R-I. It is a portmanteau of my name, or a part of my name, and my mom's name. And on Instagram and on Twitter I'm pretty sure our handle is @SolariBody, so it's S-O-L-A-R-I-B-O-D-Y. And yeah, I'm really excited. I'm kind of blushing right now. [laughs] I'm really excited about just getting started and just being able to expand my reach. So I've been doing a lot of kind of, like, self-care stuff for a very long time, like making my own body butters and making my own, like, lip balm, conditioner, and all these other things--and scrubs--and just the idea of being able to... and this is another thing that happened, but I'll finish my sentence. Just the idea of being able to utilize all of the things that I put into practice because I want to take care of myself and take better care of myself. So, for example, I would, like, make my own hair oils, but when I realized that other people wanted these things and don't necessarily want to go through the process of experimentation to figure out all of the ideal things--and I've already been doing these things for over a decade--I was just kind of like, "You know what? I'm gonna do this, and it's gonna be fun," and the reception has been fantastic.Zach: Well, I'm really proud of you. I'm happy for you, you know? I think--you talked about this a little bit on the last, when we did our season kickoff episode, but it's easy to, like, get in your own way and to like, you know what I'm saying, just let anxieties and different challenges, like, just hamper you or kind of put you in a stalemate, but it's really exciting, like to see you continue forward and build something. Ade: Thank you.Zach: You're absolutely welcome. Man, so, you know, my cadence as I was pausing there, it reminded me of my own Barack Obama impression that I do at the house for fun with Candis just to get on her nerves, 'cause I was almost like... [impersonating Barack] "Uh, Ade, it is, uh... impressive how you have taken the time," you know what I mean? I almost--and then I go into, [continuing] "Every day, there are Americans who get up, they have their challenges--" [Ade sighs, Zach laughs] "If there was any doubt, uh, that you could not do what it is that you're doing today, uh, you have nowhere else to look but in the mirror. Uh, you get up. You put that butter on your dry skin. Uh, you hydrate yourself, and you face a world that is not ready for someone like you."Ade: I'm about to hang up on you, sir. [both laugh] I am so done.Zach: [laughs] Goodness, gracious. So all right, y'all. Well, look, this was just a fun episode, you know, letting you know what we've got going on. Thank you so much. Shout-out to everyone who listens to this podcast. Shout-out to--shoot, I ain't gonna get into all the shout-outs, but just shout-out to y'all. Make sure that you share this with your people. Continue to share it. The numbers are showing that y'all are sharing it, and I look at our stats every single day 'cause that's just kind of the person I am, the obsessive person that I am, but [laughs] we're really appreciative. And then, shoot, I guess we'll see y'all next time. Make sure you follow--Ade: Wait, one last thing before we go. We kind of vaguely talked about it, but I do want to insert a moment of silence here for Kobe Bryant and his daughter and all of the passengers of the helicopter that went down. We actually weren't able to get on this podcast to discuss it because we were just so emotional. I tried, and it's about 7 minutes worth of just sobs and sniffles on that, but I think this is a pretty good time to do it. So if everyone listening could just join us in a moment of silence. [a moment of silence] Thank you. Zach: Nah, for sure. Yeah, we could talk about--we're gonna have to have an episode about trauma and, like, the ways that trauma impacts black and brown people at work every day, and how we're still expected to just, like, show up and perform two or three times better than our counterparts just so that we can keep our jobs. So... but yeah.Ade: And I just also actually--I think we should have a black heroes episode.Zach: I love that.Ade: I think that in an episode coming up soon we're gonna discuss, you know, some of our heroes, and Kobe's one of mine. People who have just shown you how to get through life with dignity and with grit, and that's a term that I didn't used to use so frequently and so intensely until now. But again, it's a topic that we'll be covering later, but suffice to say that was a shock to my system, and I didn't expect that it would be so shocking. I didn't expect just how strongly I would react, and I suspect that so many others found themselves reeling in the aftermath of that news. Our prayers and our thoughts of those affected. And another topic I think we should also explore is, you know, how to disconnect in times of trauma and to kind of reassess and to find your balance in those times as well. That's it for me.Zach: Nah, I love that, and I super agree. And y'all, on that super, you know, emotional, heavy note, we're gonna catch y'all next time, okay?Ade: For sure.Zach: Now, look, you make sure you check us out. We're @LivingCorporate on Instagram, @LivingCorp_Pod on Twitter. We have all the different domains. One day, man, we're gonna get that livingcorporate.com domain, man. Right now we have all the livingcorporate dot everything but com, and then we got living-corporate.com, but shoot, until next time. This has been Zach.Ade: This is Ade.Zach: Peace, y'all.Ade: Peace.

Season 3 officially kicks off with a special premiere episode! Our incredible hosts Zach and Ade spend some time catching up and talking about what they did over the holidays, and they also chat about a few things to get excited for in the upcoming season. More features, more profiles, more highlights - there's a lot to look forward to in the future! This show's a two-in-one, so be sure to listen to the whole episode. Ade graciously shares some very impactful content that she recorded themed around her career journey and eventual job offer, so you don't want to miss it.Click here to read the piece Zach mentioned titled "Democracy Grief is Real."TRANSCRIPTZach: Yearrrrrp. What's going on, everybody? It's Season--oh, my gosh. 1, 2... Season 3.A ghost: Sure is.Zach: More fire for your head top, and welcome back. Is that a ghost? Is that--A ghost: [whispering] "From the past, from the past, from the past..."Zach: From the past? Oh, my gosh. Y'all, welcome back Ade.[kids applause, then our hosts imitate air horns]Zach: Man, wow. Listen, it is 2020. It's 2020. Isn't that nuts? It's 2020. You know, I definitely want to say though, you know, I've missed you. Y'all know. Y'all have probably noticed that Ade has not been in the podcast regularly, hasn't been around, you know. Breaking my heart quite frankly, you know what I'm saying? I cried. You know? I was sad.Ade: [laughing] Like... okay. All right, sir. Zach: I'm just thankful. I'm happy that you're here, you know? Season 3 is gonna be crazy, right? We have a lot of stuff going on. We have, you know, More profiles and highlights from, you know, different companies. You know, we've had Accenture on, we've had the Coalition of Black Excellence on. We got some other conversations and things that we're cooking up, but nothing to share just yet, you know? We are working on a book. That's right, that's right. More to come on that later, but I'm just kind of throwing some teasers out there. We've got some other media that we're gonna be experimenting with this year. I'm really excited about that. And then, you know, we've got--what else, man? We've got, you know, Ade's--I'm not gonna step on Ade. So she has some content that we're gonna get into that she recorded as she gets into the next stage of her professional career and journey, but I'ma give her space to talk about that in a second. Before we go there though, let's talk about the holiday season. What did you do?Ade: Oh, God. What did I do? I--uh, I slept.Zach: Turn up.Ade: I ate.Zach: Yeah.Ade: And I twisted my ankle.Zach: How?Ade: I don't even want to get into it. [both laugh]Zach: Oh, no. [laughing] Okay. Um...Ade: The point remains. I survived. I survived the holiday season. I spent some time with my loved ones. I don't know if I've mentioned my nephews on here before, but I have two nephews, one who loves me and one [who] hates me. But, you know, thanks be to God. The one who hates me now loves me and he wants to spend time with me on a regular basis now. Zach: Children are a fickle beast, man.Ade: They are so terrible. They are unruly, and they are tyrants. [both laughing] But we love them anyway.Zach: Man, we do. I have a nephew. He is adorable. Goodness, gracious. He's adorable, but it's like--and I just realized I guess I should go ahead and drop the news. Sheesh, I'm talking about kids. Well, first of all, let me say this first. So I have a nephew. He is adorable. But he's a boy, right? And if I just--he's just gonna get away with everything if I babysit him 'cause he's just too cute, but he's mischievious. Like, he's a cute little mischievious kid, but I'm just not--and I'm just not tough enough, 'cause he's too cute. He's too cute, you know? Now, if y'all have ugly kids, like, bring 'em over. I'll be a great disciplinarian. But if your kid's cute--Ade: What?![record scratch sfx]Zach: [laughing] Nah, ain't no such thing as ugly kids. Children are a blessing, and it's awesome, and actually it's with that in mind, you know, I actually have some news, you know what I'm saying, I'd like to share. You know, if anybody follows me on Instagram--which y'all don't, 'cause my follower count is not that booming like that and I haven't posted on Living Corporate, but my wife and I are expecting our first child.Ade: Ayeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.Zach: A little girl. Very excited, you know what I'm saying? [ow sfx]Ade: You know, I just wanted to say that Ade makes a really great first name for baby girls. I'm just saying. Putting it out there.Zach: [inhales, then plays a laughing sound effect]Ade: Whoa! [both laughing] Whoa, what's with the personal attacks? Like...Zach: Oh, my gosh. Shout-out to my wife, my spouse, my queen, my rib, you know what I'm saying, Candis. Doing all the hard work, you know? I--you know, listen... I put in the work, you know what I mean, but I'm not really carrying the load, you know what I'm saying? So air horns for her. [air horns sfx] You know what I'm saying? Just really appreciate her. You said you ate, but you talked about some food--so what did you eat? Like, what was your favorite thing?Ade: God, that's a good question. I absolutely could go back in, like, my memory bank and take a look at these photos that I took of my [?] plates.Zach: All right. Pull those up, 'cause I know for me--like, and shout-out to my grandmother-in-law. She made all types of vittles. They were delicious. [Ade laughs, making Zach laugh] And shout-out to my wife--Ade: Did you just say vittles?Zach: I did say vittles. I'm trying to bring vittles back in 2020. Ade: Why are you so old?Zach: Think about the last time--like, we have not, our parents have not, perhaps our grandparents are the last generation that use the word vittles casually.Ade: Right, and I think that's for good reason and we should leave that term there.Zach: It's SO old. Vittles, dawg? It's so, so, so, SO old. Ade: Kind of like you. We know.Zach: Kind of like me, that's right. I'm a whole 30 out here.Ade: That's wild.Zach: I know, right? 'Cause you just turned, like, 19.Ade: ...Um, first of all, 16, thank you very much.Zach: [laughs] No, not 16. Nope, nope, nope. There's no creep life around here. Nope, you are 24, right? Or 25?Ade: I am 25.Zach: Congratulations on turning 25.Ade: 25.Zach: I was gonna say--I was in the middle of my shout-outs and my thanks before you rudely called me old. So my grandmother-in-law and then my wife made some incredible bread pudding. She made bread pudding with crossiants and then didn't use buttermilk for the cream, instead used--what'd she use? Egg nog just because she ran out of butter and was like, "Eh, it's kind of the same." That egg nog was HITTING. I said, "Yo, what is this?" I mean, it got ate up. Shout-out to my sister-in-law Holly. She made some incredible mac 'n cheese. And Holly--listen, man, shout-out to Holly, man. She is cool people. Sister-in-law, you know? I definitely consider her a Bucky, you know what I'm saying, in this space of allyship and war and fighting for equity and justice for underrepresented people. And you know how I know Holly is an ally? And I haven't told her this, so if she listens to this podcast it'll be her first time hearing this. [Ade laughs] I knew that she was an ally--first of all she's an ally off top, 'cause, I mean, come on. She's been down. She's been doing this. But a reminder of her allyship--'cause this is not the determinant, 'cause she's be an ally off of a bunch of other stuff--a reminder of her allyship, she was making macaroni and cheese, and she baked the macaroni and cheese, and I said, "I knew it, dawg. I knew it." Ade: [laughs] I...Zach: No, let me tell you something. She has never--she has yet to let me down. She holds it down, bro. She holds it down. Ade: You are so incredibly canceled. I can't.Zach: [laughing] Shout-out to Holly, my sister-in-law. Shout-out to all of my allies out there. And if you call yourself an ally and you're not baking your macaroni and cheese, you are not an ally, dawg.Ade: We don't know you in these streets.Zach: We do not know you in these streets if you do not bake your macaroni and cheese. Bake it. It is not done until it's baked.Ade: Because I don't--what are you doing? You are serving undercooked food.Zach: What are you doing here? What are you doing here? You're giving me these wet, hot noodles? Bake it.Ade: That don't even sound right.Zach: It don't. How something wet hot--come on, relax. So anyway, but man, let me tell you something. The highlight, from a cuisine perspective, was when my uncle Marvin brought in these pecan candies. My goodness. Listen, I said [blessings come in sfx]. Boy, the bless--boy, ooh. Too good.Ade: [laughing] What is your problem? Man.Zach: Bro. Man, let me tell you something. And everybody got their own little bag. Handed me that bag, I said [Kawhi what it do baby sfx, laughing]Ade: All right. So you are just starting 2020 off on all types of foolishness. All right, heard you.Zach: Listen, man, I'm over here--I'm so excited, 'cause you ain't been around for a while, but see, since you've been gone, we've been using this soundboard. And I'ma share the soundboard--Ade: I can tell.Zach: Oh, listen. The soundboard is heat rock. [owww sfx] You know? I just really enjoy it quite a bit. So let me think about this. You still haven't talked about the food that you ate.Ade: Oh, yeah. I have been really on, like, a smoky kick lately, so I had, like--I made macaroni and cheese but with all smoked cheeses, and it was just--Zach: 'Cause you like cheese like that. We talked about this. Like, were you just introduced to cheese recently?Ade: Yes, I was very, very recently, like a year ago, introduced to cheese. I have discovered that I'm still quite lactose intolerant. Like, my ancestors were not with the lactose tip, but you know what? I'ma take my chances. I had my smoked mac 'n cheese, and I had it with the best collard greens I've ever made in all of my life. When I drizzled that little bit of just maple syrup right on it with that smoked turkey stock, I was just kind of like...Zach: Goodness, gracious!Ade: God loves me.Zach: Oh, He does. That's true.Ade: Like, this is--this is proof of the existence of the divine, and that dude loves me--or dudette, you know? Non-binary--Zach: Yes. You know, it's funny because, you know, you and I are sitting here, right? It was a crazy year. A lot of stuff going on. You know, things that we can share in time throughout Season 3. We're talking about physical health, mental health, emotional health, financial health, right? Career personal or professional development. It's interesting because, like--I don't know, man, and I'm kind of jumping all around 'cause I'm so excited. I'm excited for you to be here, but I'm excited just to, like, kick off this season, and so, like, this is, like, a loosey--like, we don't have a formatted, you know, interview or anything like that. We're just chopping it up, welcoming Ade back all the way, but I don't know, man. It's just been a lot, and it's just interesting because we were creating content for Living Corporate, and at the same time we were--you know, it was helping us while we were helping other people, you know what I'm saying? So let's do this. Like we said before, you have something that you already had, like, created and recorded that I think would be really helpful for us to put in on this episode, so why don't we talk a little bit about that and then we'll transition to that?Ade: Awesome.Zach: So talk to me about, like, what was it? Like, I know we talked about--like, your journey, you've had some updates in your life and what you've been doing professionally and personally. Like, what was it that we're gonna be listening to in a minute?Ade: Yep. I'm just gonna take a sip of my mimosa, because I just feel really good about where I am right now spiritually, so...Zach: There you go.Ade: [clears throat] La la la la. All right, y'all. So your girl is officially a junior software engineer. [champagne popping sfx] Pop! [laughs] Yeah, no. I started my new position as a junior software engineer, and it's honestly been surreal, my entire experience. I applied for a job, got a call back almost instantaneously. So I made it through the first call, the phone screening with the recruiter, and then I had a technical interview, and then I had an in-person interview that was also sort of technical, and then I had a job offer. And all of that took the span of a week and a half. I literally applied to the job on a Wednesday. The Friday after that--like, the week after that, on Friday, I had the job offer in my hand, and I actually had a competing job offer to move to Boston at the time. So it was--it honestly was an incredibly surreal experience. I went from there were days I would literally wake up to, like, five, six, seven, eight letters of rejection in my email first thing in the morning, and I would like to kind of explore a little bit further the toll that job searching takes on your mental health, because there's--there were certainly days when I would literally just feel dejected. In a society where you are kind of graded--not just graded, your worth is judged off of, you know, in relation to you and relation to your humanity, how much are you worth within a capitalistic system? And my job at the time was incredibly toxic. I felt dejected pretty much every single day waking up, but that wasn't the end of it, and I am so glad it wasn't. And it was, you know, thanks to people like you, people like my best friend Kendall, people like Liz, who really, like, affirmed me, because I have a tendency to internalize situations and, you know, look for ways in which these things were my fault. And I remember even having a conversation with Liz where she literally said, "These are all symptoms of an emotionally abusive relationship," and I'm like, "How do you have an emotionally abusive relationship with your job?" [laughs] But that's entirely real. It's a real thing, and just being able to step back from all of that and literally, like, wash my hands off at the end of the year and never have to speak to those people again or never have to be in a situation in which I feel as though I'm compromising my mental health for the sake of I have to take care of my family and I have to protect what's mine... yeah, you guys are gonna hear a whole lot more of that as the episode continues, but I'm nothing short of eternally grateful for the fact that 2019 is over, but it's over and I took it like a G. Zach: Yo, and shout-out to you for that. [both laugh] Yo, 2019 was hard.Ade: 2019 whooped my ass, okay? But you know what? I whooped it back.Zach: Listen, 2019 was--2019 was coming from your boy's neck, okay? It was like, "We're coming for you, sucka." It's like, "My gosh, leave me alone, 2019. What y'all doing?" But you're right though, and you know what? Look, it's a new year.Ade: Yep. New me.Zach: Yeah, it's a new year. New spaces, new mindsets. You know, new opportunities and just space to reset and really get bcak on it, right? Like, I'm hoping that most of us were able to take some time away for the holidays so we could come back at least somewhat refreshed for a new year, a new decade. You know, a lot of people have been saying new decade and stuff, but let's just take every day as a blessing that it's a new day, right? Like, you may not see 2030, right? But you have--if you're listening to this right now, you have this day today. And so just being excited about that. Let's see here. We're gonna transition over there. Before we do that, Ade, is there anything else that we need to talk about?Ade: I do want to make a quick note about--so we're currently in a time of upheaval. I'm not gonna make too much reference to that, I just want to kind of make the point--well, two points, one that we don't lose sight of humanity as a whole in trying to protect our daily reality, and two that you don't let whatever's happening in the news cycle sway you off of the intentions that you've set for this year. You set those intentions for a reason. You set those goals, whatever that you did, for a reason, and hopefully you are recognizing all the ways in which the news cycle could be causing any number of anxious or negative thoughts or anything like that, but I do want you to be able to step back, and by you I mean the entire Living Corporate family. Be able to recognize when you are stuck in a feedback loop of negative thoughts, negative news, negative content, and kind of find your way back to your center, because as long as there is a world out there, there is always going to be negativity to feed into, but don't let your 2020 start off with that. We literally just kicked 2019's butt. 2020, let's focus more on our communities. Let's focus on our mental health and smashing our goals.Zach: Yo, amen to that, you know what I'm saying? Like, I super agree. [Ade snapping in the background, laughing] And, you know, I think what you're speaking to also is, like--so you talked about upheaval. That reminds me of two things. One, I just read this article--and I'll put it in the show notes--called Democracy Grief is Real, and it's an opinion piece from the New York Times, which is, like--we can talk about the New York Times at a separate time, but this particular piece was very good, and just talking about the toll, the mental and emotional toll, that the world's events has taken on you. Like, just being more and more aware of, like, systemic injustices, oppression and, like, blatant unethical behaviors, like, just the impact that it has on you just living, right? Just you seeing that, what does it do to you? And I think, you know, to that point, like, I'm really excited because this season, we're gonna be talking about real structural inequity. We're gonna be talking about--like, we're really gonna be calling out white supremacy and patriarchy and privilege and access and holding people, institutions of power, to account when it comes to how they can better support and create more equitable places for black and brown folks, for underrrepresented folks, for non- straight white able-bodied men to work and to exist and to live, you know? I think 2020 is gonna be a really interesting decade in that you have, like--I think that there's a certain level of consciousness that, like, people are waking up to. I don't think there's gonna be some great revival or anything like that, so don't misquote me, but I do think that, like, certain things are coming to a head. I do think that, like, when you talk about diversity, equity and inclusion work, there just is gonna be less and less space for, like, the corporatized, white-washed talk tracks that we typically hear. I think that--I just don't see those things surviving. I think that, like, technology and just access is changing for black and brown folks to the point where--and this generation, like, they're just not gonna stay. Like, they're just not gonna stay and put up with being mistreated. And we've seen it already. Like, we've seen it. First of all, this is not a new phenomenon. We've seen this since--we've seen this from the jump, for black folks at least, but just for all oppressed groups in America, eventually there's going to be resistance, and I just think that that's bubbling up into these very, like, corporate spaces too, and so I'm excited because some of the guests that we have this season are really gonna be getting into that, really giving, like, really honest and approachable at the same time advice on what leaders can be doing to either disrupt or dismantle systems that have historically disadvantaged black and brown folks, underrepresented folks, and I'm just really excited about that. Like, we had a few people hit me up last season, Ade, like, kind of salty about, like, the content.Ade: Really?Zach: Yeah, just a little bit. Like, just a little.Ade: Why though?Zach: Why? Well, they were like--they just felt like some of it was a little too--a little too honest, a little too black, you know what I'm saying? But--Ade: May I address that real quick?Zach: Go ahead. [laughing] Ade: Ah, let me lubricate my throat. [clears throat] ~Kick rocks.~Zach: [laughs] There are folks who want to do diversity, equity and inclusion, but they're trying to figure out a way to do it without, like, offending white folks or offending the people in the majority, so--Ade: Which I don't understand. I don't believe your sincerity as someone who professes that--and I recently saw a tweet, and I wish I could quote my source, but I saw someone say "Switch the D in DE&I from Diversity to Decolonization."Zach: Oooooooh! Ade: Fire.Zach: That--wait, hold--what? Yo, that is--Ade: Fire. Fire.Zach: No, that is--[Flex bomb sfx] That is fiiiiiiiireeeee. Are you kidding me? [air horns sfx] Switch the D from diversity to decolonization?Ade: Bro, it literally changed for me the entire framework of DE&I, because if you were taking a liberation stance within the context of what a workplace environment needs to be, you are approaching that from the context of not only do we not care about your discomfort, we're actually actively pursuing your discomfort because your discomfort is where your decolonization lies. Like, that's where you're going to address all of the biases you have that you've had the privilege thus far of not having to confront. And not even your biases, but we're, like, actively taking back space from you and giving voice to the people that have been deliberately silenced in these spaces. So again, the reason I say kick rocks is because, I mean, we're decolonizing this space. This is a decolonized space, my accent aside, so we're really not--[both laughing] Inside joke. So as far as I'm concerned, like, there's no such thing as prioritizing the feelings of the oppressor over the oppressed. And yes, by default, if you are not the oppressed, you are the oppressor. That's--Zach: And this is a binary that we actually accept on Living Corporate, you know what I'm saying? You know, we affirm LGBTQIA+ identity, right? You know what I'm saying? We had content last season about being non-binary. Yo, that's great though. I'm trying to find this tweet that you said. If you just made that up it's still fire, but--Ade: I swear I saw it on Twitter.Zach: It's just a great quote. I love that. I love that. But no, you're absolutely right, and I think it's interesting because when you hear some of the episodes--when y'all hear some of the episodes that, like, we have this upcoming season, it's all about, like--like, these are people who are CEOs of, like, diversity, equity and inclusion firms. Like, they're consultants. They're executives. And I'm noticing there are certain, like, benchmarks around, like--you can kind of tell, like, kind of just where people are, but most people tie the diversity--they tie equity to justice, right? Like, when you talk about the true DE&I work in this space, it's all about justice, and it's interesting because I've seen, like, executives of, like, major corporations talk about--there was a recent article from Harvard Business Review about creating, like, black equity at work, and I was like, "Look, y'all are retweeting that. Consider what this means before y'all start saying you want equity at work." Equity at work means, like, a certain level of, like, right-sizing (?) and really, like, restorative behaviors that, like, America hasn't even, like, grasped onto yet. So, like, the concept of equity when it's truly driven to, like, its--like, when it's really grasped is, like, radical. Like, that's a radical thing to propose, and it would disrupt and disassemble so many things that have been longstanding, that have been comforting, to those in the majority, and so anyway... my whole point is that, like, I'm looking forward to, like, scaring myself with the content that we're putting out this season. I don't want to make--I don't want to pull any punches. I'm just excited about this season. So if you're listening to this and you're passionate about being seen, being heard, you're underrepresented, or you're an advocate, an ally of the underrepresented at work, and you'd like to journey with us, you'd like to be on the show with us, just contact us through the website. I guess that's it, you know? What we're gonna do now is we'll pivot over to Ade's recording that she had, and this was last year, so if you hear any references that's what that's about, but we're really excited for y'all to check that out. Ade, any parting words before we transition up out of here?Ade: No, let's just, in 2020, resolve to live our best lives, and I mean that in, like, the healthiest way possible. I've been guilty of using that phrase to justify the worst of my excesses [?] in the past, and no promises that I won't do so again in 2020, but let's resolve to, you know, prioritize our health, and our mental health in particular, and, you know, check in on your friends, because many, many, many of your friends are having a difficult time and don't know how to say it, but I believe in the power of community, and I believe that we as a whole are capable of holding each other accountable, yes, but also really uplifting each other in ways that are awesome to behold. And I do mean that in the old school awesome--shout-out to Zach, you know, reviving the meanings of old words, but... [both laughing] Old school awesome in that, like, awe-inspiring [way]. But yeah, you're listening to Living Corporate, y'all. [both laughing] Peace.Zach: All right, y'all. Welcome to Season 3. Hope y'all stay around. Excited for y'all to come on this audio adventure with us this year, and we'll catch y'all, shoot, next week. Peace.Ade: What's up, y'all? This is Ade. I just wanted to pop my head back in. It's been a very, very long time since I've been around, and it's been intentional. It was an intentional break. I had to--this has been a very difficult year for me, but also one of the best years of my life. I had to take a step back from a lot of things and really reassess, you know, my journey, my progress, and really where I'm trying to go with my life. That sounds like a lot. Good news, bad news. Bad news is, you know, I turned 25 and I still don't know what I'm doing. [laughs] I still don't truly know the meaning of life, my life, but, you know, it's cool. I'm still defining that, building my parachute on the way down. Good news. Remember when I said I wanted to be an engineer? I did it! I got an official offer, and I will be starting in my role very, very soon. Your girl is officially a full stock software engineer - junior software engineer, but a software engineer nonetheless, and I just kind of wanted to share what went into all of this. It's been nearly two years. Actually, it's been two years since I decided that I was gonna do this, and it's been I think the hardest thing I've ever done, and this episode is all about telling you how and why. This is Ade, and you're listening to Living Corporate. In order to be successful, I have distilled all of the things that I've learned down to three key ingredients - grit, faith, and humor. So many of you have been following this podcast for a while, and you might not know, me, since I've been gone for such a long time, you may not know why I am where I am and what led me to deciding that I was gonna become a software engineer, and the story I always tell is that, you know, on the eve of my 23rd birthday I wrote 23 promises to myself, and the very first one was that I was gonna learn a new skill and I'd learn how to code. What a lot of you don't know is that the reason I even got there in the first place is because I went through a really, really bad break-up--and this is gonna be, like, super vulnerable, and I am not gonna make eye contact with anybody who listens to this for, like, a solid year, because I don't bare my soul this often. [laughs] Yeah, so I went through a really bad break-up, and it had me questioning, you know, myself, my self-worth, whether I was a good person, and it really, like, shook me to my core, and in the midst of this break-up, right before my birthday, I had gone to a workshop called Hear Me Code. It's an organization now semi-defunct, but it's led by a lady named Shannon Turner, who takes an afternoon and just teaches a whole bunch of women the basics of Python. And there are three levels. There's Level 1, which is what I found myself in, and then you have Level 2, who are people who have already been to Level 1 who have the fundamentals and are trying to get a little bit better, and then you have Level 3, which is people who have been to both Level 1 and 2 or are more intermediate programmers and are, like, [?] projects and all of that, all of the other fun stuff. Now, into this little story is where I find myself. I went to this thing. I had dropped out of grad school. I was, again, in the middle of this, like, super toxic break-up, and I just needed to feel good about myself, and so I decided, "You know what? I'm gonna be spontaneous and I'm gonna do this thing." And I had this old rinky-dink laptop. It took, like, 15 minutes to get started. And I didn't know a thing about anything. My whole life up until this point had been political science and sociology and philosophy, and I consider myself a relatively cerebral person, but, like, not smart. Like, I was not--I didn't consider myself in any way technical. I avoided math like my life depended on not knowing what, like, algebra was. It really--I defined myself as a person who was incapable of doing certain things, and programming would be one of those things, and so in this time when I found myself and my definition of myself unraveling, I needed to know that I was still capable of finding joy in the little things. So I went to this workshop, and I loved it. Like, my computer couldn't, like, do anything, so I actually found myself on a website called Repl.it, and it's basically, like, an online environment where you can write code and run it and see it work, and you don't necessarily need to have, like, mastery over your terminal, you don't need to concern yourself with anything that's going on on the backend. You can literally just, like, print "hello world," and it'll print hello world, and it is a magical, magical place. And this was important because first it showed me the value of creating. Never considered myself a creative, but being able to be in a space where I was literally, like, forming whole things and commanding the computer to do something and it did it, I felt powerful. I felt like a magician. I thought, "You know what? I'm gonna learn how to code," but then my computer died and I packed that up, and I didn't really pick up programming again for several months after and then came the end of October. I had, you know, moved out of my apartment at the time. Again, this, like, really, really scary thing had happened to me with my ex, and I had moved home, and I felt like a failure, and I was, like, laying in a sleeping bag next to my mom's bed, and I was up all night just, like, writing these promises to myself. I had sourced promises from other people, but the very first thing I could recall thinking was, like, "I want to be better. I want to be a better version of myself, and the gap between who I am now and the best version of myself can be bridged. I know it." So I thought "You know what? I'm gonna challenge myself. I'm gonna make these promises, and I'm going to keep t hem, and I'm going to find 24-year-old Ade to be a better version than 23-year-old Ade, period. No questions about it. I'm not doing this again." So I wrote those promises and I asked the people I love to hold me to them, and in the next year I moved out--like, I think three weeks after that I found another apartment, moved out to Alexandria, found a job that I really liked, and it all seemed to be coming together, but then my computer, the old rinky-dink computer, just died, and I didn't have a whole lot of, like, personal time, so programming just kind of went by the wayside. Like, I would pick it up every once in a while, and I would complete a couple of sessions or a couple of lessons, and that'd be that, but then I applied for this Udacity scholership and I got it, which, if you know anything about me it's that, like, I really don't win things very often, which goes into the narrative that you tell yourself about yourself, right? About whether or not you're a winner or whether or not you're deserving, whether or not, like, this life thing is a thing that you can succeed at. And, like, as a side-bar, negative self-talk has been a thing for me as long as I can remember. I have never been the sort of person who wakes up in the morning and is like, "You can do this. You're amazing. You're awesome. You can take anything that life throws at you," etc. A. I'm not a morning person, so, like, don't talk to me until 11:00 a.m., and B. I just never had the voices in my head that were, like, super positive. Like, all the voices in my head were kind of assholes. Sorry to whoever's listening to this and doesn't like bad words, but they were, and so throughout this process I've actually learned that, like, affirmations are a huge, huge, huge thing for your mental health, and it's something that I incorporate now into, like, my life. Like, affirmations. You need to hear yourself speaking well of yourself to yourself, and if you take nothing else from this podcast, take that. So we're back in, what is this, 2018? Yeah. Is it 2018? I don't think it's 2018. What is this, 2019? The years melt together. Yeah, it is 2018 actually. So in 2018 I have this fantastic job, friends, and I meet somebody new, and everything is going swimmingly, but I'm not truly, like, learning at the pace that I should be, so I'm going to tell you about the very first mistake that I think I made out of--the biggest mistake I made, not the very first one, because whoo, there were many. There were many, they were varied, and they were huge. Now the very first mistake I made was that I let myself get distracted. Life is not a distraction. Joy is not a distraction. Being social, letting yourself love and be love is not a distraction. What is a distraction is when you create a goal for yourself and you do not take the necessary steps in order to get there. Now, there were times throughout this journey--and anybody who knows me can attest to this--where I'd work a full work day and I'd come home and work until 2, 3, 4, 5:00 a.m. in the morning even studying, or I'd wake up at 2:00 a.m. and study all the way through, get dressed, go to work, come back home, continue studying. And I'm not saying that that's something that you have to do, I'm just saying that it's what I did. Then there were days where for, like, weeks at a time, I would not pick up a book. I would not open my Udacity course. None of those things. And allowing yourself to be distracted in that way is doing yourself a disservice, not only because your brain relies on consistency--like, you literally need consistency in order to get anywhere, right? Like, sometimes we have this fantasy in our heads that, like, we're smart, so all it'll take is, like, the movie montage of, like, a week of studying something, then you'll be perfect at it. But if you've ever heard of the tale of 10,000 hours, like... Lebron James and Gordon Ramsey and Insert Person Who Has A Mastery Of Their Art Here didn't get where they got because they put in a week of work. It required constant effort and practice to attain perfection, and allowing myself to get distracted was so much more detrimental than the times in which I would go at something for hours at a time, simply because during the distractions are where your negative self-talk becomes the loudest, right? Like, when the voices in your head that are telling you you're not capable of doing it, in that lull, that's when they seem right, right? Like, you don't do something correctly and you say, "Oh, my God. I'm never gonna amount to this lofty goal that I set for myself," right? Then you procrastinate and then you walk away, and now you have one more goal unfulfilled. So if you take, yet again, nothing else from this podcast, consistency is key. So if you remember at the beginning of this conversation I said "grit, faith, and humor." So grit is the concept that you are persistent, that you allow yourself to fail and you pick yourself up and you keep going. Actually, over the course of my studies I developed a mantra for myself because it got to be almost crippling, this fear that I had of failing, so I'm gonna read it to you guys. I hope it's helpful. I hope you guys like it. So here's my mantra: "This is why I'm here. I like succeeding at the difficult things. I like the win. I like the burning in my lungs and the adrenaline in my veins. I like the view from the top of the mountain and knowing I conquered. I am not a quitter. I do not lose. I will not be defeated by the gaps in my knowledge. I will not be defined by what I cannot do. I believe in my ability to make sense and wholeness out of the things that are new and scary. I will not be ruled by fear. Ever." There were days where I would write that mantra out to myself over and over and over again on a pen and a pad of paper. I would type that out before I got started sometimes on my lessons. I would read it over and over and over at myself in the mirror. Because fundamentally, this thing that I'm doing where I'm trying to, like, shift the course of my life--and it felt like the weight of my whole family was on my shoulders--that's scary. It's intimidating. If you don't have grit, it might crush you. And that goes for literally anything. For those of us who are underrepresented minorities, who are first-gen, who are the first in our families to attain a certain level of success, you know how scary that success is and the bare-knuckled grit that you have on everything to make sure that nothing falls and nothing fails. You have to let go of that. That fear is only keeping you from being the best version of yourself. By the way, this whole process didn't turn me into, like, a motivational speaker either. So [laughs] if you want to, like, skip through half of this, that's totally okay. I'm not taking offense. All right, so I told you why you need grit. Now why do you need faith? Faith got me through the worst of what grit couldn't. After I got to a place where, you know, I had done all of the things that people say that you need to do--you learn the fundamentals, and then you learn the framework, then you build projects, build more projects, build a portfolio, build more projects--after I did all that I started applying. I applied to internships. I applied to externships. I applied to jobs in Poland. I applied to jobs in Iceland. I applied to jobs that would require me to live in places where it's -20 degrees on a regular-degular-schmegular day, and I don't know if you know me, but I'm African, and we don't do that. [laughs] And every single time I got, like, a "No, thank you. Sorry, but no thank you. We have decided to move on to other candidates at this time. Best of luck." One that actually really shattered me--I got all the way through a lot of the screening questions, and this company that shall not be named sent me a link to a personality quiz. And I took it. I was like, "Okay, cool. Whatever." And then they sent me an email back like, "Sorry, your personality is not best-suited for my company." I'm like, "Wow. My whole personality, fam? My whole personality is not best-suited to be a software engineer? Bet." But I had faith, right? Like, you reach a plateau once you have done the work and you've put in the effort and you've put in your blood, sweat, and tears--I actually bled once. Long story. Don't want to talk about it. [laughs]--and yes, there were lots and lots of tears, but once you get there there's a certain faith that you have, right? And it helps when you have people around you who keep you keeping the faith. For me, I had my best friend. My best friend is also a self-taught developer, and it's really uncanny, but we're the same person. He has, like, 8 years on me, but we are genuinely, like, the same person. It is so odd. We have the exact same reactions to things, the same mentality, but he's a better version, right? Like, he's had 8 years to hone his craft. And the level of dedication and will that he showed, I had to level up. I had to match that level of intensity, and when I ever felt like I couldn't do it, he always came through with a pep talk. Before my very last interview where I got this position, I will never forget. I was on my way to my interview, and he literally said, "You're not looking for a job to be a developer. You are a developer. You're just looking for a chance to prove it." And that confidence I think showed up in my interview, because I have never spoken so confidently about MPC controllers. [laughs] I've never spoken so confidently about use-state hooks in my life. And that faith that I had that everything was gonna work out, I keep that still, right? Like, ever since I got the position, I've had the recurring thoughts of "What if I get there and I flame out? What if they rescind their offer three days before I get there?" You know, any number of, like, worst-case scenarios, and I now have this new voice--super quiet, but it's there--that's saying, "Bro, you'll be okay. The same way you got that job is the same way that if anything happens to that job you'll get another, because you've done the work. You've done the work and you've gotten this far. Doesn't matter what anybody else says now." So last thing you'll need is a sense of humor. You may have heard me chuckling a few times, and that's because I remember the number of days where I literally would have to get up in the middle of my studies and have a dance break. I would reward myself with dance breaks, whether or not my code was actually working, because I felt that because all of this was so heavy and because I needed to tap into my, like, inner wells of grit and strength that I did not have before I started this process--trust me, I was a wilting flower in the sun before any of this got started, and I'm still a wilting flower in the sun in a lot of ways, but--levity and humor are so underrated, because it literally lightens your spirit, right? Like, finding a way to find a way to laugh will take you far, not only because it shows that, like, you're still here, like, the core of your personality has not changed, it also shows that, like, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. You might feel like you're going through the crucible of your life at this point, but at the end of it life is still what you make it, right? And I just laugh through things. I choose to find the levity and find the joy and find the light and hold onto it, and that's all I'm gonna say about that. In whatever ways you find humor and find joy, I encourage you to hold onto that. So now some actionable tips, because I've just been giving you the feels. [laughs] Some real things that you can actually do if you want to be a developer. #1: Set a goal. That was the very first mistake that I made. I said, "I want to learn how to code." I didn't say, "I want to learn how to be a front-end developer or a back-end developer or a full-stack developer or a DevOps engineer." If you don't know what any of those things are, good. Go look them up. Anybody these days who asks me how they can break into tech, how they can learn how to code, how any of those things, the very first thing you need to do is define your goal, set it, and then develop your roadmap, because otherwise you are literally going to be twisting in the wind because you have no idea where you're going. There's nothing worse than a nebulous understanding of what you want. If you start a journey, you have to know where you're going. I mean, sure, you can do what I did and, like, get in the car and say, "I want to go somewhere," and, like, find yourself stranded in the middle of Oklahoma... but, like, I wouldn't advise that. Don't do that. Do it the smart way. Define what you actually want to do. Sometimes you might, like, look up what front-end developers do and be like, "Yeaaaaaaaah, no. How about I go into cybersecurity?" Like, it's an entire about-face, which is why you need to--it's a good thing to do to define the parameters. It also helps you know when you have succeeded, right? A lot of the fear that I had when I first started to apply to positions was that, like, I don't know that I'm a developer yet, right? I don't know that I'm good enough to apply to places, and that's because I never defined for myself what it means to be good enough to apply to places, right? There are places that will take you when you are, like, an unformed ball of Play-Do and fashion a developer out of you, and then there are places that want you to show up as Michelangelo's David and then, and only then, will they give you a position in the company, and then there are places that are vastly varied in-between and you have to figure out what it means to, like, throw your dart at one of those places in-between or, you know, whatever end of the spectrum you want to live in, and know that you're able to get into those doors. Set a goal. #2: It is okay to reassess or change your mind. When I first got started, I said, "I'm gonna be a front-end developer." Actually, no, I said, "I'm gonna be a full-stack developer," and then I said, "I want to be a blockchain engineer." And then I said, "I don't want to do this at all actually. Never mind. I change my mind." And then I said, "You know what? Being a full-stack engineer sounds good. How about I do that?" You can do that, just make sure it all goes back to #1. Make sure that once you've changed your mind, once you've reassessed, once you've course-corrected, you still set a goal and define for yourself what it means to have reached it. Cool. #3: Learn from others. I cannot stress this enough. Learn from others. Learn. Learn from others. Quick ASMR for your head top. Learn from others. It's important. A. This is an industry, tech in general, that is far more collaborative than you might think it is. If the idea you have of hackers in your head is the person who's, like, in a basement somewhere and frantically, like, typing on their keyboard and I don't understand how they haven't broken their keyboard, but they're frantically typing and you see a whole bunch of, like, green letters and numbers on their screen, and it's great, and then, like, five seconds after they stop typing--[Ade types frantically]--"Got it! I'm in." Yeah, no. That's... no. If I'm typing that furiously, it's because I'm looking around on StackOverflow trying to figure out where I went wrong. There are whole communities on Reddit, StackOverflow, Free Code Camp, which are geared towards helping you not sit and look for six hours for an answer to a question that 100 million people have also spent six hours searching for an answer to. Like, you literally can go to StackOverflow or, like, type out whatever your error is, and then at the end of your error type "StackOverflow," and I can almost guarantee you--like, you're not the first person to break whatever it is that you broke. There is nothing new under the sun. Maybe a new language, maybe a new framework, maybe a new whatever, but there is something that is so new that somebody else hasn't thought about it, asked that question and probably solved it. So yeah, allow the successes and failures of others to help inform you. Learning from others is not just about being online. Part of the thing that helped me, I went to meet-ups. I actually briefly served as an organizer for Black Code Collective, which, like, will forever have my heart. Women Who Code, [?]. There's so many different meet-ups. And, you know, D.C.'s not unique in having those organizations. They're all over. Go to meetup.com, as long as it exists, and look for those communities near you, and be intentional about the workshops that you go to, the people that you meet, because those networks are also important. You do not have the luxury, if you're a self-taught developer, of sitting back and waiting for the universe to, like, drop knowledge or networks or contacts or jobs into your lap. You have to do the legwork of developing and building those communities for yourself, which brings me to my final point. Standing on the shoulders of giants still requires you to do the work. I'm gonna repeat that because I kind of said it fast. Standing on the shoulders of giants still requires you to do the work. One more time for those in the back. Standing on the shoulders of giants still requires you to do the work. You have to do the work. There are no shortcuts through it. I'm not one of those people that, like, tells you, "You have to work 50, 60 hour weeks in order to get where I am." I'm telling you what I did. But there's something universal about what anybody else has done. You have to do the work. We all have done the work. We're going to continue doing the work, because this is not an industry that stagnates. I'm sure whatever I learned back in 2018--I mean, literally, what I learned in 2018 about React has changed because of React Hooks. So I don't know what to tell you. You have to do the work. There's nobody who's gonna, like, come and crack your skull open and dump all that there is to know about programming in your head or whatever it is that you want to study, whether you want to be, like, in cybersecurity, you want to be a PIN tester, you want to be a cloud engineer, cloud architect. None of those things are going to happen unless you do the work. You have to do the work, and for those of us--this is a part that I hate having to say, but for those of us who are underrepresented minorities, you will hear people say "Take shots that mediocre white men will take," because, you know, "They're a mediocre white man and they'll take it, so why can't you?" I'm not saying you can't. I'm saying that you have to pull up to those rooms as the person that you are because they will check you in ways that they won't check the mediocre white man. If there are gaps in your knowledge, that's something that a weekend of studying can fix. You cannot allow there to be gaps in your will. You cannot allow there to be gaps in your faith in yourself. Well, yeah, that comes right back to the very first thing that I mentioned - grit, faith, and humor. You cannot allow there to be gaps in any of those things. I hope this helped. I am also gonna be writing a thread about this later on. There's a thread out there, it's called #30DaysOfThreads, and I'm probably gonna be contributing to that hashtag just to share more concretely some of the tools, some of the resources that I've used, so I look forward to sharing some of that information with y'all. I really hoped that this helped and I wasn't just, like, ranting for no reason. [laughs] Which I've been known to do, and I hope that, for those of you who are going on a similar journey--and this has been pretty tech-specific thus far, but people do career pivots in any sort of direction, right? Like, there are people who are pivoting from having a 9-to-5 to being an entrepreneur, and I think there's some things that are universal. If you are pivoting from being a banker to being a teacher, there's some things that are universal. You are going to need grit. You are going to need faith. You are going to need humor. Maybe that should be the title of the show, I don't know. [laughs] All right, that's it from me. Thank you for listening. The Living Corporate family has been incredibly supportive. I want to thank Zach in particular for not giving up on me, because somewhere between all of those months--I think there were months at a time that I gave up on myself, and it showed, [laughs] but we're here now. I also want to give a quick shout-out to my grandma, who died I think two weeks before--was it two weeks? Yeah, two weeks before I actually got this position, and now I'm gonna be a little teary on the mic. Like I said, 2019 was a hard one, but... I come from a very long line of powerful, intelligent, capable women, and she was one of those, and the world is a slightly dimmer place without her, but... I gained an angel, and there's nothing more empowering than knowing that you did this thing, turned everything around for yourself, and being able to, like, look up and say, "I did it, and I know that she saw it." Okay, I'm gonna stop now. I've been, like, more vulnerable in this I want to say 40+ minutes than I've been in, like, a year, so this is my dose of vulnerability and realness. I'm gonna go back to masking my vulnerability with many, many things that I'm not gonna be discussing on this podcast. [laughs] All right, I'm gonna go. Thank you so much for listening, for your support, for your guidance, for your prayers. This has been Ade. You've been listening to Living Corporate. Peace!

Zach sits down with Nap Bar founder Khaliah Guillory to discuss the concept of being well-rested at work. They also talk about the genesis of the Nap Bar and the workforce of the future. Additionally, Khaliah shares a few interesting statistics relating to the topic.Check out the Nap Bar! Connect with them on their socials here: LinkedIn, Twitter, IG, FacebookConnect with Khaliah on a variety of platforms! LinkedIn, Twitter, IG, FacebookRead the WSJ article mentioned on the show!TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate. Now, look, check it out. Y'all know how we do, okay? We have real talk in a corporate world. We try to center the experiences of black and brown voices and identities in the workplace, and we do that by talking about evergreen topics, but we just want to make sure that we're talking about them from a non-white point of view. So that's where you got me, you got Ade, and of course you have our guests, and who would we be if we didn't have a great guest today like we always do? Khaliah Guillory. Khaliah, welcome to the show. How are you doing?Khaliah: Yo. What's going on, Zach? Thank you so much for having me on. I'm absolutely honored to be here with the Living Corporate crew. Thank you for the invite.Zach: Oh, no, no, no. Thank you. Thank you very much. Now, look, for those of us who don't know you, would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself?Khaliah: Sure. So I am a lover of humanity. Love me some people. I love to connect with people. I love '80s music. I have it on rotation, in the catalog, on a regular basis. I am absolutely obsessed with sunglasses, watches, and socks. If I could get away with just wearing that all day, especially in Houston in the middle of summer, I would. Zach: Wait a minute. Hold up now. [sound effect]Khaliah: Oh, we're gonna have so much fun. And I--you know, that's what I do, and I always like to lead with who I am from a personality standpoint. And the meaning of my name means Chosen One, because that ties into what I do. I think sometimes and often times we get caught up into what we do and we think that's who we are, but if we don't lead with who we are, then how can we really be able to connect the dots to understand what we do? So, like, I mentioned my name is Khaliah Oni Guillory, and that means "The Chosen One," and I have chosen to transition from a C-level executive position at a Fortune 500 company as of November 18th of 2018 to really solve the 411 billion--yeah, I said a b--billion dollar U.S. economic loss that the U.S. suffered due to sleep deprivation. Zach, just guess how many days that was. If you equated--I know you've got a consultant brain, so if you can quantify how many days--working days that is--how many would you guess it was?Zach: You said 400 billion?Khaliah: Uh-huh, with a b.Zach: Hours?Khaliah: Days.Zach: Days.Khaliah: How many days?Zach: I don't know. Like, maybe 7--500. 700. 700's my final answer.Khaliah: Try 1.2 million. 1.2 million days Americans called off because they were tired and they were sleep deprivedZach: Now, look here, y'all, I don't want y'all judging me for that terrible math, okay? I'm a change management consultant. I have Excel and other tools to help do the math for me, and--Khaliah: You've gotta use your tools. You've gotta use your tools.Zach: You know, 'cause you asked me on the spot. I kind of halfway understood the question. I'm excited. You know, I've got all the energy around me. Y'all don't be judging me. Sound Man, keep this in. Don't this edit either. I want y'all to see me in my--you know what I'm saying, my vulnerability, okay?Khaliah: Listen, that's what it's about, man. That's what it's about, but look, you jumped out there. You were close.Zach: I was not at all close. I said 700, and I didn't understand the question. You looking at me talking about [sound effect]. I'm like--you said 1.3 milly.Khaliah: 1.2. Zach: Oh, my goodness. And see, I'm wrong again. But anyway--Khaliah: It was probably 700 in a small town like Sugarland. Boom. See? See how we just changed the narrative? You've just gotta change that narrative.Zach: Okay. So okay, look, all the jokes aside, give us the stat again. Give us the stat again.Khaliah: $411 billion is the total amount the U.S. suffered due to sleep deprivation for economic loss. So from an economic loss, the U.S. lost $411 billion due to sleep deprivation, and that equated to 1.2 million working days that Americans called off because they were tired. Zach: Wow.Khaliah: So we can peel the onion back a little bit more. I'm doing the air quotes. Remember when it was "on trend" to take mental health days? And it probably still is. I was one of those people that took--I said, "Man, this is smart. Once a month [?], and it's a mental health day, and I'ma do whatever I want to do, and basically what that meant is that I slept all day because I was exhausted. I was working 80 hours a week, and that was the one day of the month that I gave myself permission to actually rest, which is the craziest thing in the world because we should be able to rest every single day.Zach: Absolutely. And so--so then let's talk about that. So that's your passion, right, and I think it's a really--just a really good segue into our topic for the day, right? Our topic is wellness, and specifically this time the topic is around the concept of being well-rested. And considering your passion and the research that you've done around the lack of restfulness that we have in American culture, you know, what have you been doing with that passion? I know you haven't just been crunching numbers. Like, what have you done? Like, what's the--what's been the output of you doing this research? And, like, what are you--you talked about the fact that you're passionate about solving this problem. What are you doing to solve it?Khaliah: Yeah, man. So it's this thing called Nap Bar. It's the first white-glove napping experience in Texas that offers on-site and in-suite napping services for communities that we serve. And so this really came about April of last year. The wife and I were both--she's still in corporate, but I was in corporate at the time, and we both had and still have side hustles. I changed my side hustle to my main hustle. She still has a side hustle, but if we can, we would carpool into the city, and this particular day we had about an hour and a half to kill between our meetings, and I looked at her and I was like, "Man, this is my nap time," because I'm an avid napper. I nap in my car on a regular basis, and my nap was kind of--it was gonna be a little strange. So she looked at me and was like, "Why don't you Google "naps in Houston?" It's Houston. There's got to be a place where you can pop in and take a nap." I was like, "You know what? You're right. That's dope. I'm sure there's a place." A two-minute-later search? Zero. Zilch. Nada. And I looked at her, like, in disbelief, like, "How is it this is the fourth-largest country in the world, and we're the most innovative--one of the most innovative cities--" I said countries. "The fourth-largest city in the country, and we're one of the most innovative cities, hence we've got this Innovation Corridor that's being curated, but yeah, we don't have a place for people to rest? Wow." And she looked at me and was like, "Well, why don't you create it?" And I was like, "Yeah, okay." So the next day I go to Facebook, 'cause that's what you do. You go to Facebook and you ask your friends. I created a poll and I was like, "Yo, how many people out there napping during the day? Like, in your car or in an unused conference room or, heck, in, like, the--just wherever you can find some peace and quiet," and 99% of my friends, who are a hodgepodge of professionals, entrepreneurs, stay-at-home parents, these cats admitted to napping at work.Zach: Oh, yeah. At work?Khaliah: At work, and I was like, "Boy, they're savages." The savagery is real. So then I was like, "Okay, that's just my scope," right? "That's my lens." So then I started doing more research, and I tell you, Zach, I just kept going and going and going, and I found [?] sleep. There's a sleep foundation that does a ton of research of sleep, and 52% of Americans surveyed--like, 10,000 cats were surveyed last year, and they admitted--52% of them admitted to napping at work. Now, imagine how many people who were napping, but they just was like--Zach: Oh, yeah. You know they're lying.Khaliah: "Yeah, I'm not admitting this. They're gonna find out and they're gonna come get me and fire me." Like, imagine. So then I just continued to do my research, and then I stumbled upon--the CDC had a stat out there talking about, you know, driving drowsy is equivalent to driving under the influence. So I just kept going and going and going. I was like, "Okay, clearly I'm not just solving a problem. I'm solving the root of a problem with Nap Bar."Zach: You are, and you know what? You know, it's wild because, like you said, there's a stigma against, like, even talking about the fact that you might be sleepy, right? You know, you're over here thinking like--you know what I'm saying? You don't want them--you know, you turn around, [and] you slip out in a moment of weakness that you--you know, you might take a nap from time to time, and then you've got the [sound effect]. You know, they're coming for you. And it's just--it's wild though, because I also think really honestly--like, shout-out to you, because really believe it or not--and I'm sure you already know this--like, you're actually pushing against, like, the capitalistic, like, culture and, like, foundation that we work on, because part of just this work-centric culture that we have is just pushing your body until you break, right? Like--Khaliah: Yeah. And you know what's odd about that? Like, this is Living Corporate, so I'm sure people will get this line I'm about to say, but it combats everything--the fabric of people's culture, corporations' culture that they say that they do, and I'll give you an example. Corporate social responsibilities. How many--if you Google that word, and you Google--or you do a Ctrl+F and find how many times they put "people-centric approach" and how their employees mean the world to them, but if they really adopted a people-centric approach, well, then why are people being criticized for taking PTO? And why are people getting down to the last week of the year and they have a whole month of vacation that's unused and they're gonna end up losing it because they can't roll over but 10 days to the next year? Like, if we really, truly took a step back in our culture as a whole, as a society, then why aren't we pushing the envelope back on that? And that's exactly what I'm out to do. I'm out to be that little voice that's gonna be loud and obnoxious and ferocious so that we can pivot and transition into a true, true-true-true holistic approach to the meaning of living. There shouldn't be a reason why I don't enjoy going into work, and there shouldn't be a reason why studies show that the first four hours of Mondays are the most unproductive, because people have the Sunday blues. They think about what they have to do on Monday and then they check out, [then?] they end up staying out too much late on Sunday Funday.Zach: There was an article that just released on The Wall Street Journal about that that said, like, Sundays are the new Mondays, right? It's, like, basically the anxiety of--we'll make sure to put that in the show notes too, but, like, the anxiety of your work week, it, like, bleeds over into your Sunday to the point where you can't even enjoy Sunday anymore. And I'll just be transparent that, like, typically for me Sundays are like--are really like a mini-work day, 'cause I'm prepping for the week, right?Khaliah: Yeah, right, and that shouldn't be the case. You should be able to--you should be able to prep for your work week while you're at work. And I get it, we gotta get ahead and we have to do what we need to do, but it would be so much sweeter if you were prepping on a Sunday for your work week but if you knew on Monday you would be able to get that time back because your employee, or your employer I should say, included in your employees benefit package a health and wellness that includes a nap every single day for 26 minutes, and it's up to you to decide if you want it or not.Zach: Straight up. You're absolutely right, and it's so funny, right? Because, you know, companies are--companies right now, like, if you notice, like, in the conversation of work-life balance--and this has been--like, this discussion has been happening for, I don't know, like, the past six or seven years, but it's, like, transitioning from work-life balance to, like, work-life blend or work-life optimization or work-life harmony, and, like, really what they're trying to do is, like, just have your life be more and more just about work, right? Like, you're having a good time, but you're working. Like, "Hey, we want you to have a good time as you--you know, as you work." [both laugh] You know, "We want you to take care of your family and, you know, shoot, go on vacation, you know? [?]"Khaliah: Yeah, but, like--but even think about that too, Zach. Like, I remember going on vacation, and going on vacation for a week was, like, death the next week when you got back to work because you had--you're in email jail. You can't even send any emails because your mailbox is full, and then you don't even want to consider checking your voicemail because you're already getting those stomach-aches thinking about all that you are so behind on. Now you're regretting taking your vacation, which you earned. Like, we've got to reposition and reverse engineer our thought process around how we work. Like, there's a thing called intentional work, and there's some innovative companies that are doing it just right now. You know, you've got the Googles of the world that have napping pods. You've got Ariana Huffington, who nearly died because she passed out and hit her--like, passed out and hit her head on her desk due to sleep deprivation. So you have these advocates, but then we're still so far behind the 8-ball on how do we really truly pivot. And then, you know, it's funny because I had a call, a conference call, with a Fortune 5 company before this call, and I was telling them like, "Hey, we've got to get Nap Bar on site." I've got this calculation I walked them through, and it showed that annualized nationwide, based on 3,300 employees, they are losing $16.5 million of unproductive loss of work per employee. So that's the total roll-up per employee. That's how I got that number. And they're sitting here saying, "Well, I don't know how we can afford to get the nap [zone?]." I'm like, "Did you not just hear me?"Zach: Nah, you can't afford not to have these nap [zones?]. And wait a minute. And you said--hold on, now, 'cause you're not gonna just slide past that. You said you were on a phone call before this interview with a Fortune 500 company?Khaliah: I mean, listen, I'm out here taking my shots, man. I'm out here taking my shots.Zach: I see you.Khaliah: I'm out here taking my shots. 'Cause, you know, you get this. It's just--it's just basic math. I just need one person to say yes, you know, and then my demand is gonna outpace my supply, and then I can add another zero, and then another zero, and then another zero.Zach: I'm saying. Listen, I'm right there with you, okay? You're preaching to the choir. I just wanted to make sure that the people heard what you said, 'cause I heard you, okay? [both laugh] Okay, okay, okay. So check this out. We've been talking around this a bit, right, but, like, workplace pressure, like, it's real for everybody, and it's even more real for people in America and of course abroad who are in an ethnic minority and may be battling impostor syndrome, even harder than those who feel the need to prove themselves. And to be clear, like, I'm them. I'm people. But the reality is if you're not getting rest, you won't be good to anybody. So even if--so let's just say this, right? So, like, even if taking a nap is not immediately possible for some of the folks who are listening to this podcast episode right now, what advice would you give to professionals of color to practice restfulness in those 10- or 11-hour work days?Khaliah: You know, I think the biggest piece is we have to be the change that we want to see in the workplace. So it's vocalizing, being an advocate for rest in the workplace. There is a ton of research. People can hit me up. They can email me. I will gladly send over what I've collected. I'm in the middle of a business case with another company here in Houston that's gonna really result some telling data. It's almost gonna slap people in the face if they say "No, we don't want to give our people naps at work." I mean, this business case is gonna be--it's constructed in such a way to where it's gonna be hard for people to say no, but I would say how I got to this business case and a collaboration with this particular organization is because an employee, who had only been there for 3 months, a minority man--he was in his 1-on-1 with his manager and his manager said, "Hey, how has the past three months going?" And he said, "Man, it's been quite an adjustment, coming from college to the corporate world, and I'm working 60, 70 hours a week, and, you know, it's been quite an adjustment. I wish there was a time I could just, you know, take a nap." And his manager said--well, I'll say he wasn't a manager, because this was a leader comment. You know, managers manage people. Leaders lead. And this leader said to him--after he said that he said, "Hm. Well, why don't we discuss that on your next 1-on-1? Do some research, and let's talk about it next week." And so he did, and I had a meeting with him two days ago. What's today. Today's Tuesday? I had a meeting with him yesterday to button up the business case and the pilot. So I think the biggest advice I could give is just real life experience that I just experienced just as early as yesterday is we have to be vocal about what we want. And of course we have to be professional in the way that we deliver it, and I always--when I worked in corporate I always prided myself--when I presented a problem, it's to have the solution in my back pocket. So when my leader said, "Hey, okay, well, how are you gonna solve it? Boom, here it is, and here's all the research," right? And, you know, that's why I can say I have 10,000+ hours of research. Malcolm Gladwell says if you--if you want to call yourself a subject matter expert, you have to have at minimum 10,000 hours of research in your respective field. So when I said--as I mentioned, like, I can rattle off stats from here between here and Tokyo, where they do have napping pods, but I don't have to because I think we are as a society, when people hear the word "rest" and "nap at work" they'd initially be like, "Oh, my God. That would be awesome," but then they'd immediately think, "Well, is that gonna hold me back? Am I not gonna get up for a promotion because I'm taking a nap at work?" No. That's a shift that me and my team will come in, because it's more than just a nap. It's an experience. But on the flip side of it, we educate on why--what are the indicators for sleep deprivation. So going back to your original question, Zach, we just have to be more vocal about what we want. We need to present a--not just a problem, but also a solution, and not be afraid to get creative with it.Zach: Okay. Now, listen here, y'all. Y'all heard it straight here from Khaliah, A.K.A. KG Speaks, A.K.A. [?], A.K.A. Your Favorite Sock Wearer, okay? I'm gonna give you that Flex bomb right here. You know what I'm saying? Okay, no, you're absolutely right. In that story though--it's interesting. So you said a black man. Did he have a--was the boss a white dude? Khaliah: I don't know the ethnicity of the leader, but no, the employee, he wasn't black. He was a minority. He was an Asian-Pacific Islander. Zach: Yo. Shout-out to the--man, listen here, shout-out to the Asian-Pacific Islander, the person of color raising his voice, and just to keep a bean with you, I need to go ahead and have that leader on this--on Living Corporate too, 'cause I'm kind of shocked that he turned around and said, "Well, do some research," 'cause, I mean, that's not--I don't feel like that's a common experience. That's dope that he did that, and I absolutely believe that we should be speaking up and using your voice. I think that's an incredible story.Khaliah: We need more of that, and that's why I shared it, because we need more of that on both sides of the table. We need more of that from a leadership standpoint and more of that empowerment from an employee standpoint, because--you're right, and not only that, he sent me an email--the employee said, "Hey, it's a go, and my actual--my leader wants to come and check it out too," and I was like, "Please. Let's go. Tell me when and where. Tell me what time." I know where, just tell me when. [laughs]Zach: Boy, 'cause let me tell you--let me tell you just my experience. Khaliah, let me walk up in somewhere and tell my often-times-not-minority boss that I want to take a nap at work. Boy, they'd look at me like [sfx]. It's like, "What?"Khaliah: You are killing it with these sound effects. Like, I want to come over and see, like, what software you're using, 'cause you are killing it. Zach: Man, I be looking--I'm serious though. You just looking at them like [sfx], you know what I'm saying? Khaliah: But you know what's interesting too is that, you know, from a leader standpoint, for the leaders who are listening on the phone and who can even--you know, who can low-key share this with the leaders who perhaps might need to hear this, but here's a stat that perhaps will change people's minds. Millennials will be occupying, by 2025, 75% of the workplace. 75% of the workplace in five years and some change will be occupied by millennials. And what do we know about millennials? Well, out of the survey that I saw, 53% of them stated that they value health and wellness above work, spirituality, and even their friendships. Health and wellness #1 over work, spirituality, and their friends. So if I'm an executive at a corporation, and I know in the next five and a half years that folks I have on my bench right now, that I'm grooming, they don't--they value work, but it's not more than their health and wellness. I need to put in place Nap Bar today so that when they're in the C-Suite in five years we're already advanced into VR. We've got virtual reality going in Nap Bar. I mean, there's so many different things that companies can do today to set them up to win in 2025 when 75% of their workforce will be millennials.Zach: No, you're absolutely right, and, you know--and that's the thing--so as you know, I'm a consultant, and one of the things I've really been passionate about at my job is the workforce of the future, and we're talking about, like, dealing with the workforce of the future. First of all, the workforce of the future is happening--is today, but the idea of the fact that, like, folks will leave--this generation of people, and not even thinking about Gen Z's gonna be doing. I don't know what they--Khaliah: Listen...Zach: Listen. Ayo. My siblings in Gen Z. I be looking at them like I don't know--I'm scared. I'm scared of y'all. Like, y'all--ooh. But, you know, we will leave--Khaliah: They're reckless, but they're courageous with it.Zach: Oh, no. I love it. No, it's not a knock. It's just, like, a "Wow." Like, I'm really--I'm not prepared. [both laugh] But, like, you know, millennials though--and I would venture to say it's gonna be even more so with Gen Z--like, we will quit a job, you know what I'm saying?Khaliah: In a heartbeat. In a heartbeat.Zach: They'd be like, "Hey, Bobby, if you don't stop taking these naps, we're gonna have to let you go." He'd turn around talking about some [sfx]. You know?Khaliah: Yeah, you know why? Because they were already researching on their phone the companies that are innovative and progressive that probably already have nap pods. Zach: Listen, they're gonna be pulling up just like that Indeed commercial that just dropped with that white lady. She got passed over for that job, and--I don't know if you've seen it yet. It's wild. It's crazy. But anyway, she gets passed over for the job, and, you know, everybody's clapping. It's clear that she got passed over for a job. She's over here smirking at her phone. Indeed app already talking about "Interview secured." I said, "Ooh." And I oop. [sfx]Khaliah: That's funny. Now that's funny.Zach: It's super funny, but you're right. You know, it's going to be a critical--you know, it's gonna be a pillar of human capital management, of talent management, this wellness piece, and it can't just be "Hey, you know, you can take time off, but you've got to come work--" No, like, it needs to be explicit, intentional, purposed policies that reinforce true wellness.Khaliah: Totally.Zach: Okay. Now, look, this has been a dope conversation, and you know you've already been a friend of the show, and I didn't even--you know, I didn't even give you your air horns at the top for the dope piece that you wrote back in Season 1 about coming out of the proverbial closet. Man, shout-out to you. [sfx]Khaliah: Aye. [imitating sfx]Zach: You know what I'm saying? Like, we didn't even give you your props at the top. So, you know, again, you're a friend of the show. You're appreciated here. Before we let you go, any parting words or shout-outs?Khaliah: Man, shout-out to the tribe, the folks who show up, the folks who--and here's the thing. People show up. They don't have to show up, so when they do we have to ooze with gratitude for that. So I'm absolutely oozing with gratitude for my tribe for showing up, and not just for showing up, but for also holding me accountable for the likes, for the shares, for the--just the "atta girl"s, I mean, those things matter when you literally jump off the cliff and you have no idea how to open your parachute, but you can trust that your tribe, your network, will catch you before you fall. So shout-out to all of the folks who have ever liked, commented, shared, sent me an encouraging DM. I appreciate you so much, and I'm sending that vibe and that love right back out to you. And for those of you who are sitting on a billion-dollar idea that's gonna solve a trillion-dollar problem, I say "Go." Just go. You're not gonna have it all figured out, but you'll be able to figure it out along the way. And assemble yourself an advisory board team yesterday, because that's gonna be the people who will be in the trenches with you, that will roll up their sleeves with you and fight 'til the end to make sure that--that they believe in not just you, but in your vision.Zach: Come on, now. Khaliah: Yeah, man. That's the motto. That's the motto, man.Zach: I don't even have anything. I just got finger snaps, you know?Khaliah: That's the motto. Like, my legit motto is "Why duplicate mediocrity when we can borrow genius?" So why not surround yourself with genius all around who have access to the things you don't have access to or who have embarked on a journey that you're looking to embark on. Hey, it's the--it's the clear definition of working smarter and not harder.Zach: No, absolutely. Now, of course we're gonna have all of your information in the show notes, but why don't you go ahead and let us know where we can find you, where we can connect with you, where we can learn more about you?Khaliah: Bet. So for Nap Bar-specific, go to www.napbarnow.com. There you can also follow us on Twitter @NapBarNow, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook we're at NapBarHou, and for anything and all things KOG Speaks, which I am a certified diverse speaker, and I speak on diversity and inclusion, performance, leadership, change management. You can catch all of my work there at www.KOGpassion.com, and then my handles on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook is KOGSpeaks. Zach: Come on, now. Now, look, this has been great, and that does it for us, y'all. So thank y'all for joining us on the Living Corporate podcast. Make sure to follow us on Instagram @LivingCorporate, Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod, and subscribe to our newsletter through living-corporate.com. Now, please say the dash. Now, look, Khaliah, it's wild because, you know, we own actually all of the Living Corporate variations. So, like, livingcorporate.tv, livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.net. We've even got, like, livingcorporate.org. We don't have livingcorporate.com 'cause Australia still has livingcorporate.com. Khaliah: They ain't letting it go. You're not gonna negotiate the 5,000--Zach: I don't know how brolic the brand would need to be for us to walk up to a continent and be like, "Ayo, come off that domain." I don't know, but maybe one day. That's a go. I feel like the day that we can--we can Deebo Australia for our domain, that's the day--Khaliah: That's when you've arrived.Zach: That's when you've arrived.Khaliah: That's the day you've arrived.Zach: Right, I'm saying. Okay, okay. So look, if you have a question you'd like for us to answer and read on the show, make sure you email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com, or you can just DM us on anything, you know what I'm saying? Our DMs are wide open. Like, we're just trying to talk to you, you know what I'm saying? Now, look, this has been Zach, and you have been talking with Khaliah Guillory, okay? Founder and CEO of the Nap Bar. Make sure you check out all of her information. It's gonna be all in the show notes. Do not forget. Listen, I'm talking to y'all right now. Sound Man, stop the music. Listen. I don't want y'all to listen to this and, like, be like, "Oh, okay, here goes Zach with the sign-off again," 'cause see, y'all see I'm flipping it up. This is not, like, an insert. I'm talking live right now, okay? I want y'all to stop, look in the show notes, okay, and click it. I ain't trying to be aggressive with y'all, okay? I'm not trying to do nothing extra, okay? I'm not dangerous, I promise. I'm just telling you, you know what I'm saying, get the information. Make sure you learn about the Nap Bar, especially if you're in Houston, and get yourself some rest. Am I tripping, Khaliah?Khaliah: Nah, not at all, bro. Not at all.Zach: All right. All right, well, dope. Well, look here. Until next time, talk to y'all soon. Love y'all. Peace.Khaliah: Peace.

Zach and Ade respond to a couple more listener letters. Keep sending them in, y'all! The topics discussed in this one include being pregnant at your job and finding yourself unable to verbally fit in with your coworkers.Connect with us on our website!https://linktr.ee/livingcorporateTRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach.Ade: And it's Ade.Zach: You know what? Wait a minute. Why do we always do me first? What is that about? You never go, "Hey, y'all. It's Ade," and I go, "It's Zach." Like, we always--we always do it like that. What's up with that?Ade: I don't know if that's true. I feel like I have gone first. I don't know. 'Cause I do the countdown, so I expect that you do the--Zach: Well, there you go.Ade: Yeah, I just--Zach: I don't know. I just feel like--I feel like if we're gonna dismantle patriarchy, like, we need to dismantle it at every--you know what I'm saying, every corner.Ade: I feel like you're just using that as an excuse to not go first.Zach: [laughs] Maybe it's 'cause--so when I walk around with people, like my wife, with women at my job, I open the door, and then I push for--I encourage for them to go first, and I kind of feel like it just doesn't rub me right 'cause--it rubs me wrong rather, because it's like I feel like I'm walking through the door first. Anyway, it's okay. Listen, y'all. You're listening to [inaudible]--Ade: Does anybody ever hold the door for you, Zach?Zach: You know what? My coworkers on my current project. They are--they hold the door open, and it's kind of awkward, and they go, "Yeah, that's right, Zach. I'm opening the door for you," and we laugh, and then I walk in the room. Ade: Wonderful. I was about to say I'd open the door for you.Zach: I believe that. I believe you would. I believe you would.Ade: Totally.Zach: Well, look for those listening in, you are listening to Zach and Ade on Living Corporate, and today we have--da-da-da-daaa--more listener letters. What's up?Ade: Sure do.Zach: So it's interesting. It was like--I feel like we've been asking for listener letters, and now they're coming in. Really excited about that. Please continue to send 'em in. We're gonna try to do at least two per episode, like, episodes that we do this, so--and we're trying to, like, churn through them, right, so we can get back to them, so that way y'all know that we're actually responding to y'all's notes. 'Cause y'all do be sending 'em in, and I feel bad--like, some of these we've been sitting on too long, but--[laughs] so I feel bad, so we're gonna start actually being a little bit more--I don't want to use the word aggressive--intentional, right, in getting these back to y'all. All right, well, go ahead. This first one I'm looking at, Ade--I'ma let you go ahead and ride on this one, and I may provide color commentary, but I feel like this is definitely a space that you would probably be better to speak in.Ade: I actually disagree. I think this is one that we should tag team, primarily because I have--I've never been in this dilemma before at least, so I don't know that I have the full range of context and experience, but I think it would be good to share this. Anyway, the subject of today's listener letter--it's called "Bun in the Oven." All right, let's go. It goes, "Hi, Zach and Ade. Thanks so much for this platform. I am dealing with a situation at work and I'm not certain what to do. I work in a relatively conservative area, and I'm pretty far from home. I've been in my industry for three years and in my current position for one. I'm used to working 60-80 hour weeks--whoo--at work, and I'm not alone in this. Most of my team tends to work long hours, but the pay is great and it's really rewarding work. Here's my problem - I recently discovered that I'm pregnant. I do not have a long-term partner, and I'm concerned about my ability to keep up with the pace at work and how my coworkers might react. What should I do here? Any advice welcome. Thanks again. Leah."Zach: Hm.Ade: All right.Zach: So now why do--what commentary or insight do you think I could add in this? I'm curious. What do you--how do you think I could--I could [laughs] provide--what value could I add to this conversation as a man? Like, you help me understand.Ade: I just--I feel as though, as someone who is more senior in their career, you might have more strategic ways of approaching this conversation than I might. You want to take a stab at it?Zach: Oh, okay. Yeah. So, you know, it's interesting. Of course I've been in a variety of situations. I work with folks all the time who get pregnant. I think what I've seen--I'm just gonna talk about what I've observed that I've seen go well is people just being really open about kind of what's going on if they are pregnant, utilizing their resources. So they talk to their leads, they talk to HR, they understand and, like, really explore their benefits, and then they just start making plans and saying, "Okay, well, look. You know, I'm pregnant, and this is gonna be--" "And I'm looking at my benefits so that I can go on leave. This is my work plan up 'til then." Talking, and, like, you know, just kind of being transparent with your leadership about, like, "Hey, because I'm pregnant, my work schedule may need--I need to adjust my work schedule in this way or that way." You talked about the fact that you're used to working 60-80 hour weeks. Like, those things may need to shift or change if possible, but again, I think it's--what I've seen is people who are really just open about it, because the last thing of course you want is stress. So the more things you can do to kind of destress the situation the better, and that's what I've seen--that's what I've seen work.Ade: That sounded like a lot. I don't know why you discounted yourself from the conversation and sharing your knowledge to begin with. Yeah, I just had to fact-check you right quick. Anyway... all right, so, Leah, first of all, thank you for writing in, and congratulations on this new journey on which you're about to embark. I think I would say, first and foremost, that you wrote about a couple of different things here, one that you're in a conservative area, two that you're far from home, three that you're working really, really long hours, and four that you're kind of doing this alone, and I would say that all the more reason to find your allies and your sponsors and your mentors at work and disclosing to them, as you feel comfortable, the situation you're in. Two would be that you don't concern yourself with keeping up with the pace at work. 60-80 hour weeks are great when you are not growing a whole other human being inside your body, but those are the circumstances in which you find yourself. So I don't think that it's wise to put the expectation upon yourself that you'll be able to keep up with 60-80 hour weeks. That's not even something that people who aren't pregnant want to do at a sustained pace for a very long time, let alone someone who's literally sharing resources with another human being. So don't put that pressure on yourself. Don't put that expectation on yourself. Definitely be realistic with what you can and cannot handle, and like Zach was saying earlier, start figuring out what your work plans are, what your contingencies are, and have honest conversations with your leadership about what it's gonna take from now 'til, you know, Baby Drop Day for you to continue being fulfilled and content in your career and also preparing for, again, this new part of your life that you're going to have to deal with. So Leah, the one thing that did concern me about this letter was that you--you mentioned that you were concerned about how your coworkers might react. I feel as though that is not something that should even pop up on your radar. I hope that you feel supported at work, and if you do not I think that it is--this would be the chief time to get some time on your--on the calendar with your HR person or with your allies or with your mentors and get a sense of what it means to split your time or to start removing some things from your plate, and it's OK to do that. It's OK to say, "Hey, I do not currently have the capacity for this at this time, and it's only gonna get--my plate is only gonna get fuller from henceforth, so how do we manage this in such a way to ensure I'm still having a fulfilling career and, you know, not being worked to death?" Leah, take care of yourself. Zach, is there anything else you'd like to add?Zach: You know, I think--the other piece is that you said that you're--you know, you're by yourself. Like, you're far away from home. So, you know, maybe there's an opportunity--and, again, every job is different. I know something that I was told, especially coming into the consulting space--and I don't know if you're consulting or not, but coming into consulting--I think it applies to just jobs in general, but it's like, "Hey, look, you don't get what you don't ask for," and so I wonder if there's any opportunity for you to work remotely on things, like, just for your whole working situation to change. I don't know the context of the role that you have at your job or, you know, how much of that is dependent on you being in the office, but, like, even if, like, a couple months, even before you take, you know, official leave for your baby, you could--you know, maybe there's an opportunity for you to work from home. Like, you know, there's other things. So I guess kind of going back to what I said at the beginning, which is, like, just being really transparent with the people that you trust, with your leadership, so that you can have a plan. I think that's part of it, is, like, being, like--just ask, like, you know, "What options are there for me?" I would also network within your business, right? I'm certain that there's other women at your job--well, let me not say I'm certain. Perhaps there are other--Ade: I was about to be like, "How certain are we?"Zach: "Are you certain?" But there may be other people at your job who have been pregnant and had children and had to navigate, so it's worth, like, networking and asking around as well. So that would be what I'd add, but nah, I think what you said is super spot-on. I agree. Ade: And sort of to pick up on that as well, if there are any employee resource groups at your firm, at your company, for women, I would certainly look into that. I just realized I didn't even, like, finish my train of thought with the whole mentors and et cetera, but also look into what support looks like after you give birth as well.Zach: Oh, that's a good point.Ade: Because again, you're going at this alone, so that means that you're going to have to figure out what childcare looks like, you're going to have to figure out--see, I don't even have a child, so I don't know--Zach: All the things?Ade: All the things. But postpartum care... shoot, I am ill-equipped for this conversation. But, you know, finding out what it means to be both a career woman and mom, that's a whole conversation in and of itself, a whole exploration process, and the more resources, the more conversations, then the more people you have around you who are able to support you in that exploration process, who are able to point you at the resources that you need and who are able to say, "Look, I don't know, but I am going to find out for you." That's the environment that you need--that's the support that you need, and I hope that you're gonna get that, and if you do not, I am hoping that you're able to find a space in which you can be both. And the other thing that I wanted to bring up--I read this post on Fishbowl. This just occurred to me. I read this post on Fishbowl a couple of weeks ago about this senior consultant who had just given birth and her team was already emailing her work to do, and she still has six weeks of leave left.Zach: Mm-mm. [disapprovingly]Ade: Don't ever feel pressured to take time away from your baby for your job, because your job will still be there, and should they ever find reason to fire you--and honestly, if you live in a state that doesn't require reason, then you're SOL anyway--I strongly advocate that you--when you do take time off work, be present entirely and let them figure out, right? No offense, but ABC Corporation will be just fine without you, and you're not gonna get the hours and the days and the weeks after you first give birth back just to just feel like yourself again, to bond with this new human, to breathe. You're not gonna be able to sleep for a little while, per my sister. So just being able to enjoy, step into the fullness of that experience... do not worry about the 60-80 hour weeks that are waiting on you or whatever it is that you left behind in your absence, because everybody else is getting paid for that. Like, they're getting paid to ensure that there is no lapse in the work that goes on, so I wouldn't worry about that.Zach: Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point for everybody. I think a lot of times we can think that, like, if WE don't do something the whole world is gonna stop. It's like--it's a big company. Like, even if it's not a big company, you're not the CEO. Like, there's other people around. They get paid to help and be thoughtful and strategic on how to solve a problem. Like, you know what I'm saying? It's gonna be okay. It's navigable. Ade: Listen, just take a break. It's okay to say, "You know what? I'm a human being, and I have a life outside of this, and I'm not particularly interested in splitting my attention or my time with something that's not this. Like, this is the most important thing to me right now. You can keep the job."Zach: Yeah, straight up.Ade: It's okay to say that.Zach: It is. Okay. Well, Leah, congratulations as well. I apologize. I did not say that in my little initial response, but congratulations from the Living Corporate fam. Yearp.Ade: We should have a Living Corporate onesie made.Zach: Listen. Actually, I think that's a really cute idea. I just question, like, if we're--if we're big enough. But I would like to make one. If we get big enough and we start making, like, baby merch, we have--we have arrived.Ade: Officially made it. Mama, we made it.Zach: We have made it. We making baby merch? Not even just regular people. Baby merch. What? Anyway, one can only dream. The next letter comes from--oh, here we go--Jamal. Oh! ...I'm not hating on you. I'm not hating on Jamal.Ade: Why did you do that? Nope, now we're gonna--now we're gonna have to have a conversation, Zach.Zach: [laughs] It's just like--no, it's just funny, man. It's tough. It's tough out here, like, just the way that, you know, internalized depression is set up. Like, you know, even I see certain names and I'm like, "Oh, okay."Ade: I can't. We're gonna have to unpack that.Zach: We do. We need to talk about it. We need to talk about it in an episode about respectability politics, right? No, I'm just laughing at the name--I'm laughing at the name Jamal because it's just--it's so stereotypically black, and I love--Ade: In the context of the conversation that he's trying to have?Zach: And in the context of the conversation that he's trying to have. It's just funny. It's just all funny to me. Anyway, so look. Jamal, I'm not hating on your name. My name is Zachary. My mom named me that very strategically. I show up very well on resumes.Ade: You should also say your middle name.Zach: Sinclair.Ade: [laughs] Zach: [laughs] So I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum.Ade: I just also want to say that that was the only, like, American name for, like, a very, very long time. Any time I ever thought about "If I ever have children, what would I name them?" That was the only, like--Zach: Zachary?!Ade: No, no, no. Sinclair. That was the only non-[Yoruba?] name that I ever thought of, and it was because of Upton Sinclair. Zach: Sinclair is a dope name though.Ade: It's a very beautiful name. And then somebody was like, "Okay, but then they'll nickname your child Sin, and--"Zach: That's true. Call him Sini.Ade: Even worse. Even worse.Zach: I know. It's just ridiculous.Ade: Thank you so much for ruining this name for me, Sinclair. All right, let's move forward.Zach: Nah, kids are so mean. Anyway, that's another subject for another time. So this letter is from Jamal, subject line: Finding the Right Words. Finding the Right Words. "LC fam, I'm a new hire, and my team is very casual. Like, they use slang and don't even talk--do not talk very proper at all. They use more slang than I do outside of work. Maybe I'm old-school, but I speak fairly properly at work, to the point where I'm noticing I'm alienating my team. They'll say things like, "Hey, loosen up," but I really don't know how--"Ade: [laughs]Zach: "But I don't really know how. I didn't even know it was a problem until I got here. What advice would you give me to help me adjust? Thanks. Jamal." Oh, Jamal.Ade: Jamal. Jamal.Zach: J!Ade: First of all, my apologies... I just jumped right into that. Zach, is it all right if I go first?Zach: Go ahead.Ade: I am so sorry. I am not laughing at you, Jamal. I am tickled by the situation that you find yourself in. My apologies. I do not mean to be dismissive in which you find yourself. I am not minimizing your feelings. I just--I simply do find it humorous. OK. So Jamal, I want to know precisely what is said, you know? I don't--I do think that--and we've said this before on this podcast that--and Jamal, I'm assuming you're black 'cause I've never met a white Jamal, but--Zach: If we meet a white Jamal, he's coming on the show. I don't care what he does.Ade: If we meet a white Jamal?Zach: If there is a white Jamal--hey, if you're listening to this and you are white and your name is Jamal, email us and you will be on the show. I have never met a white Jamal. I've met a white Jerome. I've met a white Terrell.Ade: I have actually met a white Jerome. I used to date a white Jerome. Zach: Wow.Ade: That may have been too much information for this podcast. Let's move forward. [laughs]Zach: No. Oh, no. JJ, do not cut that.Ade: JJ. JJ.Zach: Was he a Kappa?Ade: Do me--oh, my God. We can discuss this offline. All right.Zach: I feel like--I feel like a white Jerome has a code shimmy. Ade: Can we--can we go?Zach: Go ahead.Ade: All right. Anyway, Jamal, again, I am so sorry. We are acting like plumfuls right now. First and foremost, again, thank you for writing in. Secondly, I feel like I need a little bit more context. What did it--what is it that makes you feel like you're alienating your team? Like, it's one thing for your team--I just have so many questions. One, I feel like there's a context necessary, right? If you work in an ad agency, the culture--or in a startup--the culture is not going to be as formal as if you worked in a bank, and that is not to say that you need to change the essence of who you are to fit into the context of your team, but I do think that it makes you more noticeable when you don't fit into the context of your team. Now, that said, there are fully ways that you can be who you are at work, not change an iota of who you are at work--see, you got me using--anyway, not changing the context of who you are, but also making more of an effort to be more accessible to your--to your team members. We've had this conversation before on an old episode where we were saying that people don't trust who they don't know. If you are inaccessible to your team members, it's harder for them to trust you, feel like they know you, go to bat for you in the same way that they would for other members of their team, regardless of how amazing you are. Like, I don't think that that is necessarily fair, because if you are a perfect coworker you just don't pop up at Happy Hours with the other coworkers simply because you don't drink. There's no reason why that should have an effect on your career trajectory. I do also think that there are other ways in which you can make people more comfortable with you without necessarily feeling out of place or like you're faking it. I think that you can--if you are a coffee drinker, you could invite people out for coffee. So they'll walk out for an afternoon coffee with you or coffee, or bring pictures of your family to put up in your workspace, or taking an interest in your coworkers, asking them questions about themselves so that you can listen to them use their slang and having a full conversation with them, because if that is not who you are, I wouldn't fake it. And I don't think you should have to in order to make anybody else comfortable. I do think that there are ways and strategies that you could employ to simply get to know your coworkers so that it's simply a part of who you are, Jamal, that you say, "I would not like to go to breakfast with you," instead of "Nah, I'm straight." You see what I'm saying? Does that make sense, Zach?Zach: It does make sense, and I do--I do think more context is needed, and I recognize, you know, you're not trying to get into all the details or whatever, but some--it's a challenge, especially, like--and I can really relate to this letter. That's why I was also kind of laughing, just because recently I've been getting feedback that I'm too--you know, that basically--not even too formal, but it's just like, "Okay, I'm getting lost in what you're saying, right?" And so what I have to challenge and what I have to question is how much of this is really me needing to adjust how I speak, because I'm almost 30 years old, and up 'til this point in my life I've been told that I'm a good communicator. I think that's one of the--one of my strengths. So how much of this is things I need to change? How much of this is, like, just personal style? You know, like, maybe what you're not used to? And then how much of this is just, like, you just maybe not being comfortable--like, maybe something about me makes you uncomfortable and there's, like, some unconscious biases there, right? Like, those are all--those are all things that are real, and, you know, when I think about--when I think about being at work and someone telling you to loosen up, it's like, okay, well, if you're communicating and kind of getting the message across, or if, you know, you're just saying what it is and they're still not really hearing you, then talking to someone you trust, right, outside of that team and being like, "Hey, look. Here's the feedback I've gotten. This is what I've been trying to do." You know, "What do you think?" Right? Like, getting some outside feedback I think is gonna be really important, because what you don't want to do is feel like you're having to--I think, like, to Ade's point, like, change your entire self. Like, you're trying to, like, rebuild yourself. Like, you're enough. Like, I imagine that you know how to put words together, so it might just be about making, like, some small tweaks and adjustments, but at the same time I think kind of trusting your gut as well and knowing who you are and then just kind of leaning into that. I think--the other point Ade made which I really like is, like, getting to know people and just kind of, like, building those relationships and then letting them see you, as comfortable as you are let them see you, but yeah. Like, that's what I would do, and then that way when they talk to you and you say, "Yes, I'd rather not," they don't go, "Oh, here you go again." Or maybe they do, but they've seen you, and they've seen you be consistent, so they know you're not putting on some type of, you know, air. That's my take.Ade: Right, and I do think that it's important that you separate who you are at work from who you are in general, and it's okay to not--it's okay to not want there to be an overlap. That's not to say that you have to hide yourself or lie or be unfriendly, and again, that's part of where this context that we're asking for comes in, because it's difficult to tell from this--from this letter whether the issue is that the coworkers don't feel as though they know you and that it comes out in them saying that you need to loosen up or that you are too straight-laced or if the issue is that you're not a culture fit for whatever reason. And I hate that phrase, "culture fit," because it's been used so frequently to exclude people of color, but again, some context is needed here, Jamal. I hope this conversation that we had helped, and if it did not, if you'd like to write in to further explain what's going on, we would love to have you, would love to hear some more from you, and if not, we hope that you get more comfortable, whether it is at this job or a next one. It's okay to be like, "You know what? I'm gonna take me and my suit and tie onto somewhere where we're respected." I think I'm perpetuating that "Break up with him."Zach: You are, you are. Ade: 'Cause I think I've said that about every single letter so far.Zach: You have, and I'm like, "Okay, Ade." I mean, everybody's not gonna just pack up and leave their job. I mean, you know, people do though. People leave. People find new jobs. I don't think this is what he's talking--I don't feel like this is the answer on this one though.Ade: No, I don't--I don't think that it is either. I am saying that it's OK if you feel like you don't want to and you want to kind of just pick up your things and go. The reason I say that is largely because you're a new hire, so I feel as though if they're trying to make you comfortable, singling you out is not the way to do that. And that may not be what they're doing. I fully admit that this letter's a little light on the details, et cetera. I'm just trying to address the full breadth of the experience that Jamal might be having. Since you're a new hire, it might be that they're trying to explain to you what the culture is without necessarily being the most obvious about it, because I know for a fact that I've, like--I've walked into a job in a full suit and the director was wearing jeans.Zach: Yeah, that happened to me recently. Like, I came to work and I was wearing, like, slacks and a blazer, and he was like, "Don't wear those slacks again." Like, it was super casual, you know what I'm saying? It was funny. And I got mad love for him too. He's funny. He's a nice guy. It was just super funny. And I wore a blazer. He wasn't super happy about the blazer, but the blazer has grown on him. I think he was like, "You have to take the slacks off." He was like, "I'ma kind of give you a little bit of a time about the blazer for a couple weeks, and then I'ma let you, but you gotta wear jeans." And so I got some--you know, I got some designer jeans. Anyway. We're on a tangent now, but anyway, I feel you. I feel you.Ade: Yeah, so I'm really honestly just trying to address the entire range of experience that might be going on here. It's entirely possible that they're wilin' and they need to relax and let you be who you are. It's entirely possible that they are trying to say, "Hey, you know what, a three-piece suit is not necessarily the way to go here," and they might also be saying that you're not a culture fit for whatever other reason. Either way, I would like for Jamal to feel comfortable in owning his experiences and in saying that, "Hey, I'm cool with this," or "Hey, I'm not cool with this," and either way, your life is yours, your career is yours, and you are able to make whatever decision you feel is necessary for your own growth and comfort.Zach: That's real. That's real. I gotta snap on that.Ade: Thank you, friend.Zach: You're welcome. You know, something interesting... we're saying these people's real names, and I wonder... should we not? Ade: Hm. You know what?Zach: We might need to do this whole thing over. I don't know.Ade: I feel like if they had wanted us to, like, bleep their names out or give them different names they'd have said so, but if you do write in and you prefer--and there are a bunch of Jamals out in the universe, so I don't--I don't expect--Zach: There's a lot of Jamals.Ade: Right? So if you do write in and you'd prefer that we do not say your actual names or the names with which you sign these letters--because these are just the names that signed the letters, so they may have given us fake names in the first place. Plot twist.Zach: That's real.Ade: But if you do prefer that we don't say your names, please let us know that, and we will do our best to find a repository of fake names to substitute.Zach: There we go. I like that. I like that cleanup. Thank you, Ade. It'd be so funny. What if, like, someone gave a fake name, we go, "You know, we don't really--" You know, "We're not gonna say this name," and then we give a fake name and the fake name is their actual name. Whoa. Ade: The universe really just needed you to say this with your chest then, because the odds of that--Zach: That's tough. That's tough tough.Ade: If you write in here, please note that I'm giving all of you [Yoruba?] names.Zach: Straight up. Okay, so--all Yoruba names, really?Ade: All of them.Zach: I like that.Ade: I mean, I might throw in an [?] name in there or an [?] name, but [?].Zach: Like Oshioke. That'd be dope. Ade: What? Oh, we're gonna have to coach you too.Zach: [laughs] I actually know an Oshioke. That's why that's so funny to me. Goodness gracious.Ade: It was just the way that you pronounced it. Zach: I know. No, I gotta do better. I need to grow. There's some opportunities for growth there.Ade: There are way too many Africans in your life for this to still be--Zach: There are so many. There are so many Africans. Shout-out to all my real Africans out there, but yeah. Okay. Well, look here. It's been--we got about 30 minutes? Okay, not doing too bad. Look, that's two listener letters. I feel like let's go ahead, let's do a Favorite Thing, you know what I'm saying, and then let's get on up out of here. How does that sound?Ade: All right, that sounds good.Zach: All right. What's your Favorite Thing? 'Cause I do have one.Ade: Okay, then you go ahead.Zach: All right, cool. So my Favorite Thing is actually this video, this music video, by this artist named Russ.Ade: [sighs] All right, and we're done. Thank you for listening.Zach: Oh, no. You don't like the video?Ade: I'm just being a hater. Go ahead.Zach: Oh, okay. I was about to say, this video was fire. So I opened up the video, 'cause I love music. For those who don't know, like, my background, before I changed my major, was music, and so I love music. Like, I'm really passionate about it, right? And so I'll listen to--I'll listen to really any genre. So anyway, I'm on YouTube like billions of others on this planet, and I open up a video and there's, like, this beautiful, I mean beautiful black woman, like, very, very dark, very dark-skinned, and I was like, "Man, this is incredible." And, like, the lighting was great, 'cause I'm also--like, I'm also really into photography and videography, so I'm looking at the lighting, I'm looking at the way--I'm just looking at, like, everything. Like, the color pallette. I'm like, "Wow, these are the prettiest black people." Like, on a--for this to be just a regular music video. This isn't, like, Black Panther. This is, like, just a music video. I was like, "Wow, the color--the lighting on the skin is so nice." So anyway, then the music starts playing, and then it's like--you know, it's an African song. Like, it's kind of African style. You help me, Ade, but it's--Ade: I'm gonna let you flounder for a few seconds.Zach: No, it's fire though. So anyway, then this random dude--I guess his name is Russ, I don't really know, so young people, help me out--this random dude, like, petite white man with very long hair is in, like, this really--Ade: Did you just call this grown man petite?Zach: I mean, he's like--he's only, like, 5'1". It doesn't matter. He's like--and he looks very out of place. He's wearing, like, a jersey with, like, baggy jeans, and, like, everybody else around him is, like, Nigerian or Cameroonian or, like, they are clearly, like, African, right? And they're all dancing, and, like, they look great, and he looks, like, super bummy, and the juxtaposition was really interesting, but it was a beautiful song.Ade: You just called this man bummy. You called this man bummy on his own music video? You called him petite and bummy on--are you sure this is your Favorite Thing?Zach: Everybody looks super--everybody looks so regal, but I like the fact that basically--to me, what I got from that was he was being himself, right? Like, I'm being myself. I'm chillin'. He also had, like, some--he also had some Nigerian cuisine references in his song, talking about "mix the jollof with the suya." I said, "Whaaat?" It was crazy. And so I just really enjoyed the video. I really liked the fact that you have, like, this really--apparently after I did some research on the Wikipedias--fairly [?]--on the Wikipedias. He's very popular, and, like, he really, like, centered--he centered black identity and experience in the song. And then the guy who sang with him, Davido... Davido? How do you say his name, Ade? Ade: I'm not doing this with you.Zach: He is cold! He snapped on this song. I said, "Yo, this is a fire song!" And so I sent it to Ade. I was like, "Yo, this is my Favorite Thing." Like, "The next time we talk about Favorite Things, I'm bringing this up." Yo, I loved the video.Ade: Do you know I completely forgot about that? I had to go, but, like, I'm literally watching the video right now as you talk about it. I had to go back to the text to go see what this is. I still can't believe you called this grown man petite, but yeah, he does look a little bit... slight.Zach: Listen, man. If the extra small fits. Like, I'm not trying to be mean. There's nothing wrong with being petite. You can--you can [?]--Ade: You are 6'3". Everybody is smaller than you.Zach: I'm 6'2", first of all. But yeah, I think--I wish I was 6'3". Man, that'd be great. I'm, like, 6'1" 1/2, almost 6'2". If I was, like, 6'3", what? If I was 6'3" with a beard--that's gonna be my next Favorite Thing, beards.Ade: There, so now you're only, like, 9 inches taller than me instead of 12. Great.Zach: There you go. But no, so why are you--why are you hating on the video? Do you not like the video?Ade: I'm not hating on the video actually. I just hadn't seen it, but I had heard a bunch of people, like, talking about it and how amazing it was, but I haven't seen it yet, so I'm just kind of like, "Ugh, God, I don't have anything to add to this conversation." And then you started the conversation about this, calling the man petite, and I had to go look.Zach: It got your attention though, right? See? There you go. Ade: I cannot. Okay.Zach: But what do you think? So you're looking at it. Like, well, how do you--is it not dope or is it not dope? Ade: Well, I haven't actually heard the song accompanying it, but yeah, it looks like a ton of fun.Zach: And don't the people look beautiful?Ade: I mean, yeah, of course. Wait, I think I just saw, like, a gay man in this.Zach: I'm saying. See? No, they're doing it. No, it's dope. Ade: Okay. All right, anyway, let's focus. All right.Zach: So that's my Favorite Thing. So what's your Favorite Thing?Ade: My Favorite Thing? So my Favorite Thing this week is a website called egghead.io. I've been struggling with--actually, two Favorite Things, 'cause, you know, y'all know how I am. Egghead.io is a website that has a bunch of lessons and tutorials for people who are learning programming, and they are, like, super short videos, which is great, because if you have a shrot attention span like I do, there's nothing in the world worse than signing up for sitting down for a 2-hour-long tutorial. It is so painful. And the concepts are [?] and robust, and you often get to, like, code along, so it's fun, for me at least. And then the other thing, my other Favorite Thing, it's the React training course. So I didn't tweet very often about it, but I went to--early last week I got the opportunity to go to a React training. It was on hooks specifically, but they essentially took us through the basics of React all the way through this new concept called hooks which uses [?] context and [?] effect, et cetera, which probably makes no sense to you right now, but I only got to go because I emailed the team behind React training and I just asked them. I was like, "I don't have $1,000 to drop on training, but I'd really like to come," and they said, "Cool, come on." And it's one of the things that I love the most about tech and tech spaces. It's that if you are--if you ask, more often than not somebody will try to find a way to make sure that you can get it. At least the spaces and the people that I have met have been super generous and awesome with their time and are willing to help you learn and help you succeed, and so for people to just go out of their way to support you simply because you say, "Hey, I'm a learner, and I would like the opportunity to attend this training. What can you do for me?" And they go, "Okay. Girl, come on over." It felt really good, and the training was amazing, and I am now using it to build a couple of apps with my friends. So I am--yeah, I'm super thankful for the tech community and thankful in particular for Ryan Florence and Michael Jackson. His name was really Michael Jackson. And Danny [?] over at React training. Yeah, love those guys.Zach: You said--you said his name is Michael Jackson?Ade: It's really Michael Jackson.Zach: Does that not make you nervous? 'Cause he might be so... BAD at his job?Ade: All right. Well, guys. You just had--you just had to get one in. Okay. All right.Zach: [laughing]Ade: Y'all, it was so awesome. Thank you for listening.Zach: Oh, you're not even gonna do your second favorite thing? You're just gonna--Ade: That was my second Favorite Thing, and my first thing was egghead.io.Zach: Oh, right. You just weaved into the next one. I'm sorry. You're right. Go ahead.Ade: You were so focused on your dad puns that you weren't even paying attention to me.Zach: I was paying attention to you. Relax.Ade: You were not practicing your active listening skills, Zachary.Zach: Man. I had some other ones I was gonna say, but I was like, "Dang, nah." 'Cause I don't wanna--you know what I'm saying? I ain't trying to mess the bag up, the future bag, you know what I'm saying? So I was like, "Eh, let me go ahead and not have a problematic joke."Ade: Your dad joke was amazing actually. Thank you.Zach: No, I believe it. I believe it. Okay, okay, okay. I'm sorry. You were wrapping it up. Okay.Ade: Yeah, caught Michael Jackson while he was on tour for once. All right, no, that was even worse. That was even worse than anything you came up with. Okay. Anyway, that's it for us today, guys. Thank you for joining us. Actually, I'm gonna stop saying guys. It's not very inclusive.Zach: I be trying to say. I'm trying to tell you. We need to relax on all these, you know what I'm saying, gender-limiting terms.Ade: You're right. Thanks for joining us, y'all. Next time we will see you--when's the next time we're gonna drop an episode, Zach? Do you know?Zach: I mean, next Friday. Ade: Word.Zach: We drop an episode every week, so.Ade: I've been using a contextual--like, weekly contextual language in this episode, 'cause I said last week, and I didn't know if it was actually gonna be last week by the time they hear this. Anyway, y'all, we're Living Corporate everywhere. We are on your LinkedIn, on Twitter, on Instagram, on Facebook. Wherever you be at we be at, so come check us out. If you would like for us to read one of your letters, please send us an email at our gmail. It's livingcorporatepod--podcast? Oh, gosh.Zach: Yo. It is livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com. You can also DM us on Twitter and Instagram. You don't know--we're, like, 71 episodes in--or 72, I don't know when this one's gonna drop--you're talking about... goodness gracious. Yes, it's livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com.Ade: I had "livingcorporatepod" on--Zach: You probably--what you probably did, you was probably thinking about our Twitter, @LivingCorp_Pod.Ade: Yes, that's the one. Uh-huh. I just--I'm not a terrible person. I'm just tired today, y'all. All right. We are on the world wide web at www.living-corporate.com. I got that one right that time.Zach: You did. Good job.Ade: Pats on the back, pats on the back. [laughs] Until next time, it's been Ade.Zach: It's been Zach.Ade and Zach: Peace.

Zach and Ade officially kick off Living Corporate Season 2 by announcing new… well, just about everything! New guests and blog posts, weekly tips provided by Tristan Layfield, and even new background music! They also discuss the expansion of Favorite Things and listener letters for Season 2.Email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com or send us a DM on any of our social media platforms to submit your Favorite Things and listener letters!TRANSCRIPTZach: Ayo!Ade: What's good?Zach: We're back, we're back. What's going on, everybody? Welcome to Living Corporate Season 2.Ade: Sure is.Zach: Season 2, let's go. Look, more intentional--is it more intentional? Does more intentional--is that grammatically correct?Ade: I--I do believe so, yeah.Zach: Okay, great. More intentional. Bolder. More fun. What kind of topics do we have this season, Ade? I feel like we've got some hot stuff.Ade: We do. So this season we're gonna be talking about interesting stuff like supporting black when at work, which I personally am a fan of. Being disabled while other at work, respectability politics. I mean, the real behind the helpfulness of HR. Being Latinx at work. We have a ton more content. We got some great feedback from the blog last season as well, so we're continuing that this year. Definitely, definitely, definitely make sure you check us out. It'll be on our website, living-corporate.com, and on our Medium page.Zach: In the off-season, right, we actually made some moves, okay? So we bought more domains, right? Okay, so we got livingcorporate.tv. We got livingcorporate.co. We got livingcorporate.org. We really have every Living Corporate. We have livingcorporate.net, right? We have every Living Corporate besides livingcorporate.com, because Australia owns livingcorporate.com. Ade: Hold on. Now, this is the first I'm hearing of this. I have to fight Australia for--what?Zach: So it's a company in Australia, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they have livingcorporate.com, but we have all the other Living Corporates without the dashes, right, and the hyphens, so we're making these moves. Definitely excited about the blog. Like, that's gonna be great. Like, everybody isn't a podcast person, right? Like, we have this podcast. We love our podcast. The podcast is probably 90%, 95%, right, as we currently stand of what we have going on, but we want to better diversify our media offerings, because people engage in content in different ways, and we really believe in what we're doing. I would hate--I would hate for all the great things that we have going on to not be captured or not be absorbed rather. And speaking of more content and engaging people in different ways... some of y'all probably remember Tristan Layfield. Ade: Aye.Zach: Yes. He was a guest on the show last season on the episode--it was a B-Side for Landing the Job of Your Dreams. And he's a resume subject matter expert in terms of how to write them, and he's a career coach. Doing great stuff, right? Doing great stuff, and he's graciously offered to be a part of the Living Corporate team for Season 2 to give y'all his own nuggets of wisdom, and he's gonna put 'em on the show.Ade: Amazing. Shout-out to Tristan.Zach: To me that's crazy, right? Shout-out to Tristan Layfield and Layfield Resume, man. Like, shout-out to those folks over there. He's doing great work. In fact, can we get some applause? Can we get some applause for us right now, like, collaborating, sharing spaces?Ade: Totally.Zach: I mean, come on. Let's do that. Let's do that. Maybe even some air horns too, I don't know. That reminds me though, [inaudible] sound effects, drops and stuff like that, we're also gonna new background music this season. Now, look. We got a lot of feedback. People are really feeling the background music. I'm gonna call it blackground music, right? It's jazzy. It's soulful. It's refreshing, right? It's good. It's good. We've gotten good feedback on it. So we're excited about the fact that we're gonna have some new blackground music this season and new mixes for our SoundCloud. So look, we have a decent amount of followers on SoundCloud. Of course we have our most followers on Instagram, but look, on our SoundCloud, y'all, we drop mixes and, like, custom music. I know, I know, I know. You're like, "What? Y'all doing a lot." I know. Ade: We got the aux cord.Zach: We got the aux cord, we got the aux cord. And listen, the mixes are fire. They're not--there's no profanity or nothing on 'em, so when your colleagues at work, when they ask, "Hey, Jamal, do you have any music you'd like for us to play? We're having a late-night working session here." This actually happened to me when I was in Japan working with my colleagues. They were like, "Hey, let's get some music going on. Let's get some music going on." So one of my colleagues, I'm not gonna say who it was, wanted to play some Nickelback. I was like--Ade: Now, hold on. Hold on, hold on. What? Zach: Okay. So Nickelback, yeah. And I'm like, "Hey, uh, Brock, if you could just hand me the charger--hand me the aux and I'll handle it." And I take the aux cord, I'm playing the music, and let me tell you. Fire. We had a good time. They were like, "Ooh, what mix is this?" Then--another example and I'll stop--I had an orientation. So at my job, my new job, orientation. For some reason they were like, "Hey, our music isn't really working." Like, "Our playlist isn't working." I said, "Okay, cool." I plugged in my little--plugged in the SoundCloud, right? Work and Weekend Vibes Volume 1. Man. The guy, right? Senior guy who was coordinating the whole thing goes, "Hey, this is--hey. Hey. Hey, guy! Hey. Music's pretty good." I said, "Thank you. Thank you." It was great. It was great. We had a great time. So the point is we're gonna have more of that, okay? And it's gonna be fire, so we need y'all to check it out. Now, I talked about drops, right? Like, we talked about kind of, like, sound effects and stuff like that. Ade, what kind of drops should we have? Like, we're not a hip hop podcast, right? Like, we're not gonna have gunshots, right?Ade: I mean, you know what? I just feel like there are occasions in which something so fire was said that a gunshot or two might be appropriate. Zach: [laughing] That's so problematic.Ade: Listen, listen. I just feel as though there are some celebrations that require a *brap-brap* or two.Zach: A *brap-brap*! [laughs] Well, the funny thing is that culturally, right, culturally, like, there are different--you know, it's just--it's different. I've seen videos, man, of cats, like, just--I saw a video at a wedding. Everybody had guns, shooting them thangs off at the end, right? Like, as opposed to throwing rice they was throwing bullets in the air. It was crazy.Ade: So listen, as someone who has been to many a Jamaican function, yes. That's all I'm gonna say to that.Zach: Word? That's the wave? That's the wave? I don't know. That's--wow.Ade: I mean, a graduation, a baby shower...Zach: A baby shower? They're shooting--wait, whoa, whoa. They're letting 'em go at the baby shower?Ade: Nothing is complete--no celebration is truly complete until there's gunshots in the air.Zach: Until you let them thangs go? Wow. So this is the scary part about gunshots, right, is that when you shoot 'em up like that, I mean, just because of the way that gravity works, they're gonna fall, right? They're gonna come back.Ade: [laughing] What goes up surely must come down.Zach: [laughing] They're coming down. Can you imagine? Like, that is scary. You're in your house and you hear [sound of bullets dropping], and it's not rain? Like, "That is the smallest, fastest hail I've ever heard in my life."Ade: All I want to say is that [the sound Zach made] is not how guns sound.Zach: [laughs] When they fall. When they fall though. When they fall.Ade: You know what? I still don't feel like metal sounds like [the sound] when it falls on the ground. Feel free to correct me on this one.Zach: You don't think so? [laughs] I just think--I just think because they're so small. Like, they're bullets. They've already been fired, so they're not--Ade: I mean, that's cute and all, but metal just doesn't sound like that.Zach: It don't sound like that? That's [inaudible].Ade: No. I also know that if I ever need some on the spot sound effects you're not gonna be the guy that I go to for--Zach: Wow. My sound effects are fire.Ade: Are they though? Because thus far you've given me [the sound] and *brap-brap*.Zach: So I've asked you--so look, we've completely derailed, right? I asked you what sound effects we need. You've only--you've suggested gunshots.Ade: Okay, first of all, I didn't suggest gunshots. I said that gunshots should not be entirely out of our arsenal--see what I did there?Zach: Wow. Bars.Ade: [laughs] Should not be entirely out of our arsenal of sound effects. That's all I am saying personally.Zach: So what are we thinking? Are we thinking, like, maybe stuff from, like, a different world? Right? Like, I don't know--Ade: You know what? I don't--I feel like we should stay away from, like, sitcom-y sounds, but also just not be dead... so there is an in-between here, and we just have to walk the road and find it.Zach: We do. So yeah, more on that. We'll figure out what exactly those sounds are.Ade: See the wisdom I just applied there without saying anything at all?Zach: No, no, you did. No, no, it was good. It was good, it was good. Ade: I appreciate my roses when I get them. I'm sorry. I'm acting a fool today. All right.Zach: Okay.Ade: Back to it. Favorite Things are back.Zach: Yeah, they back.Ade: However, this year--stay with me here--we want y'all to submit some of your Favorite Things.Zach: There you go.Ade: That's right. I'm tired of being clowned for my Favorite Things. I feel as though it is only fair that we open up our space to include others, open up our horizons by sharing with us what brings you some joy or the next week or the week after that.Zach: And you know what? Speaking of, like, sharing things, like, let me just--let me just talk about what we're sharing today, okay? We're sharing space. So you may say, "Well, yes, Zach, we are sharing space in this corporate structure as non-white people in majority-white working places, and yes, we have to figure out ways to share and navigate space--" No, no, no. I'm not talking about. I'm talking about we're practically sharing space today. Ade is sharing space in a golf room of her--of her apartment. So if you hear this, like, whooshing sound in the background, those are not beheadings. That's a man swinging at a golf ball with fiber in his being. He is hitting it as hard as he possibly can. He knows--Ade: As hawrd? Zach: Hawrd. Hawrd, yes, as he--as he possibly can. He knows that we are in this room, and this is how he's choosing to share the space with us. So--Ade: I just--first of all, he's--like, this is--this is the intended purpose of the room.*SMACK*Ade: That's one. Two, let it never be said that I don't go to some extremes for Living Corporate, okay? Because I have recorded--Zach: No, you've made--this is up there with when you recorded that show with Christa in the closet with all the blankets on top of your body.Ade: I have contorted myself into some very interesting places for Living Corporate, so I just--again, I appreciate my flowers when they are given to me.Zach: No, you are--you are appreciated, it's just I don't want to be implicated in any type of murder.Ade: See? See? Why you gotta be like that? *SMACK*Zach: Because it sounds--because it sounds so scary to me, right? Like, it sounds--Ade: Imagine being the person.Zach: Man, no, no. That sounds terrifying. Okay, let's continue. So I know we talked about Favorite Things. Listener letters.Ade: All right. Listener letters. So we're taking both Favorite Things and listener letters, wherever you're choosing to submit them. So whether you want to email them, DM us on social media--preferably Instagram, but wherever we be at, you be at--submit your Favorite Things, and we will absolutely shout you out, share your Favorite Things, and maybe talk through some of the irritating things, or awesome things, that are going on in your corporate world. So if you want to talk about your coworker accusing you of stealing their lunch, drop us a line. If you want to talk about the amazing win that you've had or the proposal that you just won or the grants that you just wrote or just about the fact that you don't feel like you're getting anywhere in your career at all. Whatever it is you want to share, let us know. We're here. What else?Zach: I mean, that's a good--that's a good point. We really want--we definitely want the letters, right? And we definitely want the Favorite Things, so just submit 'em. Like, we're flexible. We're available, right? We're here for y'all. We got all these domains, right? We got all these different social media platforms. DMs open on all of 'em, you know what I'm saying? You just hit us up. Of course we prefer it in email, so who cares? Send it to us.Ade: [laughs] Who cares what our preference is?Zach: Yeah, who cares about our preference? We are here to serve y'all. That's serving leadership, you see what I mean? Because we love y'all, you hear?Ade: I see you, change manager. I see you. Zach: That's right. Look, you gotta put yourself last, okay?Ade: I don't know about all that. [laughs]Zach: [laughs] "Wait a minute. Hold on."Ade: [laughs] Hold on, now. Nah, nah.Zach: "Hold on, hold on. Not last. Maybe not first." What about second to first? All right, so what else? Okay, yeah, yeah. So look. Now, we've said this--we've said this multiple times, and I need, like, some--I need, like, some softer sentimental music, kind of like the music before you donate to those dogs and stuff with their eyes all big and the cats, and they look all sad. I need that in the background. Ade: [supplies sad music acapella style]Zach: Listen, y'all know that we need 5 stars. Y'all know that we need 5 star ratings.Ade: You know I'm not about to do this with you, right? [laughs]Zach: For a simple two seconds. A one-time donation of 2 seconds. You can actually contribute to the over-arching health and promotion of the Living Corporate podcast if you just slide over to iTunes, the podcast section. Scroll down on Living Corporate's little page on the podcast. It's gonna say, "Leave a review. Leave a rating." You're gonna take your finger, and you're gonna just press 5. 5 stars. Ade: 5 of 'em.Zach: Do you have 5 on it? 'Cause I've had 5 on it, okay? Ade: [singing] I got 5 on it.Zach: Now, we're not gonna get copy--we're not gonna sued for that because we didn't play the audio. Ade: We didn't, and also Jordan Peele has made it kind of creepy, so...Zach: Yes, he has, and so we actually probably won't even reference that again. Ade: Yeah, that's gonna be the first and the last time we do that on the sh ow.Zach: Facts. But look, really, we need 5 stars, okay? So please do us the favor of giving us these 5 stars. And look, let me just go ahead--so that was the--that's kind of like the carrot, you know?Ade: Okay. First of all--there's no stick, number one. Number two, I just want to say we also appreciate your comments that come along with those. So if you want to share any feedback, if you'd like us to bring any guests back or a rerun episode or maybe get a little bit deeper on a topic that we've discussed in the past, let us know. But yeah, give us the 5 stars.Zach: So there's no stick, so I didn't mean it that way. That was me being softer, right? But, like, let me just be practical. We have, like, thousands upon thousands of downloads on our podcast every month, and yet we only have, like, 120 reviews. Ade: It's very hurtful.Zach: Right? It hurts me, right? I'm like, "Yo." And then people will be like--and then people be on Instagram, "This podcast influences me the most every day. I love listening to this podcast," and I feel the love, I do, but I would feel it more if I could get some of these 5 star reviews. So what can we do to, like, help support 5 star reviews? Like, how can we--how can we encourage the audience to participate in 5 star reviews, Ade?Ade: I have an idea.Zach: All right, go ahead.Ade: We could do giveaways. Zach: Giveaways? Giveaways is a--okay, okay, but what are we--what are we giving away? 'Cause it's not like we have--Ade: If you send us screenshots of your review, you enter a drawing. How's that sound?Zach: Right, but what do we have though? It's not like we have any, I mean--Ade: I mean, we do have Living Corporate mugs--hold on, I'm pretty certain we do. We have mugs.Zach: So that's an announcement, right? So that's, like, a two-in-one, right? We have mugs, and we're gonna do giveaways.Ade: Aye.Zach: Okay, so we do have mugs. I agree that we should do giveaways, so let's do that. Yeah, so we have, like, these Living Corporate mugs, y'all, and they're actually pretty cute. They're really cute. They're big, so, like, you know, you can put a lot of whatever your drink of choice is.Ade: Coffee. We're drinking coffee.Zach: Coffee. Listen, let's not--Ade: Although if you're making--if you're adding a little whiskey in there, that's between you and your cup.Zach: I've seen it. It's potatoes between you and your cup. Don't ask me about what's in my cup, you know? I won't ask.Ade: I really feel like that needs to be a thing. "Don't ask me about what is in my cup."Zach: Don't ask me about what's in my cup. No, I mean, I've seen it, and, you know--like, you see it on TV a lot, right? And I don't think it's, like, crazy, but I have seen people have a little something at the bottom of their drawer for the end of the day. I've seen that before. More so in industry. I've definitely never seen it in consulting, but I have seen it in industry. So okay. Cool, cool, cool. So yes, we definitely will do the giveaways. And they're not on the website yet, right? Like, we don't have the merch on the website, but we do have mugs. And we're not popping enough, I don't think, to justify us trying to sell y'all some mugs, okay, but we do have mugs that we can give out for free to encourage y'all to support the Living Corporate team.Ade: Word. Zach: What else? What else? Okay, okay, okay. So, you know, really this season of Living Corporate--so, you know, we learned a lot, right? Like, last season, of course it just being our first season--we're not even a year old yet. You know, coming in, just trying to figure out, like, what the tone is gonna be, how we address topics. And so y'all, really though, expect more intentional, like, commentary and content and just, like, general topics. Expect more fun, right? So we're gonna try to be a little bit more laid-back. Last year was really scripted. We got that feedback a lot, but we were trying to just make sure that we were keeping things succinct and tight, and we didn't want to miss--Ade: Because as you can see, we have a tendency to stray completely off-topic and wander down alleys of distraction, but--Zach: But, you know, it is what it is. And the thing--and the thing about it is, I think--I think the other point is, like, more people than not have said, "Hey, you know, we'd really like to, like, get to know y'all more." Like, "We'd like to get know you and Ade more, understand y'all's relationship. We'd like to get to know other people on the team. You said you've got other folks around." Like, "We'd like to get to know people more," and I think there's way that we can both approachable and personable and at the same time being, you know, still--like, still stick true to what it is we really ultimately want to talk about. But yeah, I just wanted to let y'all--just say that part, because we're really excited about this season, you know? Y'all know. Y'all know it's a crazy time out here. 45 got all us messed up. Yeah, I said it. I said it. Ade: I mean, these are just facts.Zach: They're facts. They're facts. They're facts. They're Facts Kellerman, okay? They're--[laughs] Hey, side-note. So apparently somebody in the DMV--Ade told me that some people be walking around saying "factory." [laughs]Ade: Hold on, what?Zach: So, you know, people will be like, "Facts." Ade: That sounds--that sounds like something that you say in, like, Waldorf. Zach: [laughs] You said "factory." Like, "factory?" That's not--no, factory is a whole different word. That's--no, that doesn't work.Ade: Nope, nope. And I know that there is, like, a trend of saying things are true when they aren't, word to your president, but...Zach: Factory.Ade: I'm here to categorically deny any and all claims that we say that in the DMV. We just--we do not.Zach: Yeah, no. That's not gonna work. Ade: Actually, let me not--let me not do that, because the teeny-boppers might. But what do they know? They're teeny-boppers.Zach: They don't know. They don't know. "Factory" is not the way. "Factory" is a whole other word. But the point is, you know, it's just a crazy time. Like, we know it is. We see--we're seeing stories of, like, blatant inequity and inequality and oppression and just general wrong-doing every day, and, you know, there's plenty of spaces that you can engage for, like, fairly moderate, semi-safe, (rarely?) wholly-safe discussions around--dialogues around race. Or, you know, you can tune into CNN or whatever for that. You can tune into anything else for that. Like, we're trying to have, like--Ade: Tune into who?Zach: I was saying, like, CNN. You know CNN. They'll be like, "A Dialogue On Race: Part 1." "A Dialogue On Race: Part 2." You know? Like, we're not trying to have quote-unquote a dialogue. Like, we're trying to really center and respect and give credence to the perspectives of people that are not often heard, right? Irrespective of how senior they may be in the organization or what their education level is. They're not heard, they're not seen, and so, like, we're trying to drive content that centers them, that affirms that, and that really continues to encourage folks to be thoughtful and empathetic to their neighbor. And, like, that's what we're trying to do. So, you know, this season is gonna be--our hope is it's gonna be way more courageous in that way. Not to say we weren't courageous in Season 1, but, like, I want to--I want to be more courageous season-to-season, right? Ade: Right, and to add to that and not interrupt you--my bad.Zach: No, you're good. You're good.Ade: Part of centering the voices of black and brown folks in this space means we're not going to be doing the "there are good people on both sides" BS, because I'm sorry, like, you're not gonna equate my voice to that of a Nazi.Zach: Right, yeah. That's super true.Ade: That's, like--of all the things that we're gonna do, that's just not going to be one of them on this here platform. And I'm sure there are--I mean, there are plenty of spaces in which you could do that. This just is not going to be one of those, and I'm perfectly comfortable categorically saying that.Zach: Yeah, straight up. Because this is the thing, like, it's not--and I think that's the other issue, like a lot of times when we have conversations like these, we present it like, "Oh, well, you know, both sides just need to understand." Like, no, both sides don't really need to understand. Like, one side needs to be more empathetic and conscious of their behaviors, actions, and their privileges, and the other side--the other side don't need to do nothing. Like, nah. I was gonna say we should be more--you know, we could be gracious and just kind of, like, be willing to receive the help, but, I mean, nah. Like, a lot of times we don't even necessarily need help as much as we just don't need harm. You know what I mean? And so anyway, I--Ade: You're my fav, Zach.Zach: What'd you say, Ade?Ade: You're my fav.Zach: [laughs]Ade: 'Cause you got there, 'cause I really was about to be like, "What was that?" No, but the fundamental premise remains that it's actually harmful that the conversation is constantly asking those without power to be gracious and to have mercy and be kind and do all of the emotional labor for those with power, and I'm not just speaking to racial dynamics. I'm also speaking in any and all forms of--and we know that intersectionality is a thing--but speaking to any and all forms of misaligned dynamics, power dynamics, and the onus is almost always on the oppressed to coddle the oppressor, and I'm just gonna say that 2019, it's not--that's not the wave we're on. You're either catching up or you're getting left behind, and I feel like we just took a very, like, sharp revolutionary turn [inaudible], so let's dial it back and talk about our social media. [laughs]Zach: [laughs] Man, it did. I was like, "Dang, if I take that ball back and I continue with this wave, the next pivot's gonna be too aggressive." Let's transition back onto Instagram.Ade: [laughs] Right? This is the kickoff episode. Let's treat it as such.Zach: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ade: And we've definitely been going on for a nice little while now.Zach: [laughs] Well, this is the thing, right? Historically you're absolutely right, that it's often been the oppressed's job to massage the feelings, emotions, of the people who have--who are the oppressors, who are the people with authority, who have the power, privilege and access.Ade: One more thing and I promise I'll shut up.Zach: Go ahead.Ade: I won't.Zach: No, don't shut up. Go ahead.Ade: Here's the other thing. I wonder how much more we could be doing, and by we I mean just people who fall on the wrong side of the power dynamics. I wonder how much more we could be doing if we didn't expend all of this time and effort and energy and just emotional labor on managing the emotions of others, right? I wonder how much more--I think of it as "If I spend all of this time thinking through what my words will sound like as a woman, as a black woman, as a black immigrant, as a queer woman, as a Muslim..." Like, all of these things. So I think about all of the time that I think that I spend expending time and energy on making sure that I present myself appropriately. If I just took some of that time back, do you know how much more time I would have? How much more energy I would have to expend on things like sleeping?Zach: Straight up.Ade: Right? Or...Zach: Exercising. Drinking more water.Ade: Drinking more water, which--by the way, if you're listening with us right now go ahead and grab yourself a glass of water and just sip.Zach: Take a sip.Ade: Take a sip. Anyway, but I think the fundamental point remains that--and I'm not saying that everyone goes around all of the time carrying that weight, but it is a significant amount of time, and it's almost not even a conscious thing that you do anymore, that you, as a woman, apologize for speaking in a meeting. Like, "Sorry, I just wanted to say that..." What are you apologizing for, sis? Just say what you have to say. Say it with your chest. But that's part of this, like, training that you get as being the person on the wrong side of the power dynamics. In 2019, I would just like to say "That's done." That's canceled. That is over.Zach: That is canceled. We're not doing that, and, like, we really want for people to come here and genuinely feel affirmed. Like, I'll give a really quick story. So, like, when I was in Japan--first of all, Japan is amazing. I can't wait to go back. Beautiful country. I was in Tokyo. It's a beautiful city. And I'm walking just--like, I'm walking down the street, and I see, like, another young black man, and we kind of look at each other. I give him the nod, he gives me the nod, and I'm walking, and then, like, I kind of turn over my shoulder, and he's, like, turning over his shoulder at the same time, and, like, he's looking at me. Like, we're looking at each other again, and we smiled, and I just kind of--I turned back around and I was just like, "Dang," and, like, I ain't gonna lie. Like, call it corny, call it cheesy or whatever. That made me feel really good. Like, I felt great, and I carried, like, this little awkward smile with me for, like, I don't know, maybe like a minute, right? And there were no words exchanged. There was just a certain level of just--there was a certain level of power and just love that you felt from just being acknowledged and seeing someone in a space that you did not expect to see someone that looked like you look like you, and then they see--y'all see each other. And, like, Living Corporate, I think that whatever we can do to give--I would love for everybody to feel that feeling that I had that evening, for those, like, 65, 70 seconds. It was a great feeling.Ade: That's dope.Zach: Yeah, straight up.Ade: All right, let's close this out.Zach: Oh, yeah. Social media, social media. [laughs]Ade: Yeah, so follow us on social media. [laughs]Zach: [laughs] Okay. So on Instagram we're @LivingCorporate, on Twitter we're @LivingCorp_Pod, then we got--well, Living Corporate, if you just Google us, you'll see us on LinkedIn. We're everywhere, so make sure you check us out. We're everywhere that y'all are, and I think that does it for us on the show. Remember, this is the kickoff. We have more content coming for you. [in accent] More fire for your head top. Was that a good accent? Or not really?Ade: No, sir. Please never do that again. Be blessed.Zach: [laughs]Ade: No, be best. Don't do that.Zach: Be best. [laughs] Ade: Whoo, all right.Zach: All right. Well, this has been Zach. Ade: This has been Ade.Zach and Ade: Peace.

  Zach - Hey everybody, welcome to Brotherhood Without Manners a Game of Thrones podcast by Game of Thrones fans for Game of Thrones fans. Zach - I'm Zach- Nate - and I am Nate- Zach - And we are two brothers who- Nate - Have no manners what so ever. Zach - Well, obviously that's in the name right there, but we absolutely fell in love with George R.R Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series when we read it and we couldn't seem to ever shut the fuck up about it. Nate - So here we are. Zach - So here we are we said why not throw it into a podcast. We will be doing a full spoiler reread of the entire series. Uhh Game of Thrones through a Dance with Dragons and possibly some of the other books. Later on down the line, but right now we're mainly focused on the main series. Nate - So this isn't a s how related podcast as of yet, Zach - We'll probably throw in some shi...show references. Nate - Right, that doesn't mean that we're not going to. Zach - I mean with the last season on the horizon anyway- Nate - But our cannon is specifically focused on the books, Zach - Right Nate - And so not the show but again, we are also big fans of the show Zach - Now you don't have to if you haven't read the books before or you aren't starting to reread with us you don't have to worry about any spoilers in this episode this episode we just want to familiarize you guys with us and get to know who we are ummm, and just a little bit about us why we're so obsessed with martin's podcast. Nate - Okay, So one of the first things that we wanted to dive into is how we even discovered Game of Thrones as a series Zach - Cause you read it first. Nate - I read it first and then fucking you. Took how many years of me prodding and begging to get you to get your ass to read it- Zach - I remember specifically I would try reading it and I would get through the prologue and half of brans first chapter and I would think nope not for me because it reminded me so much of Lord of the Rings and Lord of the Rings I I could never follow the lineage the chain...the chain of names that you had to go through so I thought it was another one of those little did I know Nate - That's the big factor that draws everyone to it... Zach - Absolutely Nate - So when I first was introduced to it it was maybe a year before the TV show was put out on to HBO. Zach - Probably like twenty ten. Nate - And so yeah, it was..uh I was working at the radio station and the DJ I was interning for gave me the book as a Christmas present and he said you've got to read this they're making it a show just do it. And so thankfully he gave that to me and I spent years by myself just Zach - (Laughing) Nate - Wondering if I would ever- have somebody Zach - I do things in my own time, get off my back umm, I Yeah. Yeah. No, I just I couldn't get into it. But when I did when I finally after not only you but many friends around me were shoving this book under my nose saying how have you not read this yet? You've read Potter you you've consumed countless other trilogies and series. Why are you not reading Game of Thrones? I finally decided to give it a chance and I said alright I'm gonna finish this was after the show. You had shown me the show at this point. So we had watched season 1 So I was a little bit spoiled on it but I loved how actually word for word season 1 and book 1 were and that I mean how would you not get hooked on book 1 by the end of it? Nate - Right. Zach - There's just so much to you know, what's gonna happen with so-and-so and what happened with certain characters and- Nate - So because obviously we had different introductions to it I gave you a bit of a bit of background on it trying to get you into the book but based off of that and what you can remember what was It you were actually expecting Game of Thrones. Just to be Lord of the Rings?- Zach - I still, I..I...I, I still remember the way you described it to me you said it was like a group of Sith Inquisitors trying to take a royal throne and so you you through the Star Wars reference in there, which of course it's gonna hook me but So I...I actually went in thinking it was gonna be a little more sci-fi than fantasy and I mean I wasn't disappointed because I do think that this could technically classify as sci-fi in this in this crazy crazy world of Planetos, That were on Nate - I think in the meta scheme of things. Absolutely- Zach - But I I thought it was gonna be another Lord of the Rings a carbon copy of you know, here's good Here is evil. Here's the line. Let's do battle and it'll be a great fun adventure then I heard Martin explained himself that the only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself and that quote alone. Just kind of epitomizes what the series is is everyone in conflict with themselves which is just so fascinating to read let alone the slew of characters we go through it with not just you know, we're not just with Legolas Aragorn Gimli we're with Eddard Stark and Sansa Stark and Catelyn Stark- Nate - And their house and then we're in this house with this group of people Zach - Exactly Yeah- Nate - It's not just one- group Zach - So widespread. What did uh... Nate - So for me like cause uh...the way it was introduced to me just being gifted and the guy that gave me the book didn't really give me much to go on so I didn't really have any expectations Zach - Right, right- Nate - And I don't usually because of how name required it was to know all these names know everybody understand to really get a grasp of it I didn't think I was gonna like it I stuck with it just because I really respected that guy he enjoyed it so much and then once I got into it, I was like wow, this is I can't not stop reading i dont know whats going on. Zach - yeah yeah absolutely I...I remember umm...I didn't hear the actual title a Song of Ice and Fire until maybe I'd finished clash I...I...didn't know that the whole Nate - oh that is was the whole Zach - that it was a whole series was called A Song of Ice and Fire and that when I heard that actually I've looked at the books in a new light I've read them in a new light because I was wondering who who does that apply to who is the Song of Ice and Fire about? Is it the whole world? Is it a set of people? Did did that have any sway on you? Did you think anything Nate - I, see I I really took that just into I didn't actually look at it as how it applied to the story for a long time umm, because similarly. I just thought it was a you know play on the houses and the very basic of it. Zach - Right, because there's nothing to read into in Game of Thrones- Nate - right not at all- Zach - between the lines- Nate - And so at the time the only other named trip series like that I read the inheritance cycle by Paolini and the Eragon books and I really enjoyed those but that was the the I think it's called the inheritance cycle Zach - Yes Nate - that's the title of the the series and I hadn't really heard much of that because you know you had Lord of the Rings and you had the two towers but umm, Granted I'm probably just stupid and there actually is a whole term for the Lord of the Rings groupbut like Zach - I dont know if there is, yeah so you could be right. Nate - So like it was just something I thought was the title to describe the group- Zach - Yeah yeah the grouping of it. Nate - It wasn't I think until really I heard about the the song of the dance of Ice and Fire you know the Song of Ice and Fire in the actual Zach - context of the story Nate - where they were, you know, oh well the Song of Ice and Fire we've got that song like that's actually a thing and Im like oh shhhh.. Zach - yea yea yeah yeah, not to get too far ahead but his is the song of Ice and Fire is actually aligned and yes, absolutely I I just know that this book was unlike anything I had ever read before or since even even today while we're still fingers crossed waiting for winds of winter And we just got fire and blood which I'm currently working my way through right now while waiting for the last season I mean there's a plethora of information that we've been getting new Canon Which is one of the most exciting things to me because fire and blood is just continuously blowing my mind so I'm super excited to dive into this podcast and go chapter by chapter and breakdown and again if you haven't read the books I would only listen to this episode because from this point on we will be looking at chapters in context of the whole series whether Nate - yeah, this is a full reread we've we're going through it having read everything and that's how we're planning on analyzing and discussing these each chapter analytically breaking down each individual one with regards to trying to see the foreshadowing throughout the story as a whole not even just each book but the entire series is we have it all the current lore all the current books which as of this date Includes the new fire and blood book that just came out Which obviously means that a world of Ice and Fire is also out on the table Zach - And Dunk and Egg, Woot WOOT Nate - And so we'll be putting everything in context breaking it down comparing it to the story. You know- Zach - Don't get us wrong. We're by no means experts analytically Literature or any otherwise Nate - We just are massive massive massive fans Zach - Massive fans. I...I mean I think three hours of every day of mine is either spent on a subreddit of Game of Thrones or watching YouTube theories and videos on it or- Nate - or just rereading the books and trying to figure out my own theories Zach - yeah, absolutely. It's an amazing series so if you haven't read it take a minute read the books and come back and listen to us because we would love to hear your discussion We definitely would like everybody to write in and let us know if you have thoughts or questions if we say something completely stupid that you disagree with Nate - Or incorrectly, correct? Zach - I mean Nate's always incorrect. So just correct the shit out of him. But, Ya, no just write in and let us know your thoughts and questions what was your favorite chapter of a Game of Thrones again will be probably be doing it in uh, Two chapter blocks where each episode will cover probably cover about two chapters but um, you know that's subject to change depending on chapter lengths or just a flow some chapters tend to, lead right into the next one quite well, but ya, no, Nate - Not to mention our availability for all that but you know Zach - He's not busy. Don't he's not doing anything except this podcast Nate - and so make sure you hit up all of our socials you can get ahold of us at our Facebook, facebook.com/Brotherhoodpodcast our twitter @mannerswithout our Instagram @brotherhoodwithout we also have an email withoutmannersBrotherhood@gmail.com so hit us up and Stay tuned for our next episode where we're really gonna dive into everything (outro music resembling Game of Thrones theme fades in) Zach - Right in the prologue of Game of Thrones the first book of A Song of Ice and Fire. umm I love the prologue I think it's a great intro to the whole book as a whole and I'm really excited to look at it through the lens of the entire story so hopefully you guys can tune in with us and stop by one of our social media platforms and just say, hello. give us a like, ya know? We're here Nate - Later Yo! Zach - Peace! (Outro music comes to crescendo and ends)

Through our partnership with the Coalition of Black Excellence founded by Angela J. we have the pleasure of sitting down with Tucker Ellis partner Monica Williams Monroe. She sits down with us to discuss her career journey up to this point and to share valuable advice for younger leaders in the corporate environment. We also promote CBE Week, an event designed to highlight excellence in the black community, connect black professionals across sectors, and provide opportunities for professional development and community engagement.Learn more about CBE Week here! https://www.cbeweek.com/TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach, and listen, y'all. Living Corporate is partnering with the Coalition of Black Excellence, a non-profit organization based in California, in bringing a Special Speaker series to promote CBE Week, an annual, week-long event designed to highlight excellence in the black community, connect black professionals across sectors, and provide opportunities for professional development and community engagement that will positively transform the black community. This is a special series where we spotlight movers and shakers who will be speakers during CBE Week. Today, we are blessed to have partner at Tucker Ellis LLP Monica Williams Monroe. In her capacity as local national and trial council, Monica represents a variety of corporate and insurance interests, including those of property owners, service contractors, product suppliers, and equipment manufacturers. She defends clients in several litigation areas involving premises liability, including both premises owners and subcontractors and claims arising from construction improvements. Monica also handles client matters involving general council--sorry, general contract analysis, business disputes, real estate litigation, and bankruptcy proceedings. Monica, welcome to the show. How are you doing?Monica: I'm great. Thanks so much for having me, Zach. I'm excited to be here, and it's a super sunny day here in California, so no complaints on my end.Zach: There we go, and no, excited to have you here, and shout out to California. Definitely a beautiful place. Just got back from San Francisco a couple weeks ago. I had a great time. For those of you who don't know you, and I recognize that I gave a little bit of an intro, would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself?Monica: Sure, yeah, and thanks for reading that background, but basically I'm a trial lawyer. I try cases here in Northern California and actually throughout the state, and I'm entering my 16th year of practice, which is kind of hard--Zach: Wow, congratulations.Monica: Thank you. It's kind of hard for me to believe that. I'm currently the Partner-in-Charge of the San Francisco office of Tucker Ellis, and the focus for my work is really on [inaudible] litigation, which is just business disputes, and product liability. Like I said, 16 years. It's really hard to believe, but I still love what I do, and it feels like a new challenge kind of every day. So that's a little bit about me.Zach: Wow. So now, you know, would you mind talking to us--so you talked about 16 years, [inaudible], and again, congratulations. Please talk to us about your professional journey and how you became a partner at Tucker Ellis.Monica: Yeah, yeah. You know, I was thinking about that, and just kind of even going all the way back, you know, my path was a little bit different than some others. I started out--I went to undergrad at Clark in Atlanta, and when I was in college I thought that I was gonna be in communications. I was really into marketing and PR. That's where my focus was. My degree was in communications. Then when I got out of undergrad, that's straight--what I went into was a media sort of focused career, and while I was there doing that work--it was really fun and exciting, but I still kind of wanted to do something different. So I had a few friends who were actually looking at law school. I had never thought about it. I'm the first lawyer in my family, and it just seemed like an interesting path for me. I've always, again, loved communication, loved words, and then kind of a wordsmith, and so I thought, you know, I should try. Some people encouraged me to go ahead and try and apply to law school, and when I did I ended up not just getting accepted, but I ended up getting full academic scholarship offers. So when that happened I was like, "You know what? That's probably something I should think about pursuing," and so I ended up, you know, going to Loyola Law School in L.A. I loved, loved, loved it. Had a fantastic experience there and practiced for a little bit after that in a few different areas. I did some transactional work and just dabbled in a few different things before I ended up at Tucker Ellis. And people really encouraged me as I sort of moved along, and when I found litigation, when I found myself in the courtroom, that's when I really found my love, and I was like, "Oh, you can do this. You can basically get up and argue with people, and people pay you to do this? I'm in." So when I really found my love and then found the right firm, I just matriculated through so quickly. I joined Tucker Ellis as an associate, and then I moved up later into the council position, and then in 2016 I was elected into the partnership, but for me it was really a natural progression. It was sort of just the thing I loved to do, and then I got lucky enough to be surrounded by people who really encouraged me and fostered me along the way.Zach: That's a beautiful story, and that's awesome. And, you know, it's interesting also, because I can count, like, the number of black lawyers that I know on one hand, and none of them are really working at a--at a firm. Like, they have their own kind of private practice that they've set up. What is your experience in navigating that space?Monica: Yeah. I mean, I think for me it's really been purposeful. It is a beautiful story, and I love my story, but it definitely didn't come--you know, it didn't sort of happen by accident. I really just surrounded myself with a network of folks, either, you know, both inside and outside of my organization. No matter where I've been, and that's been true for me now, is that I have a network of people that I can go to. When I'm figuring out my next steps, I'm definitely using them as much as I can as a sounding board. People who have done what I done and then some, people who are at positions that I can only dream about, right, that I think are really successful, those are the people that I kind of reach out to and say, "Do you think this looks right?" Like, "I'm headed in this direction. This is the next thing I want to do," and they give me honest and real feedback, and I think that that's the most important thing for me, is that I don't surround myself with people who just, you know, sound fantastic and tell me how great I am. They're real, and they'll tell me whether or not, you know, my goal or my expectation needs some more time to cook or if I really should be going after sort of that next thing. And so that's kind of how I got to the partner level, was really just having that strong network of folks, both inside and outside of the firm.Zach: So I'm--first of all that's awesome, and I know for me, in my experience, having folks who are in your corner, who you can talk to, who will give you honest feedback, right? Who are not just a cheerleader section, but at the same time ain't a bunch of haters too, right? But people who really care about you (laughing) and who actually will help you and help make sure that you're--you know, that you're staying on track and that you're--when you have ideas about the next steps that they actually make sense, and they're people you can trust, really. You know, as a senior leader who is also a black woman, do you believe that you have had any particular hurdles or challenges to navigate when it comes to building trust and establishing rapport and really building and leveraging influence?Monica: Yeah, that's a great question, and that's a very real, true thing. I mean, we have some very real stereotypes and perceptions I think, you know, for communities of color and black women in particular, that we have to deal with and sometimes break through, and for me, I think I've learned to try to find the commonality, right? I may look different than someone else. I may--you know, maybe come from a different background, but I try to find the commonality so I can develop the rapport and gain the trust, right, of others, whether it's inside of the firm, whether it's client relationships. Those are the things that I think bring us together, are the commonalities, and, you know, to be sure, I am--I've got a lot to work with. I am a first-generation American on my mom's side. She was from Panama, and my dad was born in the South and then later raised in New York. So I was constantly sort of surrounded by people of different cultures and different socioeconomic backgrounds. I spent a summer, you know, in Brazil one year, and then spent the next summer in Brooklyn. And for me, you know, I think my parents really--I look back, I think they probably did a lot of that intentionally, because I feel like when I walk into a room, no matter what it looks like, I'm comfortable, and I look for what I have in common as opposed to--you know, what might be different between me and the folks maybe at the table or in the room. So that's, you know, something that I talk to a lot of young lawyers about now, is when you're building your brand, sort of figuring things out and trying to develop a report, look for the commonalities. And like I said, I feel like I'm lucky, 'cause I have--I have a lot to dabble in. There's usually something I can find where I connect with someone. But that's important, you know? When you're working, particularly in the legal industry, you know, we're dealing with problems, right? People are not coming to me when they're necessarily happy about what's going on in business, and so you've got to trust me, and we have to have a good relationship to get through it sort of together, and same thing internally, you know? We are sort of building--we have a business and a law firm that's built on helping other people with their problems, so people in the firm have to trust me to move things along, you know, whether it's just in the office setting, with human resources or with clients, and we have to--you know, people always default to that. I feel like when, you know, things get tough, they default to just a common style of communication and the commonalities. So that's--that's what I try to do.Zach: So I definitely--that's just--that's great feedback to give, because often times I think it's easy for us when we feel--when we feel other, it's easy for us to, like, further otherize ourselves and be like, "Okay, well, of course. Of course you're not gonna," you know, "trust me, because I'm X, Y, and Z," as opposed to kind of leaning the other way and being like, "Okay, wait. Well, let's just--let me think about some of the things that actually are common between us that I can really leverage and really play to," and maybe even overplay to, in the spirit of creating those bonds. So when I talk to professionals--and you talked about younger lawyers, and so--you talked about 16 years. I've been working for about 7 years, and when I talk to professionals in my peer group--so, like, kind of, like--not mid-career, but, you know, early, early-career still professionals who are also black and brown, one of the things we always commiserate together is the feeling of not being heard at work, right? Like, we're speaking up in meetings to contribute or we're facilitating a meeting, and for some reason or another we're not connecting with our audience. Sometimes we'll even have the words that were shared repeated back to us as if we didn't say them. And so I'm curious, have you ever experienced that? And if so, you know, what advice do you have for younger leaders trying to manage that, you know, emotionally, mentally, and professionally?Monica: Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's definitely something that comes up. I think in various times in my career I've, you know, experienced that. We all have. The first--the first advice is just breathe and try not to take that stuff in personally, right? Especially if you're facilitating a meeting. That's tough, when you feel like you're not really connecting with your audience. That's just a tough kind of situation to sort of navigate through. And it may be an uncomfortable meeting, and it may not kind of go the way that you want it to, but my--you know, the way I dealt with it and the way I talk to young folks about that is just stay true to you and stay true to yourself. And you're talented, right? That's why you're facilitating the meeting or why you're raising your hand, because you have something of value to add and you know that, and so you're speaking up. And so just having that understanding that you are adding value to the conversation or to the room or to the group is huge, and if you stay sort of true to that and understand that, you know, it may just be that somebody is looking at you a certain way, and they're not seeing you or hearing you, or they're, you know, kind of overlooking what you're saying, or it may just be that that person, you know, is not in tune or connected for the day. It could be a variety of reasons, and so--those settings too are moments and opportunities where we try, as senior leaders, right, to listen to what's going on and to really validate, right, what someone's saying. Like, if I were in a meeting and you were talking, and I felt like people weren't connecting with you, I would probably jump in and say some things like, you know, "Another point that Zach made," and I would really try to validate what you said in order to get people to hear you, because now we're building consensus sort in the room. And that kind of goes back to that whole point, right, of having your mentors and your network and your allies around you, because people that are down for you will do that in the meeting setting, and they will make sure that they're kind of ushering things along for you. And I personally--when I look back now, I know I've had people do that. I just didn't know what they were doing at the time. [laughs] You know? And now I'm like, "Oh, yeah." You know, "That person was fully supporting me and kind of ushering my thought along," 'cause maybe somebody didn't hear it or didn't want to hear it, but then another voice came in of someone senior, and it was her. And, you know, that's just kind of the setting--the corporate setting, right? Sometimes it's unfortunate that it takes that, but it's helpful to have, and I know a lot of women in particular are very good about doing that. You know, for a lot of other women of color, when we're in meetings, they try to sort of support and really validate what the other woman has said, especially if we feel like someone wasn't paying attention or the room just doesn't get it, you know? So that's kind of how I look at it. And the other thing I would want to say about that setting is it might have just been a bad meeting, and you may get through it and it wasn't great, but debriefing afterwards is always huge. Like, if you feel like it didn't go well or you really weren't connecting, find somebody, you know, that you would consider to be an ally--if you don't already know that they are--in the room and ask them afterwards, you know? "What could I have done better?" "What did you think about it?" And, you know, take it from there.Zach: No, those are great points. Now, let's do this. Before we get out of here, any shout outs or parting words?Monica: [laughs] For sure. Well, definitely a huge shout out to Angela Johnson, the CEO and founder of CBE Week. This is an amazing opportunity for us to get together and not just network, but to build each other up and to improve on so many levels. So for all of the work that Angela's doing, I just want to give a shout-out to her. But for parting words, definitely--we'll be talking about this, these topics, at CBE Week, and I think it's a huge opportunity for us to get together and really, you know, talk about building our brand and being strategic and thoughtful about where our careers are going, so I'm really excited about the panel that I'm on. We'll have a whole host of people in legal positions, in diversity positions, really trying to help those, no matter what stage you are at in your career. You know, we can all use advice, right, on how to strategize and build ourselves up for the next step and make sure we have the support that we need. For me, this is, like, a true passion of mine, is trying to work with the pipeline and the next generation and making sure we all have access, you know, and opportunity, and so I'm so excited about CBE Week and our ability to, you know, talk about these issues. So I want to say thank you to you for giving us this platform.Zach: Yes. Well, thank you, Monica, and this is awesome. And actually, that's a great segue, 'cause that does it for us on this particular interview. Thank you for joining us on the Living Corporate podcast, a Special Series sponsored by, you guessed it, the Coalition of Black Excellence. To learn more about CBE Week, check out their website CBEWeek.com. Make sure to follow them on Instagram at @experienceCBE, and make sure you follow us on Instagram at @LivingCorporate, Twitter at @LivingCorp_Pod, and subscribe to our newsletter through living-corporate--please say the dash--dot com. If you have a question you'd like for us to answer and read on the show, make sure you email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com. This has been Zach, and you've been listening to Monica Williams Monroe, partner at Tucker Ellis. Peace.

Zach and Ade stop by for a brief New Year's intermission in this special episode of the Living Corporate podcast. Living Corporate's CBE Week Series continues next week, but for now, enjoy this check-in! They discuss the importance of effective goal setting and share their New Year's resolutions.Find out more about CBEWeek here! https://www.cbeweek.com/TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? That's right, it's Zach.Ade: And it's Ade.Zach: Aye. And listen, we're not back back, and we ain't even really back, but we're here in the middle of our CBE Week Speaker Series.Ade: Yes.Zach: Yes, that's right, just to say Happy New Year.Ade: Happy New Year.Zach: Happy New Year. So look, it's 2019. Now, I don't know how many of y'all do resolutions or how often y'all do resolutions, but we had some resolutions we wanted to, you know, just talk about as we think about 2019, as we prepare for 2019 mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally, all of that different stuff. So yeah, here we go. So Ade, look, before we get into these resolutions, do you do resolutions often? Like, is this a thing for you? Or is this, like, a new thing or what? Ade: So it's weird. I don't really do New Year's resolutions. I do birthday resolutions. I think that starting with the new year is not necessarily as significant for me personally as starting with my birthday, because my birth--I mean, not to sound self-centered, but it's about me and on my timeline, and so for me it's more honest, actually, to say that in my 23rd year, or in my 24th year, or in my 25th year, I would like to make these changes, and this is who I aspire to be, and becoming a better person starts on November 1st because that's when my life started. Now, January 1st is great though because it sort of allows you to have accountability partners, and you're better able to say, "Me and my group of friends will be doing XYZ in order to get to ABC goal." Does that make sense?Zach: Yeah, it does, definitely. No, I get that. You didn't ask me, but--no. [laughs]Ade: [laughing] Haha, haha. Well, you--I asked to clarify.Zach: Also I didn't really give you any space to say anything. [inaudible].Ade: You really didn't, you really didn't.Zach: No, I didn't. I just hopped right in there.Ade: You did, so back up off me, bruh. [laughs]Zach: [laughing] No, no, that's a good point. I mean, it's funny that you say that, 'cause I think--I'm not a big resolutions person. This is probably, like, the--I don't know, maybe fourth or fifth time in my life that I've done New Year's resolutions, but when I think about making resolutions to myself, typically they're around my birthday or more recently, in the past half-decade, they've been around my wedding anniversary with my wife. So we'll make them together, right?Ade: Dope, yeah.Zach: At the same time, I think whenever you can identify some type of pace or cadence to create some goals and points of progress of yourself, all good, right? It doesn't have to be--it can be whatever date you want it to be, but I think as long as you're doing--you're mindful of that in some way, I think it's good for you. Okay, so let's get into it. Do you want to go first or do you want me to go first?Ade: You go first. I think I liked what you were talking about earlier, and I want you to share with the people, you know? Look at me, a gracious host. [laughs]Zach: Look at you. [laughs] Okay, so my resolutions--so the first one is to read more, right? So I feel like I read a good bit. Like, I read--I read okay. Like, I definitely read a lot of articles. I read a lot of, you know, just pieces as they come up, especially as the world has been going on today. I read a lot of political pieces. I read The Atlantic often. I don't really read The New Yorker as much, but I read. I'd like to read more. I'd like to read about a book every other month. You see what I'm saying? I didn't give myself a crazy--like, "a book a month." Like, I'm not gonna do that.Ade: Look at you.Zach: Right? So I'd like to read six books by the end of 2019. The second thing is of course just continuing to get healthier. I want to be around. The world is crazy as it is, you know? Plenty of things could take you out any day, so you don't want one of those things to be yourself if you can help it. Ade: Right. Don't be your own enemy of progress.Zach: Right, do not be your own enemy of progress, yes. And then the third thing, which kind of connects to the second thing, drinking a lot more water, right? Ade: Hallelu.Zach: Right? So, like, you know, there are people out there--Ade: I just--I just want to take a second here. I really hate to interrupt you, but if you're listening, go ahead and find a glass of water and sip with us. All right, carry on, Zach.Zach: Yes, a sip. Sip, yes. No, seriously, it's delicious. You can have it cold. You can have it room temperature. You can have it hot, but-- Ade: Wait, hold on. Do you--do you just run around drinking hot water? [laughs]Zach: Ayo. So listen, actually--I do not, right? But I have a good friend of mine who--no, he loves hot water. Like, he loves it. Man, listen. Ade: Okay, I would like to speak to your--like, bring him on this show. I have so many questions.Zach: No, no. I'ma bring him on this show. I'm not gonna--I'm not gonna drop his name, 'cause this is very impromptu, but--Ade: This is--this is a safe space. I just have some questions for you, young man, because... huh? Okay, sorry. Carry on. I got us so off-track just then.Zach: No, no, no. So no, he does. He drinks hot water, and it was funny--so he's one of the people--I don't know if you have people like this in your life. You look up to them, like, to the point where, you know, if they do something that you're not really familiar with, and if other people did that thing you would clown them, but if they do it you're like, "Well, dang, why are you doing that? Let me--"Ade: "Maybe it's valid. Maybe I should give it a whirl."Zach: "Maybe it's valid. Maybe I should give it a whirl." "Maybe I should give it a whirl." Okay. [laughing]Ade: Okay, so first of all, you're not about to come for me, sir.Zach: "Give it a whirl"?Ade: "Give it a whirl." I said what I said.Zach: No, it's funny. [laughing] No, so he--so he was like--I came into his home and he was like, "Zach, so I've been drinking--I've been doing this thing. I've been drinking hot water," and I said, "Really? What?" And he said, "Yeah, would you like some?" And I said, "Sure," and let me tell you something, it was just hot water. It wasn't--I was like--Ade: I really was expecting to be like, "And it changed my life. It revolutionized how I look at water intake." No?Zach: No, it did not. In fact, I was like, "Man, I really would like some cold water right now." Anyway, where was I? Yeah, so drinking more water. So, you know, this kind of a case of two Americas. So there's a--for my non-melanated folks, you know, there's a phrase called "drinking water and minding your business." So drinking water and minding your business, it just saves a lot--it saves you a lot of stress and drama, right? So you look at Paul Rudd. Again, speaking to my--speaking to the majority, right? If you look at Paul Rudd, Paul Rudd is the greatest example of drinking water and minding your business, right? He looks great. He hasn't aged a day. He looks the same as he did in 1993. Right? He does. He looks phenomenal, right? Drinking water and minding your business--you know, I plan on drinking a lot of water, but I--because of the nature of our podcast, I don't know if I plan on minding, quote unquote, my business. I mean--you know what I mean? Like, my business is--yeah, like, my business--Ade: Your business is sort of everybody's business.Zach: Lowkey, right? Like, I'm not messy. Like, I'm not out here, like, Messy Mya. RIP Messy Mya. Look, now I'm talking to the black folks. I'm more so trying to--but I am trying to, like, be more hydrated, right? And, you know, there's the--our bodies are a majority water, so it's--everyone knows at this point it's 2019. Wow, it's 2019. So I don't have to--I shouldn't have to debate with y'all to drink more water, but please, drink more water. And also, speaking of--'cause, you know, we also do Favorite Things. We talk about music and stuff. A sleeper, shout-out Joe Budden Podcast, is the Mick Jenkins' "Drink More Water" project he put out, it was--Ade: You have lost me. You have lost me. I don't know what you're talking about. I also don't listen to Joe Budden's podcast, so maybe that's where the disconnect is right now, my friend. Zach: So "sleeper" is a term, like, you know, this is some music maybe y'all have missed or y'all don't really know about.Ade: Oh, 'cause the first thing I thought was a sleeper cell, and I was like, "All right, well, I--I have to bow out of this conversation, because I don't know anything about sleeper cells."Zach: No, no, no. No sleeper cells. Nothing like that around here. Please. Feds, please don't--don't get us. Ade: Right? We've got to go.Zach: Yeah, right? Now, look, we're gonna have to delete all of this, because Aaron's gonna transcribe this, and then it's gonna be all on Google and stuff. There's gonna be "sleeper cells"--Ade: Oh, see--nah, mm-mm. Aaron, just go ahead and--Zach: Delete all of this.Ade: Yeah. Zach: Yeah. [laughs] Anyway, so yeah, you know, I'm excited about that. I feel as if those are some smart goals. I feel like they're very attainable, they're realistic, and they're helpful for me for what I'm trying to do, right? They're very straightforward. So that's me. Those are my New Year's resolutions.Ade: Okay, okay. Now, I want to push back a little bit. Part of what is important when you're setting goals is to set intentional goals, right? There's this concept of SMART goals, and so that is--so you set Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals, and that way you have much more--you're more likely to achieve those goals. So by specific, I mean [inaudible] drink water--by smart I mean you want to drink water, so do you want to drink a gallon of water a day? Do you want to set time goals, like, "By 9:00 a.m., I've had 16 ounces of water." So I think goals and resolutions are all talk until you are able to really discern for yourself what those goals are, how you're going to make them happen, and what that timeline's gonna look like. So I'm gonna repeat what SMART is. You have Specific, you have Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound or Time-sensitive goals. So to give you an example, this year, in 2019, I want to get my solutions architect cert, my AWS solutions architect cert. I want to do that by July '19. So that is a specific goal. It's measurable because it's a certification, it's achievable 'cause, I mean, I can study for it. It's relevant to my larger kind of goal for my life, and it's time-bound. I have set a hard deadline of July 2019 to get that certification, do you see what I'm saying?Zach: No, I definitely understand what you're saying, and you're right. So opposed to me saying, "I want to drink more water," I should be saying, "I want to drink about a gallon of water a day." Instead of me saying, "I want to get healthier," I should say something like, "I'd like to work out at least two to three times a week and cut out sugary and processed foods." And, you know, I kind of did it with the book one when I said I'd like to read a book every other month. So no, I get it. You're absolutely right, and to your point, when we--when we're not specific and really truly smart--let's go ahead and just give out the acronyms to smart real fast. So it's--Ade: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Now, there are also some people who say it's SMARTER, where you have all of those that I just mentioned, and then you have Evaluated and Reviewed, which I think are also important parts of the goal setting process, but we don't have to go quite that far right now.Zach: [laughing] No, no, no. This is great. So, you know, it's important, because I think we--the less specific we are with the goals that we say we have, the more of an out we give ourselves to short-change ourselves in the future, right? So--and then also, if they're not specific to you, then you can end up kind of moving the goal posts on yourself and not really ever achieving [inaudible]. So if you say, "Man, I really want to lose some weight," right? I'm gonna pick on losing weight because losing weight is--like, almost everybody feels like they either need to or would like to lose some weight.Ade: Or the alternative for those of us skinny-minis who want to gain some weight, but gain healthy weight.Zach: There you go. Some people want to gain some healthy weight. Thank you. Let's be inclusive of all of our body types and health spaces. Ade: Aye.Zach: Aye. [laughs] So when you say, "Hey, I'd like to have this health goal," if you're not really specific in, like, the numbers you're trying to achieve or the--just what you're outcome is, then you can end up saying, "Well," you know, "I didn't really have to work out today. I just want to work out more," and you end up--you end up cheating yourself. Or you say, "Well, I didn't say I wanted to eat perfectly healthy. I just wanted to eat more vegetables," and it's like, "Okay..." And you just end up cheating yourself. So I think the more specific you can be and, like, more granular you can be with what your goals are, the harder it will be for you to ignore the fact that you're either off-track on them or not really driving towards them. So I super agree with that.Ade: Right. On that note, I'll share some of my goals. And I know I got on you for SMART, and some of mine aren't necessarily SMART goals, but we move. Anyway, so I would like to read and discuss five meaningful articles a week. Zach: Okay, okay.Ade: So that's whether they're in The Atlantic or whether I'm scrolling through Medium and some of the software engineering spaces that I follow. I'd like to be able to read and discuss five articles, and part of that is in finding some of the computer science fundamentals. Base CS has some really great--I don't know if I want to even call those articles, but some really great write-ups on computer science fundamentals, which are important for me to learn. So I'd like to do that five times a week. I would like to get my solutions [inaudible] earlier, my AWS solutions architect certification, by July 2019. This is--this next one I haven't quite figured out how I'm gonna do yet, but I want to reinvent my wardrobe. Now, I say that because I was having a conversation with my partner, and often times when we're out or we really have to go out, I'll just, like, throw on sweatpants and a t-shirt or whatever, and then when we get out I'll complain about looking like a hobo. Okay, that wasn't necessarily how I wanted to say that, but I'll complain about not looking my best self.Zach: Right.Ade: And part of that is just I didn't--I don't necessarily have all of the pieces that I want, and I want to show up, like, how I feel. I want to show up looking and representing myself in my best light, and so part of that--I'm still always going to be a joggers and tennis shoes kind of girl, but I don't have to be a four sizes too large sweatpants and t-shirt that I bought when I was in 7th grade sort of girl, you know? So that's important to me as well. I want to go to the gym once a week and work out of home three times a week. I'm going to create three projects for my portfolio, and I'm going to attend AfroTech in November this year. Those are my goals.Zach: That sounds--that sounds incredible. Those are great goals.Ade: AfroTech is also lit, and if anybody's trying to sponsor me to go to AfroTech, hit your girl up.Zach: Man, listen. Y'all want to sponsor Ade, y'all want to sponsor Living Corporate and we'll send Ade? Man, let's--come on. Get in our inbox.Ade: Let's go. Let us know.Zach: DMs are open for everybody. They are. True.Ade: Okay, uh, let's clarify. Not that open. [laughing]Zach: They are though. They're open on all the social medias. No, but that's--you know, to your first point, it's so interesting how, like--so as kind of, like, a fashion point, like, if you notice, like, there's--there's enough clothes out here to curate a bunch of different looks. Like, if you want to be, like, hobo chic, right, you could get, like, some really form-fitting--Ade: I'm trying to--I'm trying to really walk away from the hobo chic look, because I thought that was what I was doing. Upon further reflection, it's just--it's further towards the hobo end of the spectrum than the chic, so we're just gonna let that dream go.Zach: Got you, got you. 'Cause I was gonna say, like--and I don't know, like, what your preference is, but, like--you know, 'cause you could wear, like, some fitted--not fitted, but, like, nicely-fitting sweatpants, right? You could wear some nicely-fitting sweatpants.Ade: You're right, you're right. Look, if there are any listeners who are designers, who have an eye for fashion, hit your girl up, because I am confused. Okay? Okay.Zach: [laughs] And then [inaudible], that's also great. And then the five [inaudible] with these articles--you're gonna share the articles with me.Ade: Ooh, bet. I like that, yes. We can do that.Zach: Yeah, share the articles with me, 'cause I love--I love reading a good article. I think it's easier to read than reading a whole book. It's, like, typically one subject. It's not clearly as long, but I love articles, so yeah, please. I'd love to check out what you got going on. Then AfroTech of course, that's super dope.Ade: Yeah, yeah. I'm really ready.Zach: Okay. Now, look, I think--I know those are our resolutions. Before we get out of here though, what was the best thing you ate over the holiday break? Ade: Ooh. Oh, Lord. Jesus. I just want to let everybody know about the greatness of my girlfriend's shrimp and grits. So on New Year's Day, she made shrimp and grits, I made rum cheesecake-stuffed French toast, and we lived our best lives. Do you have actually--before we move forward, do you do the pork chop, collard greens, and black-eyed peas ritual?Zach: So I don't--it's not, like, a super traditional thing. Like, we don't do it every year, but I definitely have had it, like, multiple times in my life for New Year's. And, you know, outside of New Year's, but yeah. Ade: Yeah. So I did that as well.Zach: Oh, yeah. That's good.Ade: So for those of you who don't know, some African-American families, some black families, have a tradition wherein in the New Year they eat a pork chop or a pork product of some sort, black-eyed peas, collard greens, and some will throw in cornbread. And I made all of it. I don't eat pork obviously, but she enjoyed it. She seemed to like her plate, so that was great. And what else did we eat this break? We didn't spend a whole ton of time cooking a whole lot, but cooking is my favorite thing. I made a really dope burger for us both. It was--I don't know. I can't wait to cook for you honestly. I want you to come here so that I can feed you, and I'm honestly probably not gonna help your goals of losing weight, but the important part is that the food tastes good.Zach: No, I'm excited. I'll just have to--I'll just do a bunch of pre-workouts, you know what I mean? And post-workouts. It's all good.Ade: See? Yeah, there you go. There you go. And you might have to do two-a-days honestly, but--Zach: Wow, okay. Appreciate the honesty. So what else? So we talked about food. We talked about--we talked about our resolutions. Hm. Ade, what are you most excited about in 2019?Ade: I am most excited about leveling up. I think every new year is an opportunity to excel, and again, this is part of why I kind of count my new year at my birthday as opposed to at the calendar date, but it's a new year to kind of show the little person that you once were how dope everything could be, how dope you could be, how dope life could be, how dope you could make life be for those around you, and part of that is in wanting to wake up every day and crush it. And I don't mean to sound like we're in a huddle and I'm giving you a pep talk, but I think it's exciting when you're able to look your fears in the face, or look a whole new year in the face, and be like, "Yeah, I'm comin' for you." I was gonna say, "I'm coming for that" something else, but I don't think we're quite that explicit on this show.Zach: No, we're not that explicit. That's funny though.Ade: Okay. [laughs] Ultimately, I am excited about being granted another opportunity to get it right and get it right and excel at it, you know? So what are you excited about?Zach: Well, you know, it's funny. I really feel like I'm excited about the same thing. Like, 2019, it's an exciting time because there's so much positive momentum that I'm hearing from last year. Relationships made, some in-roads created with various things and people and projects, and of course Living Corporate. I'm really excited to continue that forward. We have a whole--[Lord say the same?]--we have another 12 months of this thing going on, you know, unless the earth ends, and so I'm excited about us just continuing forward. There's so much to do, especially when you talk about inclusion and diversity work. I feel like the whole field has just been blowing up the past few years, and it seems like every year, like, there's something new that comes along, some new, quote unquote, new piece of learning that everyone's gravitating towards, and I just think that, like, we're ripe in the season to be doing the work that we're doing. So I'm really, really excited about that. I'm excited about the content that's gonna be coming out of the Living Corporate platform. We have a writing team that we're very aggressively building up right now. We have some amazing guests that--you know, that you all will be hearing for Season 2. We just have a lot of stuff--we just have a lot of stuff cooking, and so I'm excited for us to grow, and then I'm really excited for our audience to see it and be a part of it and hopefully grow with us. I'm really excited about that.Ade: Yeah, that's amazing.Zach: Okay. Well, I guess that does it. I'm done. Do you have anything else, Ade?Ade: Yeah. So I just want to wish everybody a happy, safe New Year. I hope that, even if your year hasn't started on the highest note--if 2018 was not good to you, I pray that 2019 will, and I pray that, you know, this New Year is full of opportunities for you, and I hope that we are able to help foster a space that excites you and motivates you. That's it from me. Zach: Man, you always got the dope words. See, that's a great sign-off. [both laugh]Zach: That's a great sign-off. Yes, okay. Well, listen, y'all. You will be hearing more of us on the Living Corporate podcast later this month. This was just a New Year's hello kind of intermission type thing in the middle of our CBE Week Speaker Series. I hope that you all are listening to the series. I'm looking at the download numbers. Y'all are, but I need y'all to pick it up. That's right, I'm talking to you. Listen to the--listen to the show. Listen to the series. It's very good, and then make sure that you stay tuned, because we're gonna have more information about CBE Week as it comes up. So with that being said, my name is Zach.Ade: And I'm Ade. Both: Peace.

In this episode, we discuss the practical importance of self-awareness with international coach, public speaker and entrepreneur, Tye Miles.Learn about Tye Miles here:https://www.tyemiles.com/TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, yall? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and yes, you're listening to another B-Side. Now, yes, we've introduced the purpose of a B-Side before, but remember, every episode is someone's first episode. So for our new folks, B-Sides are essentially random shows we have in-between our larger shows. These are much less structured and somehow even more lit--that's right, even more lit--than our regularly scheduled shows. Sound Man, go ahead and drop some air horns right here.[Sound Man complies]Zach: There we go. That's what I'm talking about. Now, often times we have a special guest, and this episode is no different. We have Tyeisha Miles. Tyeisha is an international coach, public speaker, writer, and entrepreneur. Her company, The Inner Work, trains women, leaders, and service providers with a desire to make a greater impact ready to create their own success, know their worth, and craft realistic plans to achieve their goals so they can manifest their full potential with the fulfillment of serving others with their gifts. Tyeisha, Tye, welcome to the show. How are you?Tye: I am absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for having me speak to your tribe today. I'm really excited about this.Zach: Come on, now. My tribe? I like that language. Now, [laughs] today we're talking about social intelligence. So, you know, as I introduced you--you are a coach. How do you, as a coach, leverage social intelligence?Tye: Oh, my goodness. Social intelligence, it's incredible. It has such a huge impact on an individual's life, their personal success and their professional success cannot exceed their ability to really deal with this. As a coach, I leverage it in a way to either tap into their pain or their pride to get them to their desired results. For example--this is a very easy example that I think everybody can really get. I have a client right now who desires a physical transformation. She wants to lose weight. She's tried to lose weight. She's tried to lose weight several times in the past. And so with this social intelligence, I tap into her pride because--you know, I let her know, "You're not a quitter. You're loyal to yourself. You're competitive, and you're diligent. That's the reason you're here talking with me after you have tried XYZ in the past. You're still at it. You still want your goal, and so I used that by knowing her, you know, hearing her pain, I used that to help her get to her desired results.Zach: Can you talk to us a little bit about your story and how being able to effectively manage your own emotions while reading the emotions of others was so important for you?Tye: Absolutely. So a little bit about my story. I am a mother. I became a mother at the age of 16. Happily married for 17 years now. I have three incredible children, and I believe in being transparent. That's what makes me a (big?) coach, so I'm gonna be tastefully transparent here with you all today. [laughs] So I like to, like, draw a comparison 'cause I think people can really get it. For me, I grew up in the projects. Had my first baby at 16. I was sexually abused as a child by someone I trusted, and even sexually harassed on the job, and so I'm sharing those few things to kind of share, you know, my thinking before because of these experiences, and a lot of us in our adult life, you know, these things are showing up, you know, really blocking our success personally and professionally. So for instance, before I really understood what emotional and social intelligence is and how important, you know, that piece of the puzzle made in my life, me growing up in the projects, I had the mentality that I wasn't good enough, that I was always gonna be a part of the status quo. You know, me being sexually abused as a child, I had the understanding that I can't trust people, even the people that are closest to me because they're always looking out to serve themselves, you know? Being sexually harassed at work, it made me intimidated by men in authority. Being a teenaged mom, becoming a teenaged mom, I was a straight A student. I became known as the sneaky smart girl, and that made me, like, sort of over-correct for my past mistakes, always seeking the approval of others to a fault. And so all of these things show up in my adulthood. It wasn't really until about 7 years ago I was like, "Okay, I can't continue to live my life like this. What am I gonna do different?" Of course they showed up in different scenarios. So since taking the time to really understand and get to know myself, I've been able to first acknowledge where that mindset, that habit, that pattern of thinking came from and how it was showing up in my life. I had to acknowledge it, but then I also was able to say when these types of situations of happen, when I'm in the board room with a male, I know from my past usually it makes me intimidated and I take myself out the [inaudible], just letting men lead, but because I'm aware of how my past responses were due to that emotion, I'm able to intellectually change. I'm able to be aware of that and change and adjust my response, like, in real-time, based on what I know about myself. And so it's literally transformed my life. It's literally transformed my life, and it's so very important. I really believe that the most neglected relationship on earth is a person's relationship with their self. We do not take the time to get to know ourselves. We become adults who allow stuff to crowd out our lives, and we never come back to really understanding who we are. Zach: That's so--that's just so profound, right? And it's just so interesting, your point around the fact--you said the biggest relationship we don't develop or pour into is the one with ourselves, because [inaudible]--so I'm a consultant. There's people I meet every day and I work with, I'm like, "Are you not aware of the way that you're behaving?" Like, I'm not a psychologist, but it's like, "Are you--like, where are you right now? Why would you do that? Why would you say that in this context, in this particular scenario?" And it's--to me, it speaks to, to your point, a lack of just self-awareness, but when you say self-awareness I think of it in a much more just intentional and deeper way, self-awareness kind of being like okay, where are you in where you're standing and making sure you don't trip over something. Off the tails of what you were just speaking to, I'm talking about genuinely understanding and knowing yourself and how valuable that is and how you interact and engage with others, so that's just so profound. I'm curious, when you talk about, you know, your experiences and how you've transitioned into being a coach and a public speaker and an entrepreneur, what were some of the biggest challenges with that? Especially as a black woman. What are some of the things that you've had to navigate and manage through?Tye: I think the biggest things for me--two big things that just stand out the most to me. One, there is a lack of munity in our community. I'm sure it affects all of us, but we really, as black people and as black women in a category of our own, we tear ourselves down. We tear one another down. And the second thing, we have to learn how to honor differences. These are the two biggest challenges. How to get along with someone, how to come together collectively to fulfill and achieve an overall goal, and honoring differences. We can work together, although we do not think alike, you know? So for instance, I found that in my transition, interestingly, men allow me to come in. Men, male professionals, allow me to come in and own my awesomeness. They allow me to come in and be the bold, vibrant, energetic Tye doing her thing whenever I work a project, whereas I've found, as a black woman around black women, there is this sense of--this sense of heightened insecurities, or they feel threatened. I have a presence. I'm a 6 feet tall black woman, you know? I have short [inaudible] hair, and I'm very confident. I had to learn how to be very confident, and these things I've found--not all women, but a lot of women, they want me to dim my light. They want to keep me in this box because they don't want me to show them up, and that's not my intention to show them up, it's because of an insecurity. I strongly believe that, you know, as a coach, as I'm in my public speaking atmosphere, when I'm going into trainings, when I'm looking to collaborate and co-create with individuals, you know, we have to understand that it's--you know, we're only as strong as the weakest link and that when you surround yourselves with strong individuals, you yourself--you're pushed up as a strong individual yourself. It doesn't take away from who you are. It actually adds credibility and value to who you are, to your organization and what you're doing, and so, you know, those are the two biggest challenges, just really navigating--you know, how can I go in and not step on toes but reach the goal? You know, use what I have and take what they have to reach a common goal, and then just understanding how to have effective communication in a way that honors the differences, you know? We succeed and achieve what we set out to do.Zach: You know, what advice would you give younger professionals who are trying to navigate this corporate space as it pertains to social and emotional intelligence?Tye: Oh, gosh. This is so good. One, I believe and I have found that your dollar is in your difference, and what I mean by that--in a corporate space it can be highly competitive. There's several people that may be doing what you're doing, and so in that you need to master your craft, you know? Don't just go in being okay building your skill set to the status quo. No, go in and learn everything you can learn. Do the things that other people don't want to do. Don't always go in with the mindset of a paycheck. Go in with the mindset of "How can I best use what I'm learning through a certain experience to maximize my potential?" And then be authentic. Be yourself, you know? Like I said, the skill set--they can go get anyone to complete a role or to do a certain duty, to fulfill a task, but they can't get you. They can't get your personality. So the two of those alone, which to say is your dollar is in your difference. My dollar is in my difference. I defined that. I determined that by mastering my craft, taking what I do seriously, and being myself. And then the second thing I would say is just really to know your worth, independent of the opinion and approval of others. Know your worth. Don't allow what other people think about you--don't allow your title, their title, your money, the knowledge of their money, their description of their role, to make you feel any less. Know your worth independent of anything else, and then when you're able to do that, when you can just build your confidence to the place where it doesn't matter what another person thinks about you, your confidence is on 100, you become unstoppable. Confidence is attractive. It is a virtue that every young individual needs in the corporate climate. It's attractive. Naturally you're gonna be happier, naturally you're gonna get your job done easier. You're gonna be able to make friends while at work. You're gonna be able to get things done without rubbing people the wrong way unnecessarily. Zach: We talked about the fact that you're a coach and that you have a variety of clients and that, you know, you've been doing this for a couple of years. Now, where can people learn more about you?Tye: Absolutely. You can find me on social media - Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram at @thetyemiles, and I'll spell that out. T-H-E-T-Y-E-M-I-L-E-S. That's on all social media platforms, or you can just go over to my website at tyemiles.com. Zach: Awesome. Well, we'll make sure to put that in the show notes so that folks can engage that further. Now, this has been a great conversation. Before we wrap though, do you have any shout outs?Tye: I just want to send some love to you for having me on. Speaking to your tribe has been a pleasure. To my husband, who has been an absolute tremendous support through all of my different phases, and to my children. To my children. So thank you again for this amazing opportunity just to share my raw thoughts.Zach: This has been awesome. Now, look, guys. That does it for us on the Living Corporate podcast. Make sure you follow us on Instagram at LivingCorporate, Twitter at LivingCorp_Pod, and subscribe to our newsletter through living-corporate.com. We also have a Patreon, so you can spare a dollar a month--I know you can, I hope you can--spare a dollar a month to support content that explores the perspectives and experiences of black and brown people in Corporate America. Show us some love. If you have a question you'd like for us to answer and read on the show, make sure you email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com. My name is Zach. You have been listening to Tyeisha Miles. Peace.Kiara: Living Corporate is a podcast by Living Corporate, LLC. Our logo was designed by David Dawkins. Our theme music was produced by Ken Brown. Additional music production by Antoine Franklin from Musical Elevation. Post-production is handled by Jeremy Jackson. Got a topic suggestion? Email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com. You can find us online on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and living-corporate.com. Thanks for listening. Stay tuned.

We sit down with Rod, 1/2 of The Black Guy Who Tips to talk about his experiences as a black man in Corporate America and hear his advice for engaging your own creative outlets.Length: 19:31Host: ZachThe Black Guy Who Tipshttp://www.theblackguywhotips.com/Rodhttps://twitter.com/rodimusprimeKarenhttps://twitter.com/rodimusprimeTRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and yes, you're listening to a B-Side. Now, look, yes, we've talked about B-Sides before, but remember, every episode is somebody's first episode. So for our new folks, B-Sides are essentially random, looser shows in-between our larger shows. These are much less structured and somehow even more lit--yes, even more lit--than our regularly scheduled shows. If you wanna know what I mean by more lit, Sound Man gon' drop some air horns right here. Sound Man, give 'em to me. [Sound Man obliges]Zach: Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Now, listen, sometimes, you know, we have discussions as a follow-up to the regular full-time shows just with the hosts. Sometimes it's one host having an extended monologue, and sometimes we actually have a special guest. Yes, that's right, a special guest, and today is no different. We actually have Rod, A.K.A. half of the show from The Black Guy Who Tips.Rod: Hey, thanks for having me, man.Zach: Hey, man, thank you. Man, thank you for being here. Now, look--look, look, look. Rod is an entrepreneur, a comedian, writer, and most prominently half of the firepower behind The Black Guy Who Tips. Rod, along with his lovely wife Karen Morrow, A.K.A. SayDatAgain on social media, record out of North Carolina where they talk about everything you want to hear about. With that being said, welcome to the show, Rod. How you doin', man?Rod: Hey, I'm happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you reaching out.Zach: Man, I appreciate you responding, bro. And it's funny, you talk about Twitter fame--you talk about celebrity and, like, being famous, right? And I was about to make, like, a "you famous" joke, but I recognize that some people have various levels of sensitivity about that, so. [laughs] For those of us who don't know you, man, explain the title of The Black Guy Who Tips.Rod: The Black Guy Who Tips is a comedy podcast. The title basically started from--there's so much anti-blackness in the service industry towards black, like, people as patrons, and my wife and I, we both co-host this podcast. My wife and I, we both used to be waiters as well. During all this time as waiters and stuff, you know, we faced--we were on the other side. We got to see what waiters and companies think of black patrons, and it's not cool, you know? And a lot of 'em have racist attitudes, and then they go "Black people don't tip," you know? They treat us like trash and they expect us to not just tip but basically to overtip to compensate for the fact that we're black. Now, the original title is from a blog I used to write. It was a comedy blog, and I called myself The Black Guy Who Tips because I was like, "I'm sick of people saying black people don't tip." So if you're saying that, you know at least one black person who tips if you read my blog. It's me, and I know I'm not--I know I'm not alone. I'm not--you know, I'm not the only one.Zach: Absolutely not, man. Listen, I also tip, okay? And I always at least tip 15%, okay? Now--Rod: Yeah. I overtip, and I wish I could get that out of my system because--I overtip mostly because I used to be a server, but part of it is the black thing that hangs over all black people where we feel like we're always representing everyone, and it's not fair that--you know, 'cause I've done--I've been in situations where I'm like, "Man, this guy was terrible. What a horrible waiter. I'm only gonna give him 20% because I am sick--" You know? Like, I should just not tip this dude. Like, he was terrible, but for some reason--I hope I get over that hang-up one day, man.Zach: It's funny, right, because I actually have a friend, and he worked at a Pappadeaux's out here in Houston, and so--and he's a white brother. So what he would do is--he said when people would come in and they'd be black people, they wouldn't say, "Oh, we got black people over there," they would use code language. Rod, you wanna know what the code language they used to say, "Oh, we got some black folks over here?"Rod: I hope it wasn't Canadians.Zach: It was Canadians, dawg.Rod: Aw! See? I've been on the other side. I've dealt with it. It's the worst. Zach: [laughs] Yes, man. They be like, "Yeah, we got some Canadians over there." I'm curious, before you started The Black Guy Who Tips Live and before you started doing that full-time, did you have any moments, while you working in Corporate America, that you were like, "Wow, you've clearly never worked with a black man before," and I ask because we're coming off a full episode with Michael Williams, who's a financial banking executive, and he was talking about his stories and his experiences in Corporate America, and I'm just curious, man, do you have any similar stories about like, "Wow, it's clear that you have just never worked with a black man before."Rod: Uh, yeah. I have a few. You know, I worked in Corporate America for--oh, man, since I was 16 I think. I was doing internships and also during the summer working as a waiter and stuff. So yeah, I have plenty of stories. One quick one, I had a manager later in my career, like, one of the last managers I ever had. I had a manager who was a white dude from, like, New Jersey. Pretty--you know, a guy that you would see generally as a pretty progressive white man for an older white man. Like, I never felt he was overtly racist, but he was very, like, liberal racist.Zach: Okay. [laughs]Rod: And so he would do this thing where we'd get in a meeting and--I don't know if you've ever been in a meeting like this, but some white dudes, like, really dramatize their anger. Like, anger is their thing at work.Zach: Yeah.Rod: You know, he wasn't angry towards anyone in the room. He was never rude or mean to anyone. I never saw him snap, but he would do stuff like be angry at a situation. So he'd be like, "Oh, and this," you know, "F-word." Not the slur, but, like, you know.Zach: Right, right, right.Rod: "This mother F-word would do this, and this son of a B would do that," and I'm like, "Okay." So he's angry, right, and he's frustrated, and he has that room to do that, and so we'd be at a meeting and then, like, if I were to be like, "Well, you know, I was working with this vendor, and they did this, and I just don't understand why they would do that because essentially it's gonna cost them extra money, and I'm trying to convince them to do blank, and it'll help everyone out." He would, like, put his hand on my shoulder like, "Calm down, Rod. It's okay." You know? "Don't be too upset." I'm like, "I'm not upset." He's like, "Yeah. It's okay, big fella." I'm like, "What is happening right now?" Like, I'm gonna get upset, and it took a few of those meetings before I realized, "Oh, he's kind of, like, afraid of me in a way that's not--" Like, it makes me uncomfortable because it puts--he's my manager, but he's putting me in a position where I'm, like, an aggressor and I'm not, yet he walks around all day spouting off, you know, cuss words and all this stuff and it's okay. So yeah, I was like, "This guy just doesn't know black people, I guess."Zach: Man--so look, let's trade a couple stories until we run out. Let's see how awkward we can get with some of these stories about just working while black, okay? So here I--so I heard yours, so I'ma match yours with this one. So this was before I got into consulting, right? And I was working--I was working in the energy space. It was my birthday. So my boss wasn't there for my birthday, and to your point, she was also a very liberal white woman. She would--I think by all other accounts you would consider her progressive, right? So I walk into my cubicle, and I see, like, this shadow. Like, I see, like, a shadow, like, in my cubicle. I'm like, "Who is sitting at my desk?" Now, Rod, I then walk into my cubicle, and I see this big, inflated, light-skinned monkey in my chair.Rod: No way.Zach: Yes way. So then I see the monkey, and I'm like, "What is this?" So then I turn the monkey around, and it has a little--like, a little necklace thing on it, like a lanyard, and it says "Happy birthday, Zach."Rod: Wow. Dude, that's--that's insane.Zach: So I look at it, and I'm like, "What?" So then I take it and--so, you know, again, my boss isn't there, so first--of course I take a picture. I gotta take a picture. I send it to my parents, and then I take it and I put the monkey at her desk 'cause she's not there. So then the next day, right, she goes, "Hey, did you see my monkey?" "Did you see the monkey yet? Did you see your birthday present?" And I said, "I did. Yeah, that was really disappointing and inappropriate," right? So, not that it would be a surprise to you at all, I then got turned into I have the attitude problem, I'm overly sensitive--Rod: Mm-hmm.Zach: Right? She starts crying, tearing up. I'm like, "What is going on? You put a monkey at my desk, right?" And it's just like, "Wow." Like, "You clearly never considered," you know? And, you know, she came out later and was like, "You know, I like monkeys." Like, "Monkey is, like, my favorite animal," blah blah blah blah, and I'm like, "Okay." I mean, that's fine for you personally, right? But for you to then give that to somebody, and such a big one too, right? It wasn't even like a small gesture, dawg. It was huge. It was--so I'm 6'2", so it wasn't as big as me, but it was a big monkey, man. Like, it was big enough to when I walked around the corner I thought--I thought someone was sitting at my desk. It was crazy, man. So let me ask you something, 'cause, you know, I know you--what would you have done in that situation? I just want to--like, off the cuff, what would've been your reaction?Rod: Well, see, here's the thing. I'm not very reactionary, and I'm probably, believe it or not, one of the more patient people most people know. I probably would've not been too moved to anger or offense or shock, but I would've taken that monkey out of my cubicle for sure, put it somewhere, like, in a car or something, like, somewhere away from me, and then I would've pulled her to the side and been like, "Listen, I don't know how this goes with you and other black people, but don't do that again towards me, and you probably should never do that again with another black person because my assumption is you're not aware but this can be perceived as racist, and this is why," you know? And, you know, my general responses that I've had from checking white people on racism has not been one of too much animosity, but mostly because I'm just not--I'm very rarely triggered to anger, so for the most part I haven't had to deal with a fragile white person breaking down crying and stuff, but yeah, I mean, you did the right--there's nothing you did wrong, and there's nothing--you know, like I said, I can only hope that that would be the response is that they'd be like, "My bad," you know what I mean? 'Cause--I mean, what else do I want at that point? If I don't want you fired, then I just want a "My fault, playa. Won't do it again," and then I'm cool. It'll become a funny story that I remember and tell people or whatever, but yeah, I don't--you know, I probably would handle it pretty even-keel, probably wouldn't have went to HR even though I would've had every right to. I'm just not that kind of person really.Zach: You transitioned from, you know, working for somebody else to really building--so I don't want to be hyperbolic and say an empire, right? Or a dynasty and be corny, but you've built something for yourself. Like, you and your wife of course, with the help of your wife, and shout out to the wives out there. I mean, my wife, she's not on my podcast, but she definitely supports me and helps me and holds me down as I'm doing all of this stuff, but, you know, what advice would you give to people who are actively in Corporate America, black and brown folks who are trying to navigate, especially if they're trying to navigate and they're thinking about ways to find another avenue outside of working a 9-to-5.Rod: Yeah, okay. Man, there's so much I can say. I'll start with--first, in my Corporate America stint where I got laid off twice in the span of the, like, four years I was doing the podcast while working--and maybe it was 5, but either way--the podcast I always treated like I would treat if I had a second job. Like, I made sure to make the time and the preparation, and I treated it in many ways like a full-time job before it was a full-time job, so by that I mean it was not a hobby. Now, there's nothing wrong with a podcast as a hobby. There's nothing wrong with anything as a hobby. We need--especially as black people, we need outlets outside of corporate structures, specifically corporate structures that are encapsulated, white spaces. So, you know, you always have these voices inside that might not get out, and you need to feed that voice 'cause it'll die if you let it. Zach: Right.Rod: So for me I'll say look, work on your craft as if you're already doing it full-time to a certain extent. Be professional, you know? Think about your sound quality. Think about the time commitment. Consistency is key. These are all boring things I'm telling you, but the boring things are what--the boring things is basically Mr. Miyagi making you wash his car and sand his bench, but then when you become--when you make that transition into trying to monetize it, you already know, you know, wax on wax off, and that's what keeps it working. That's what makes it easy, the basics. So yeah, learn your craft, learn your tools, right? You learn your microphones that you use, how to get the best sound out of it. Your internet setup, how to get your best communication when you want to have guests. You're gonna have to learn, you know, your equipment and internet hosting things, you know? Like, what are the differences on sites? All that stuff. Everything is so Google-able at this point. YouTube has so many tutorials. I use Audacity to record. It's a basic, free software. I still use it to this day.Zach: Same here, yeah. For sure.Rod: Right, and I know people that would pay, like, hundreds and thousands of dollars for rigs, and you're like--then they hit me up, "How'd you get that sound?" I'm like, "Oh, Audacity," and they hit up--you know? So yeah, there's plenty of ways, plenty of paths, and then the most thing that I would want you to remember from coming from a Corporate America background where they really do a job on our brains of trying to smush us all into these cubicles and these boxes and this linear thinking of "All of us should think the same way. Don't think outside of the box. Don't be too creative," right? When you're in your personal space and you're creating something from scratch for yourself, make it for you. Make it as personal as you would like. I made the podcast I would love to have heard when I was working. I made the podcast that was gonna be with me five days a week and talk about topics that were random but could be comedic, could be serious. I made the podcast that was gonna, like, make me not feel like a crazy person in a corporate structure where you go to work and some of your people that you work with voted for Trump. Some of the people you work with, you know, you may be the only black person they know, you know? But I wanted to make a show for black and brown people all over the globe where they didn't feel alone for a couple hours a day or whatever, so they would be like, "Oh, yeah. Okay, so you saw that too, and that was crazy to you as well. Yeah, okay, cool. You know, this is like sitting at the lunch table again," and many podcasts have done that for me as well as a listener, working and working for myself. Those are, like, the basic things I would say.Zach: Man, that's dope, Rod. I appreciate it, man. I'm curious, man, before we wrap up--first of all, I have a random, unrelated question. Do you see yourself creating another video on social media that has as much vitriol as that Kit Kat video?Rod: [laughs] I don't think I could do that if I tried. I don't even know--I have no idea what goes viral. There's another video of me eating (Talenti?) where I smoked it like a heroin spoon.Zach: Yeah, I saw that. [laughs]Rod: Yeah, and now--and for some reason that never one goes truly viral, but I'm like, "That's the most creative one I ever did."Zach: That one was wonderful.Rod: Yeah. The Kit Kat one was just me being--I just thought it would be funny, and I have several other videos of--I had one where I tried to--I can't remember. Oh, I tried to--[laughs] I'm sorry. I tried to snort candy corn.Zach: [laughs]Rod: [laughs] It was so ridiculous, but that one didn't get picked up. So hey, man, I have no idea what will make people mad. I'm not trying to make 'em mad, but boy, did that one make 'em mad. Zach: So beyond the implication of, like, you, like, actually, like, harming yourself, it'd be really funny if you melted down a Hershey's bar and, like, injected it between your toes.Rod: Right. [laughs] You should've heard the idea board that I've just thrown at my wife over the, like--"You know what I should do? I should take a Kit Kat, and I'ma put it in some soup or something," and she's just like, "Don't do that." I'm like, "You right. You right."Zach: [laughs] Man, I shared that video with my wife. I shared that video of the Kit Kat with my wife. She was like, "Oh, I'm just so offended." Dawg, she was so mad. [laughs]Rod: People were watching it like I, like, hurt a small child or something like that. They're like *gasps* "Why would you do that?" I'm like, "It's just a candy bar. You can eat it how you want."Zach: You also dunked on 'em at the end when you said, "Are you mad?" [laughs]Rod: [laughs] And they were mad. Who knew? They were really mad, man. I thought we'd all have a laugh, but we did not.Zach: Any shout outs? Any at all. Any shout outs you have at all.Rod: I mean--well, you know, obviously my wife Karen. Could not do The Black Guy Who Tips without her.Zach: Yes, shout out to Karen. Air horns for Karen, yes.Rod: Ironically, like, honestly, the show would not be named The Black Guy Who Tips, but she did not--she was not sure she would make a good co-host, which anybody that has listened to our show is like, "What?"Zach: That's crazy, straight up.Rod: Like, I don't feel--like, I don't even take it as offense anymore. It's like, "I know nobody comes for me. They're coming for Karen, and then I'm just out there throwing alley-oops and letting her dunk over people." So yeah, it's that, but it would be probably The Rod & Karen Show, which may not be nearly as--would have gotten it the same traction, so maybe it helped out even though she wasn't trying to. Yeah, that would be the--obviously all the podcasts I listen to and all the podcast friends and family that we've established over the years, and black podcasters, podcasters of color in general, you know? We out here. Our voices are important. Don't give up, man. Just keep making the show for you. Don't look at other people's race. Run your race, and, you know, try to be better every time you take the mic. That's the best, realest advice I can give.Zach: Man, Rod, we appreciate it. That does it for us here on the Living Corporate podcast. Make sure to follow us on Instagram at LivingCorporate, Twitter at LivingCorp_Pod, and subscribe to our newsletter through living-corporate.com. We also have a Patreon, so if you can spare a dollar a month--yes, just a dollar--to support content that explores the perspectives and experiences of black and brown people in Corporate America, show us some love. If you have a question you'd like for us to answer and read on the show, make sure you email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com. My name is Zach. You've been listening to Rod, A.K.A. Rodimus Prime, A.K.A. half of the firepower behind The Black Guy Who Tips. Go ahead, shout 'em out one last time, Rod.Rod: TheBlackGuyWhoTips.com. Find us, okay? You can go on Twitter at TBGWT. You can follow me on Twitter at RodimusPrime, and drop the air horns right now.[Sound Man drops 'em]Zach: There it is. [laughs] Peace. Kiara: Living Corporate is a podcast by Living Corporate, LLC. Our logo was designed by David Dawkins. Our theme music was produced by Ken Brown. Additional music production by Antoine Franklin from Musical Elevation. Post-production is handled by Jeremy Jackson. Got a topic suggestion? Email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com. You can find us online on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and living-corporate.com. Thanks for listening. Stay tuned.

In this episode, Zach and Ade discuss the role of education and building wealth with Accenture senior strategy consultant, Richard Odior.Length: 00:33:33Hosts: Ade | ZachTRANSCRIPTAde: “Research and public policy have traditionally focused on education and income as drivers of upward mobility. There is compelling evidence, however, that education alone does little to explain the source of different levels of economic well-being, especially across race. Observing an association between higher levels of educational attainment and higher levels of net wealth and concluding that education produces wealth is tantamount to observing an association between the presence of umbrellas during rainfalls and concluding that umbrellas cause the rain. It's more likely that the relative wealth of different races explains the educational attainment differences across race groups.” This excerpt is from “Umbrellas Don’t Make it Rain: Why Studying and Working Hard Isn’t Enough for Black Americans” a joint report between The New School, Duke Center for Social Equality, and Insight, a non-profit research entity. What does this mean for people of color trying to secure the bag? What role, if any, does education play in affecting our income? And if education alone won’t secure the bag, what will? Hi, my name is Ade. And this is Living Corporate.Ade: So today, we’re talking about greenery. Cheese. To be more specific, we're talking about paper, stacks, racks, looseleaf, guap, benjamins, all that. Zach: So we're talking about money? Ade: Mhmm, getting to the bag. More specifically and more to the point of this show, what role, if any, does education plays a role in securing said bag. Zach: You know, this is a great topic, I'm really excited that we're talking about it. Because I know for me growing up, education was a big deal. It was a big deal for its own sake because my mom is a principal now and before that, she was an English teacher. Butt off top she told me, look, the expectation is for you to get a Masters. We didn’t even talk about me going to college because we knew that we were going to college, no joke. I didn’t even walk for my undergrad degree. Not because I don’t believe college matters, but because it was so much the expectation. Ade: Same here - it wasn’t even a spoken thing, my family just expected me to go to college. You need to go to college to get a job and you need a job to get money so it was an automatic thought process there. Zach: Right, and to be honest I just figured the more education you got, the more money you’d make. But as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that isn’t always the case. Ade: Well, to keep it real for a second, how many people do we know who, at the barest minimum, have a bachelor's degree, but have not secured the bag?And before we go any further, this is certainly not to disparage anybody with a bachelor's degree under their belt, or who have terminal degrees. This is just a process of trying to understand what the secret sauce is. Listen, if there's a formula, somebody needs to put me on. I was on Fishbowl, which is, for those who don't know, it's an anonymous posting app for consultants and there were just so many different stories and conversations going on around compensation that I've never been exposed to before. And it’s even more unbelievable because that study I referenced at the top of the show, again it's called “Umbrellas Don’t Make it Rain: Why Studying and Working Hard Isn’t Enough for Black Americans”, it calls out median wealth by education level, and it shows a disparity between black and white families- where Black families with a post baccalaureate have a combined wealth of 84k white families at the same level have a combined wealth of almost 300k. The numbers get even more bleak with fewer years of education. Zach: Right, and I appreciate you sharing this data. It's a great report "Umbrellas don't make it rain", we'll make sure to have it in the actual show description but I look at those numbers myself like “HOW SWAY? HOW!!” How is that possible?! The thing about it is, though, neither one of us has finished grad school, so most of our talking points are gonna be second hand, right? It would be great if we could talk to a 1st generation Corporate professional who, maybe they graduated from a top 3 grad school in the nation. You know, someone who could share their story about their experiences Ade: Right, right Zach: What the job hunting was like and maybe how they used their degree to get to the next level, perhaps? Ade: Like our guest, Richard Odior? Ade + Zach : whaaaaaaa? Zach: Sound man - I need you to go ahead and drop them thangs in here for me! [air horns] Ade: [Laughs] alright, so next, we’re going to get into our interview with our guest Richard Odior. I hope you guys enjoy-------Zach: Hey y’all, we’re back! Annnnd as Ade said, we have Richard Odior on the show! Richard, welcome to Living Corporate man!Richard: Thanks for having me, guys, I'm glad to come to the show, I guess. This is exciting, man.Zach: So, for those of us who don’t know you, would you mind sharing your story a bit? Specifically of how you (1) got into Corp America and (2) what led you to pursue an MBA?Richard: Yeah, so I went to the University of Houston and majored in Finance, and like anybody else in Houston, there's one option - oil and gas. So I quickly hopped into a career in finance in oil and gas for a couple of years, worked in commodity trading, then like financial performance analysis, pretty much all the board for a while. And then luckily I was able to gather with a group of friends who were trying to do some entrepreneurial things, and we opened up a chain of gourmet donut cafes in Houston. Shout out to Glazed. And so one of the things that the experience let me know is that I loved building things. I love growing things. But it also let me know I liked growing things fast. And what I learned about through that experience is that brick and mortar is a bit slower and so I went back to school in a sense to move back to a faster paced growth, and so for me that was tech, right? Tech enabled businesses. So, I went back to business school with two things in mind- either going to Venture Capital, or going to Consulting. Because I wanted to see a faster paced growth, that's kind of how my mission to go back to school started.Zach: So talk to me a bit more about growing things and growing things fast. When did you realize that the pace that you worked at was perhaps a little bit faster than that of your surroundings?Richard: Oh man, it was as soon as week three of work. I think at the time, oil and gas was moving slow, companies were paying people crazy amounts of dollars to do little work, and so I joined my new group, and I was probably the only other person under 30 in my group of like thirty five people. And primarily because companies were paying people to do work that could have been automated and people were not motivated to move up because they were getting annual promotions, annual raises, and it was outlandish. And I just realized this was very slow. In the first 6 month of being there, I had already surpassed a lot of people of the floor because everybody was coasting, and it wasn’t because I was doing anything amazing, I was just putting in more effort than the average individual, right?Zach: Right, right.Richard: And for me, that just kinda wasn't what I wanted to do. I figured 'while you're young, do as much as you can as fast as you can, and learn as much as you can.' So I just kept on pushing and pushing and pushing, and through the experiences I was able, and great mentors at the company, I was able to build really fast, get into new roles, get new opportunities that a lot of people probably wouldn't get into until several years into their career. And so that was pretty amazing, but then I realized I didn’t have ownership of anything. I didn't have anything that I could call my staple item. When you're working in oil and gas, you don't own an oil rig, you don't build an oil rig, you don't make any of that, so I was like 'what is my impact?' and I didn't feel it. And I felt like there was a way to feel it, that I wanted to tangibly know that I had changed something. So, I looked at somewhere else. And luckily I had some friends who were into the same thing, into building, into cultivating, into doing some really cool things. And we just started chatting and we said 'hey, what can we do?'Zach: Were there any preconceived notions about grad school that were proven right when you got there? And were there any preconceived notions about grad school that were proven wrong?Richard: One preconceived notion, at least for business school, and I'll speak to business school, the hardest part was getting in. Once you're in, it's busy, it's difficult, it's kind of like a ride. You're growing yourself and learning and meeting new people all the time, and sometimes a lot of the work gets masked, if that makes sense. You don't realize how much work you're doing because it's masked in so many other experiences. The opportunities really feel global. Like, I traveled almost thirty countries in two years, it was ridiculous.Zach: thirty countries in two years?Richard: Yeah I think the final number was like twenty-eight. And I can speak for myself, I don't want to speak for all minorities, but it's just one of the things that a friend of mine told me - speak up, raise your hand, and don't be afraid. Minorities tend to feel like our voice is not going to be on par with the rest of everybody. We think about what we're going to say so carefully because we want to seem a certain way, and what I realized, and what my buddy told me, he was like 'you're here because you earned it. Don't ever feel like you didn't earn it, and don't ever feel like you can't compete.' Those were really really big words for me because I think often times I went to a public school, I went to the University of Houston, right? And a lot of b school classes have students coming out of Columbia, Harvard, Yale, and so sometimes you get this mindset like 'yoo what am I going to do, I'm not on the same level.' And then you get in there and you pull something out of yourself that you don't understand that you have. And you understand that you're here because you're valuable, you're here because you bring something to the table, and I think that was one of the things that I had to shake off when I first got there.Zach: It's funny that you bring that up, talking about 'you look around the room and you see all these people that got really big collegiate names next to them' and how you question yourself like 'do you really belong there.' it's funny because a couple shows ago we had- we were talking about imposter syndrome and how you battle that. And it's funny that you kind of bring that up when you say 'not feeling like you should have to prove your seat at the table.' But that if you're here, you earned it, and you're here for a reason.I hope that people take that away and that they're encouraged by it. That's a really good message. And I think it's actually applicable in and outside of Academia, right?Richard: I always tell people like 'Let someone else turn you away,' right?Zach: Straight up, yeahRichard: The amount of times we (and I talk about we as the minority population), We self-doubt ourselves, right? We say oh-- I remember in undergrad, there was a career fair and there were several companies recruiting. And my buddies, we walked in and they veered off left and I veered off to the right and I was like 'yo guys, why don't you come in here?' and they were like 'well my GPA's not this and my grades aren't that' and I said 'let them tell you no'. I'm not going to tell myself no, you know? Someone needs to pat me on the back and say 'Hey Richard, what you're doing is not good enough', 'Hey Richard, your product is not good enough', 'Hey Richard, your grades aren't good enough', because I'm not going to tell myself I'm not good enough.Zach: Man, amenRichard: I'm going to walk in there, I'm going to hand in my resume to whoever's there, and we're going to have this conversation, and then you're gonna tell me I'm not good enough.Zach: No, straight up, I'm cheering you on when you're talking because man, that's my philosophy. Like, look man, there's plenty of people out there who will tell me I'm not whatever. I'm either too academic or not academic enough, I'm either too strategic or too tactical, or I'm too this or not enough that. Listen, man. There's enough out there already of all of that. So I'm not gonna be an additional voice for that, I'm going to tell myself I am enoughRichard: You are enough, yeah!Zach: You know, like what's the point? So you gonna sit back and join every other voice that's out there? Not to be super pessimistic and say that the world's against you, that's not what I'm saying. But there's more than enough voices and perspectives and opinions, be that for whatever reason, that are gonna discount you, so don't discount yourself! Let them tell you, Let them push you out the room, let them tell you that you shouldn't sit at the table. Then you fight, but don't kick yourself before you even get started.Richard: 100% you gotta walk in like you already have a seat at the table every time you walk in the room.Zach: RightRichard: Every time. Every time you walk in the room. Now, I'm gonna let you pull my chair out, but I'm not pulling my own chair out of underneath myself.Zach: I'm saying! [Laughs]Richard: I have a seat!Zach: That's rightRichard: I don't care what room it is. I walk in, I have a seat. That's how you have to operate.Zach: No absolutely. Well look, man, today as you know, we're talking about getting to the bag, right? And so the context was all around, like, we looked at a study called Umbrellas Don't Make It Rain and it's essentially dispelling certain myths about wealth inequality and income inequality. And one of the things for me and Ade that we were talking about on the show, growing up, I just thought that if you got a grad degree, that they were just going to hand you money, right? That you're just gonna walk out of that thing with a thick six-figure salary, and so my question to you - what would you say to people who just make that assumption? Like look, I went to grad school, I got my MBA, and now it's time for me to get that 160,000, 180,000, 220,000 dollar bag. Like, what would you say to people who make that assumption?Richard: Whew, uh, I think a couple things to get the bag, you gotta be ready, first what are you bringing to the table? What industry are you looking to go into? What were you doing before? And how are you going to change the organization that you're going to now? So, for example, even me going to business school was interesting. I remember when I was making the decision, I was basically a finance guy, so I had to put it in a spreadsheet, right? And so, I had to say 'okay, if I go to business school and pay X and come out and get paid this, then it's valuable.' And I hate to sound like a snob, in a sense, but I think a lot of times people don't understand what they're investing in when they go to grad school. And I say this to say - not to knock any program - all programs are not created equal, all opportunities are not created equal, so going to any grad school is not the same as going to certain grad schools, if that makes senseZach: YeahRichard: And it all depends on where you are in life, right? At a certain point, I usually say it's a premium spot is maybe 4 to 6, anywhere from 4 to 6 years is a premium spot because you've probably made good enough money at the place you're in, but still have enough value from the MBA to get the post-MBA salary and still be worth it. Let me give an example - if you work 8 years and you've made your salary is now at X dollars, it's harder to leverage the MBA because the jump that you can make is smaller, right? But if you go at prime time, which is usually, for most people about 4-6 years, a jump is still very sizeable. So for example, I was blessed with a really good job before, like I said, it was great, I was making really good money. But post MBA, I was still able to increase my overall salary by more than 50%. At that point, the numbers still made sense. But if I had stayed in my current company for maybe another year or two, the jump would not have been as large.Zach: RightRichard: Also, I think some of the big things - it's not just about the bag now, it's about the bag later. And I say that in the sense that if you go to the right program with the right resources and the right network, the beauty of it is, it's not just about you getting the bag today, but your network will also be getting the bag. And so your network is your bag as well. Because whenever they're looking to hire a consultant down the line? It's you. Whenever they're looking to hire someone for an acquisition? It's you. They're gonna operate in the network of other people that they believe are competent. One of the things I noticed - I work in consulting- one of the things I noticed was some of the best managing directors, what they leverage is their MBA network. What they utilize is their other classmates working in industry, at whatever company it may be, and they reach out to them and they sell these huge million dollar projects back and forth. And because that bag is not just a today bag, it's a future bag, right? And so I won't say that knowledge isn't something that you can always google. There's a lot of aspects you can Google about the knowledge you can get, the documentation, but a large part of business school is the in-person interaction. I used to sit with my classmates from Colombia, India, Indonesia, all over the world, and we would talk about different concepts and I'd learn directly from them. And two things that I got - I got unique knowledge, but I also got to know them better. So, when I tell you I went to 28 countries, I was going with these people from those countries and I was learning business through them and with them and now in the future, they know that if an opportunity comes, I can knock on their door, they can knock on mine.Zach: When we talk about wealth or the bag, I know for me that my default is "how much money am I going to make off of this job?' Individually, me, right now. As opposed to, to your point, pulling from your network, right? And thinking about, you said, the bag in the future. I would say even if your bag is only, you know, in the context of a yearly salary, your bag isn't big enough, right? Like I would say you need to be thinking about really what encompasses the bag. And to your point, it's that network. When you think about MDs and Partners and Principals, especially cats who have been selling work for 5, 10, 15 years, they typically are selling work back and forth to like the same what like 7 or 8 people?Richard: 7 or 8 people!Zach: Like it's not like they're like 'oh I found this brand new guy that just popped out of nowhere' No, they have a network there.Richard: That's part of the bag. The relationships are part of the bag because ideally, one of the things I realized, and if you go to the right program, if you do it the right way, you don't have to get to the bag immediately. And I've seen it multiple times where someone went to grad school, they might have not gotten the exact job they wanted, but they take another job, they did well, they got promoted, then two jobs down the line, when a great opportunity comes with that company, well their friend works at that company and is high in that company, and they pull them over. You see a gravitation of 'oh that company's run by a bunch of X people that go to that school, that company is run by a lot of people that go to that program.' It's because there's a relationship that's being built, that's being carried over in so many ways. There's a reason why certain companies recruit at certain schools, because those relationships, someone high in that company is from that school and has that relationship, so there's definitely value. And if you're changing industries, there's definitely a value there. And that was one of the factors that if you're putting it into a spreadsheet, you won't be able to put that part in the spreadsheet. Your bag might not be actual cash, it might be your happiness and your enjoyment of getting into something you wanna do. I have a lot of friends from school who might have been doing things like banking, investment banking previously, making north of 200 [thousand] a year, and took jobs that make maybe half of that post because their ideal goal was to get to something that was different, and that was the bag for them. And so identifying what your bag is is a big thing. If you identify what your bag is, then you can identify how to get to the bagZach: That's a really good point, man. I like that a lot. So to your point, I think perspective matters. What you're thinking about what your goals are. Which actually is a good segue to my next question, so as a follow up to that, what was your strategy for you on leveraging an MBA for where you want to go? So when you think about - man did you even plug the school? Did you plug the school that you went to?Richard: Oh I gotta plug my school, I was waiting for the end, but I went to Kellogg, man. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern, man. That's my home, man. They took care of me for a good two years, man.Zach: There we go. So my question is when you think about Kellogg and the degree that you earned, what was your strategy on leveraging your MBA for where you wanted to go? Like how did it fit into your master plan?Richard: I'm still leveraging it now. I mean, in multiple ways. I think for me, the school, ideally chose the school for one a few reasons, right? One was the programs that had the learning that I like to learn. It had a lot of hands-on learning, but mixed with class work. And they promised that you would work in over 400 groups before you left. And I was like wow, 400? I was like alright. And the importance of that was that I work best when I get to know people. Like I'm not the best, but I've always been good at managing relationships and I wanted to go to a school where I'd get to interact with people, manage and harvest relationships, and be able to develop with these people. So when I chose the school, that was definitely in mind, and then on top of that, since I've been in school, the network is amazing. I've been able to reach out to so many people and I've made mentors and connections through our network that have been beyond anything I could have dreamed about. And I'm still making networks and connections, I'm still making calls, and I'm still giving back in the same way. And so I'm always in this realm of gratefulness to the program, but it's leveraged me to be able to have conversations with individuals who probably would never, if I had just tried to make a certain transition, would answer my call. In my phone, to this day, I have the numbers saved of at least 5 millionaires. Easily. And that's a minimum. And those came through the experience of when I got to Kellogg, connecting with certain people, being continuously connected to my goals. For me, I had several short term and long term goals. I was able to utilize my network very early on. I remember the first week of school, we did an exercise, and it was in your sections, sections were usually around 60 people, and so our professor said I want you to tell me something that is one of your largest goals and I want you to put it on the board. And we're one by one putting it on the board. And anybody who could help you get to your goal would come write their name on your sheet.Zach: oh wow, that's powerful.Richard: and it was interesting because he said 'you don't realize what you have alone in this room. Not even the whole school, but what you have alone in this room.' And from that first week of school alone, from the people who wrote their name on my list, I've been able to go so far. It's been crazy, I've met some of the millionaires I was said I connected to was through one exercise. And they leveraged me to introduce me to other people and it's been amazing and so, because of that, I naturally have been given experiences where I don't even have to leverage the MBA, the MBA gave to me directly, if that makes sense.Zach: No it does, that makes a lot of sense, man. So look, I have a last question for you - do you have any other plugs, other shoutouts?Richard: Whew, um, I got a lot of shout outs, a lot og plugsZach: Do your thing man, do your thingRichard: I gotta do a Glazed Donut Café - if you’re in Houston, for sure, check this out. They're my family. Love you. Kellogg's School of Management, Bauer was my undergrad, go Coug's, I learned everything I know from them. I also wanna plug Impact America Fund. One of the firms I used to work at, and I got connected to them during business school. It's a double bottom line venture capital fund which focuses on investing in minority entrepreneurs and underrepresented minorities. I learned a lot from the people at that firm and I've grown a lot through them. I want to shout out to Living Corporate for doing what they're doing. You guys don't know how major this is right here. Honestly, as someone who has constantly worked in corporate america, this is something we used to talk about in business school is - we often have to cover and hover and hide who we are constantly, and what you guys are giving people is the opportunity to really be open, and also an opportunity to see that you're not alone in the workplace. Which is often times when you're the 'other,' you always feel alone. This podcast alone has excited me so much because it lets me know I'm not alone, and lets me hear the stories of people who are doing great things that are also considered an 'other' at work.Zach: Aw man, that's amazing, well first of all Richard, bro thank you for the kind words. The thing about it is, what excites me is your energy is - and spoiler alert for those who don't know, Richard and I are friendly, and we've known each other for about a decade now-Richard: yeah man, a decade!Zach: But what's crazy, and what excites me is the fact that when you say something, especially when you give praise, and also when you constructive criticism, but when you speak all that energy, it comes from a really authentic place. And so, we wanna thank you for joining us today, and definitely all the shout outs- I want to endorse. Eat Glazed. Glazed is a great donut spot, good donuts, great flavors, if you're in Houston, check it out. You'll probably see us shout them out on our IG stories, so stay tuned for that, but anyway, Richard man, thank you for joining us todayRichard: Yeah, and any minorities who are listening and you're thinking about grad school or business school, I can speak specifically to business school, if you're thinking about business school, feel free to hit me up. Honestly, I'm an open book, I like talking, I'll have a conversation with you, anyone who needs anything honestly. My goal is to see more of us in those spaces, because honestly something I will say is it's a leveling ground. It evens out the field and I've seen it multiple times, for people who were not given a silver spoon to start off with. So if you want to have a conversation, if you just have questions in general, these guys have my contact info, feel free to reach out and we can chop it upZach: We'll definitely put the contact info in the podcast description. Drop your stuff, man, what's your twitter, your IG-Richard: yeah so my email is richard.odior@gmail.com, my IG is r.odior. That's it, you can find me on facebook, find me on LinkedIn, feel free to touch base any time. Let me know that you came from Living Corporate first so I can show these guys some love.Zach: [laughs] yeah man, that's what's up. Richard, again brother, thank you. We look forward to talking to you again soon, brother. Alright, Peace.--Ade: And we’re back. Yo, that was a great interview and Richard was a fun guest. He had some great insights on how you can leverage a degree for your goals, but I think I’m more certain now than I was before that that degree isn’t a cheat code. Zach: Yeah, like I said from the beginning, I was raised to think that having a graduate degree would give me one two three four five six seven eight Ms in my bank account. Ade: Right, but at the same time I do believe the degrees have their time and place. They just need to be part of your plan. Which is it’s own thing. Zach: Real talk. I know for me I genuinely want to get a grad degree, right? First it was an MBA, but now I’m thinking an I/O Psych PHD but -- Ade: Oh, ok you fancy huh? Zach: I am very fancy, for sure. The point is, I’m trying to think it through, like the why of the degree, because school isn't free. Definitely not even cheap Ade: Sure isn't, sure is not. And, listen, we started off the show talking about wealth inequality and how it isn’t fixed purely by education. I don’t think this should discourage people from pursuing a degree. I do hope that this conversation helps us think critically and analyze fairly common assumptions many of us were raised to believe about how wealth is generated and distributed. Like Richard alluded to, we’re going to have to re-think what “the bag” is for us and what our strategy to secure it, it has to be more than an annual salary. Zach: Right! That’s a soundbite for sure. This is a huge, complex, and yes, frustrating topic, but I believe the starting point is awareness, then thoughtful dialogue, then planning and then action. Ade: Agreed! Anyway - let’s get into our next segment - my favorite things, where we talk about what our favorite things are these days. Zach : Yes! My favorite thing right now has to be this book I’m reading called Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race, by Reni Eddo-Lodge. It’s so frank and honest. I also have a bias towards aggressive book titles. Book titles that let you know exactly what it's about when you pick it up. I just, I really enjoy that. Also, shout out to Glazed Donuts. Glazed Donuts is a gourmet donut restaurant based in Houston TX. I can tell you they have a great product - donuts, sandwiches, kalaches, juice, allat. Shout out to Richard, Bobby, Edose, TJ and all the members of the Glazed Donut team. Ade: So currently, I have at the absolute top of my list of one true loves, I have this book called Children of Blood and Bone. It is by Tomi Adeyemi who wrote just an amazing, amazing work. And I'm looking forward to reading more from her. I'm Nigerian, I'm Yoruba, and it's really beautiful to see the Yoruba pantheon of gods incorporated into a literary work. So go check that out if you are interested at all in, well, reading. But also if you're interested at all in any fantasy novels, really really good book. My other favorite thing- I don't know if you've seen I just got a new dog. His name is Benji. Well, technically his name is Maximillian Benjamin Gold the third. There is no first or second, but yeah. We are extra over here around these parts. I call him Benji because I'm the more sane mama. I'm well grounded and down to earth and all of those things. So my beautiful beautiful baby husky is just my newest ray of sunlight and I just, I cannot get enough of him. I've taken 262 pictures and I've posted maybe 3 of them, so like I'm not being obsessive and I'm not being 'that guy' but. He's a gorgeous pup, and I do say so myself. Zach: Dope! Well, thank you for joining us on the Living Corporate Podcast. Make sure to follow us on instagram at @livingcorporate, twitter at @LivingCorp_Pod and subscribe to our newsletter through www.living-corporate.com. If you have a question you’d like us to answer and read on the show, make sure you email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com. Aaaaaand that does it for us on this show. This is has been Zach. Ade: and I’m Ade Both : peace!9:19 -> 10:18

Zach Selch, VP of Global Sales at PharmaJet joins me, Jen Spencer to discuss partner channel goals, growing a channel, educating your partner sales reps and more on this episode of The Allbound Podcast.   Announcer: Effective selling takes an ecosystem. Join host Jen Spencer as she explores how to supercharge your sales and master the art of never selling alone. Welcome to the "Allbound Podcast," the fundamentals of accelerating growth with partners. Jen: Hi everyone, welcome to the "Allbound Podcast." I am Jen Spencer and today I am joined by Zach Selch who is the VP of Global Sales at PharmaJet. And if you don't know Zach, he's been working in sales for the last 30 or so years, and with a lot of that time spent in the channel we're gonna have a ton to talk about with him. Zach, you've just recently transitioned into your role as VP of global sales at PharmaJet, and I know you're working on building up new channels, expanding, and empowering existing channels. Before we get into all the meat we're gonna talk about today, can you share a little bit about PharmaJet and about your role in the company? Zach: Sure. So PharmaJet is a company that was put together to develop and sell needle-free injection technology for the vaccine market. And the basic idea is that you have literally billions of people getting vaccines, and there are a lot of dangers involved with the needles. They make it a little bit less safe. There are issues with disposing of needles. There are issues of accidental sticks, those types of things. And there's also advantages with vaccine to where in the flesh, where in the layers of the skin or the muscle you deliver your vaccine. So if you can make it easy to deliver the vaccine in the right part of the body, you can make it more effective with less training. So that's essentially what we do. And right now our focus really is in growing the international vaccine market as well as the domestic flu market. Jen: That is very, very interesting. And I love this innovative approach to medicine. So channel comes up in this? I think there's so many different interesting applications of growing a channel. You know, what's kind of the overview of your role there? What are you setting out to achieve for PharmaJet? Zach: This is an interesting product for a couple of reasons. When we're dealing with the international market, we're looking really at ministries of health; government. And, you know, when you're selling to a government, they're...it can be a long sales process. You don't really have a relationship, you're looking at a very, say, long investment in the issue of developing trust. And when you're dealing with a channel, you're essentially onboarding the trust and the relationship that that channel's already developed with your customers.   So if you know who your customer's going to be...and in this case I do, it's a very specific part of the Ministry of Health of countries and you can find the right channel. So you find somebody who's actually selling to them another product today has been delivering the trust, they know that they're delivering good product and, you know, they're honest and so on and so forth. If I could get those type of channels, that accelerates my sales process, it cuts down my cost of sale because I don't have to be there 20 times. You know, I can manage the ongoing sales process through my channel. So that's the focus of what I'm doing.   Now, domestically, I have a similar thing...or actually, you could say it's similar but almost opposite. In the United States the people who are making decisions about vaccines are much, much more localized and much smaller, and it then goes back to the cost of sale. "Can I actually get out to every clinic or every place where they're going to make...where they're going to be delivering vaccines and make a presentation, develop the relationship, build rapport and trust. Well, if I'm dealing with distributors, our channel partners that have those relationships, they're getting out there, then that is gonna make my sales process a lot easier. Jen: The beauty of a channel. That's great. Zach: Exactly, right. Jen: So, actually, let's dig into that a little bit more, and I'm gonna start by going backwards. So your most recent company, AMETEK, you worked within the Rauland-Borg Division. And when you were there, you grew annual sales from less than $1 million to more than $12 million in 7 years, and you did it without adding any headcount, products, or resources, which that's pretty substantial, right? That's a big accomplishment. So you gotta tell us how were you able to grow your sales that much without adding that headcount and those resources. Zach: Well, so when I came on board to Rauland, which was the division of AMETEK that I was part of, they'd been trying for 40 or 50 years to sell internationally without any real luck, mostly because, you know, they were doing what a lot of companies do. They were taking a regional manager from the US market who thought it might be fun to sell internationally and putting them in the role, right, but without any real experience. And we were locked into probably the wrong model of partners, the wrong profile. And what I like to do in a new role is I always start by asking a few questions: who are we selling to, why are they buying it. And that might sound really elementary, but a lot of people don't do that, and that really is going to define your channel. And as an example with some companies...and this was the case with Rauland. We had a very difficult - not difficult - a complicated product to install and to maintain, and keeping happy customers is very important. So the philosophy from the beginning, had been "Let's find partners who we can trust to handle this very complicated technical installation and provide good technical support. And can they sell what's sort of an afterthought?" So the first thing I did was I looked at this, I said, "Okay, we need people who can do this type of level of technical support." That's great, but you can always buy an engineer. If a distributor doesn't know how to sell, you can't teach them how to sell. But if you tell them you need this type of technical person, "If you wanna be our distributor, you have to have such and such technical person and they have to do this training," then you'd wanna hire him, and in some countries they can hire him for $15,000 or $20,000. In some countries, it might be 50, 60 or $80,000 a year, but those numbers are nowhere near the cost of getting really good sales people.   So the first thing I did was totally revamp what the profile of distributor I wanted was. Now, one thing that I did that was interesting - and it wasn't my choice, but I'm not unhappy I did it - was we decided as a company that in order to maintain our reputation and our credibility, I wasn't going to fire any of the distributors even if I thought they weren't the right distributors. So I inherited something like eight distributors, probably none of whom I would have chosen, and I let one of them go simply because they had nowhere near the bandwidth to cover the territory that was assigned to them, and that was the one distributor I had reason to let go. But everybody else, I really focused on turning them around and we were able to get them, on average, to increase their sales by about 400% and some of them even more than that through, you know, the next step. So after we brought on board new distributors and identified a new paradigm or new model of distribution, I really started off with everybody saying, "Okay, now you're part of our sales organization." This isn't the situation where you are a customer where we're selling you something, you buy it and you do what you want with it. I look at channel as part of my sales organization, which means I wanna know what they're doing, I want information about the funnel, I wanna know who their sales people are, I want either myself or my regional managers to actually know and evaluate the sales people, know how much they're actually working for us. And I started off with, like, KPIs from the beginning of saying, "We have X man hours of selling time around the world. I wanna increase that by about a hundred-fold within three years." And the idea there was that if our distributors were just not really getting out and focusing on us, the existing ones had to increase their sales hours with the product, and the new ones had to commit. And either myself or my regional managers were keeping track of this very diligently, which sometimes isn't that common.   Some people look at the channel and they say, "Well, I'm gonna find a channel in a country and I'm gonna ask them to buy 100 pieces a year and they're gonna buy 100 pieces a year," and they'll sell them and that's all I really need to know. But what I wanted to do and the way I liked to work was really know how they're selling, how the different people are, and it goes really in-depth. I mean, we would do evaluations all of their salespeople on a regular basis for training needs. We would do a lot of sales training and we would push people to take different courses. I would send out summaries of business books that I've read and I'd say, "Okay, I believe this is a little piece that could help you out."   On a regular basis, I would talk to distributor owners and I would say, "Look, John just isn't really the right guy. You don't have to fire him, but you have to take him off my product and replace him with somebody else." And I would do that, and about two years into the job I had a little rebellion by the existing distributors.   Jen: Oh, really? Zach: And I said, you know... Oh, yeah. They said... And what's funny is at this point after 10 years, they loved me and they were making a lot of money. But for the two-year mark, they all actually got together, the old distributors, the ones I inherited, they actually got together and they decided that they were gonna go to my boss and say that they didn't wanna work with me anymore. And, you know, my boss supported me on that, and then I went to them and I said, "Look, I'm gonna fire one of you. I don't know which one yet, but you don't either. And if you guys don't wanna work according to the way I say, there's a good chance you're gonna lose our line. So you'll have to decide if it's worth it, you know, because you wanna exert your independence if you wanna lose the line."   And it was a big, you know, standoff, got a little tense, but then they all decided that they would change the way they worked, that they would cooperate. And, you know, some of them ended up making a great deal of money afterwards because they were selling more. And all I really wanted from them was to do things to help them sell more, but at the time they thought, you know, I was really intruding into their independence, right. They didn't like that I was asking them for too much information, I was pushing them too much.   So that's really, that's the short of it, was finding the right new distributors. You know, and being my distributor, the ones I recruited, I would probably interview anywhere from 6 to 10 distributors for every territory before choosing one. We would really give them instructions in terms of how much training they had to do, how many sales hours, what type of reporting they had to do and that kind of thing. And, you know, they always thought this was a little much, but on the other hand by asking for them for a lot, they understood how serious we were. And then we would do things with them like get them together for periodic trainings. We would do...we divided up the world into four territories, so we would get the groups of people together on a regular basis. On odd years, we would get the local groups together. So we would have a South American Sales Conference one year and then we would have a global sales conference on the second year, and that gave a lot of opportunities for the distributors to talk to each other and exchange information.   And because I was pretty aware between myself and my RM's, of the different people's strengths and weaknesses, we could do things like say, "Okay, Turkey has the same problem that Australia's having now and they overcame it. I'm gonna have them sit together at dinner and I'm gonna, you know, throw out a little introduction and mention that problem and see if I can get them to have a conversation about it," and those type of things. And we really got different channels to support each other and share information and become very, very friendly, and also really have a feeling of belonging to a family.   And that, I think, was very powerful, because there were expenses involved. You know, we were flying people to global sales conference every two years and we were flying to a regional sales conference every two years and we would ask them to send their people to sales training and stuff like that, but you know, by asking them for that investment we made them really buy into our system and they sold a lot. That really drove sales.   Jen: Well, I mean, like you said, you looked at your channel partners and these distributors as an extension of your sales team, which is great, and that's exactly what everyone should do. And what I really like about, you know, your story is that you went in, you did research, you gathered data from these new partners to see what was working and then used that to coach the existing partners, because I think the situation that you were in where you had these partners that you inherited, right, that use it and go and sort of prospect and select, it's very, very similar to somebody walking in and now managing a sales team and inheriting reps. You know, this story, we could take out the word 'channel', take out the word 'distributor', we're just talking about managing expectations with the sales team. But I think there's a lot of people that have been in your shoes or are in them now, and for some reason when we talk about people selling for us, with us, partners, most folks tend to be a little bit hesitant to be that aggressive, because it's almost like firing a volunteer, right? So people get a little anxious about it, but you have limited time and resources. Zach: Right, and what's really interesting, I always say, is almost every case...and you could even say every case. I mean, almost every case, your distributor, if he's any good, if he or she are any good, they're richer than you are, they make a lot more money than you are, they might have more experience in exactly what they do, right. So, you know, when I try and explain this to people I say, "Yeah, I'm having a conversation with this guy and I say, you know, I really want you to do this, because you're gonna be more successful," and he says, "Zach, how did this year go? My boat's 100 feet long, how long is your boat? Don't tell me..." right? And that's the type of thing it's a very sensitive point. You know, I had a distributor who I love now and I was able to get their sales up by almost 400%, and he was 75 when I took over at Rauland, and he was the only sales asset for his company covering a large country, and he was great. I said to him, I said, "Look, if you die, your company is worthless to me, and your family is gonna be in trouble. So I need you to start hiring sales people and training them, because you wanna be able to sell your company to leave something for your family." And he was furious with me, right? But I was able to drive him to hire professional sales people and other people and build his company, and we ended up building up by 300-400% of sales, which was good for me, and then when he wanted to retire he had something to sell. But you get that, and he was looking at me like I'm his kid. Why should I be telling him what to do?   Jen: Right, it's great. And you know, between building these teams and...you know, you were talking before about putting partners together at the same table, getting them to learn from each other. It reminds me of...there was a blog post you wrote that was on LinkedIn, it was called "Hobbies and Selling." So for everybody, after you're done with the podcast, go to LinkedIn, connect with Zach, you can see this article. But you talk about the benefits of seeking help from sources other than your own. And in this particular piece you talk about weight lifting, how you were able to really break a plateau, a sales rep who was able to outsell his peers two to one, all by innovating, right, and listening to other people, to someone else's innovation, then using their expertise to kinda change a tactic to fill a need. I'd love to know, you know, how do you see this translate in the channel, because today, channels are not as much two-way streets anymore, they're becoming these very complex ego systems. Love to hear your thoughts on this. Zach: So just to repeat the story, sort of, I learned when I was probably 25 or so. I had a channel and there was this guy, a salesman, who was taking notes in a very unusual way. And none of this...and his boss had sent everybody to this class to learn how to take notes, and he was the only one who adopted it. And then later on in the year I found out that he was by far the best performer in his team, right. Like, he outperformed everybody else in his team by at least two to one.   And I really learned from that the idea of you should always be learning, you should always be honing your skills, taking yourself up, even something as small as note-taking, right. I mean, how many...we all take notes, we all say, "Well, you should ask people questions, you should gather information," right? But if you're not documenting that well, you're not doing your best job, but how many of us go out and really work at note-taking? So I took that as a really important lesson, and that was almost 25 years ago, more or less. So what I try to do every year is, first of all, I try and read probably between 6 and 10 very specific business books every year, and they're usually on a subject, open-ended questions for instance, or you know, a certain type of way to prepare a slide deck, different things like that. And I'll read the book and, you know, I'll go to a couple of seminars or workshops every year. And what I try and do is then take that stuff and prepare it into training for my channel sales organization, and sort of I see that as part of my job. So what I'll do is I'll say, "Okay, you know, I'm gonna take this 300-page book. I'm gonna take two ideas from it, and then I'm going to set up a webinar, and I'm gonna first train my regional managers, and then I'm gonna train all of the salespeople." And now this also brings another value to the owner or manager, because if I teach them a good trick that isn't related to my product, they're gonna be able to use that selling other products too, right.   So I'm giving them an advantage. I'm increasing my importance and my mind share with the partners, but I'm also giving them a tool that might help them sell a little bit more. And, you know, what I've heard from that is also sometimes it even drives people... You'll have sales people who say, "You know what? I sort of felt that I had everything I really needed, and then you taught me this and I thought, 'Maybe I should be reading my own 10 books a year.'" And it sort of helps convince people to get back onto the self-educating type of path, because that can be...you know, sales people really should be constantly learning, in my opinion, to develop their skills.   Jen: Excellent. I agree. I don't think there's...I mean, think most people do agree with that completely. I wanna pull us...let's pull in, going back to the present. So we've been talking a lot about a lot of your past experience. You're at PharmaJet now, we got to understand a little bit more about what that company's doing. You're partnering with some interesting organizations like the Serum Institute, and its really innovative healthcare. Can you get into a little bit more detail about how your partner program is set up? Because I imagine there's this one layer of education marketing that's going on, there's the distributors, there's like the in-office sales that are happening. I just would love to know, you know, how are you organizing this to really maximize collaborative partnership?   Zach: Well, so it's very interesting. We are essentially selling tools to help deliver vaccines, and vaccines are purchased in a very unusual way. And again going back to what I said before, I really like to try and think from the beginning that your sales organization should be a mirror of how people are buying your particular type of product. So internationally, the people who are buying vaccines and things that have to do with vaccines are a very limited number of people. You have a country that might have 200 million people and the decisions for all their vaccines are being made by 1 or 2 people who are part of their central government. And so what's really important to me is to be able to find those people, give them the information they need, help them understand that they can trust us and then help move forward the sale, right? That's key to me. But I also need... You know, what's gonna happen as I go...you know, let's say I go to Bolivia and I meet with the right person and he loves the product, and then I come back or I go to another city, and then he remembers he has another question, right? He wants to know more information. Well, I don't wanna have to go there 20 times over the course of the sales process.   Now, if I have the right channel who has a good relationship with that guy already and I can make sure that my channel handles all that ongoing questions and the issues and the back and forth along the sales process, that really takes a lot off of me that simply would make the whole sales process not cost-effective. So that's really what I'm looking for.   So, internationally, I'm looking for a very specific, focused type of partner. And of all the products I've ever sold, this is probably the most focused type of partner that I'm looking for in that sense. Now, domestically, there's tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of potential customers for my product in the United States and I need to be able to reach them. I can't afford to do it directly. So again, I need the right channels for that and it will probably involve multiple channels because if you think about who vaccinates in the United States, well, your pharmacy chains vaccinate, your doctors' offices vaccinate, your employers vaccinate, right? And those are probably going to be separate channels, so I need to find the right channels to reach those types of people.   What's very interesting about this is people make decisions about vaccination in a very focused way, time-frame wise. It's almost like selling Christmas trees. You know, if you offer a Christmas tree for $3 in May, nobody's gonna buy it, right? No matter how fantastic the tree is and how great the deal is. People have a very specific timeline where they say, "Well, I have to figure out what I'm doing about flu shots, you know, and I'm gonna make that decision...for the 2018 flu season, I'm gonna make that decision in April of 2017." So what I really need is my channel to be talking to the customer during, you know, a 60-day period about my product, which is on one hand good, because if you say to your channel, "Look, what we really want from you is, every time you go into the customer to remind them about our product, that's asking a lot of the channel. But if you basically say to your channel partner, "Look, once a year during this six-week period, we want you to present our product," that's a very different ask from your channel. The other thing is the starting price of this, you know, a doctor or a pharmacist can really start using this for very little money. So the cost of buy-in for the customer, for the end-user customer, is very low and the return on investment is very clear. So from a channel perspective, I think what I believe has happened with us is, in the past we've made the wrong asks from the channel partners in the United States, which has sort of slowed down our sales. But I think what we really need to be asking from them is a very, very doable, reasonable, focused sales process, you know, very, very reasonable, and the return is, in my mind, very obvious.   So, well, that's sort of where I am. I've been getting a lot of very positive feedback from both international and domestic channels that see this as a great addition to their portfolio.   Jen: Yeah. Well, it sounds like you've made a ton of headway in a short period of time, and I'll be anxious and eager to catch up with you a little bit later down the road and see how things are going. Maybe we can have you back for a recap of what's transpired. Zach: Oh, that would be great. Jen: Wonderful. Well, before we wrap this up, Zach, at the end of my podcast, I like to ask folks some more personal questions about themselves just so we can get to know you a little bit better. So if you're up for it, I've got four simple questions for you. Zach: Sure! Jen: All right. So first question is what is your favorite city? Zach: Oh, wow. You know what? I live in Evanston, Illinois, and having traveled around a lot...like, I've done business in more than 100 countries, I've lived in 4 or 5 countries. This is a very, very comfortable place to live. So if you're asking me what's the best place to live, I'm very happy at Evanston, Illinois. Jen: Okay. That works. Second question, do you consider yourself an animal lover? Zach: I have a corgi, and yes. So I did not think that I would love a little furry dog, but I am very, very fond of my corgi, yes. Jen: What is your corgi's name? Zach: Wingate.   Jen: Oh, nice, very nice. Zach: Yeah, Wingate was a British World War II general, so I gave my kids a list of potential generals they could choose from and they chose Wingate. Jen: That's hysterical. The way that I name pets in my house is authors' names. I was an English major, and so... Zach: There you go. Jen: Always funny hearing how people come up with their pets' names. Okay, next question, Mac or PC? Zach: PC. I have never been a Mac fan. Jen: All right, and last question. Let's say I was able to offer you an all-expense paid trip. Where would it be to? Zach: Oh, wow. Probably Cambodia. I have never been, and it's someplace my wife really wants to go, is probably Cambodia. Jen: I like that the decision is based on where your wife would like to go. I think that's a great answer, Zach. Zach: You gotta keep your wife happy. There you go. Jen: Awesome. Well, thanks so much for sharing your experiences, your insights, it was a pleasure. If any listeners want to reach out to you personally just to kinda follow up, connect with you, what's the best way for them to do that?   Zach: So I would just suggest reaching out to me on my LinkedIn profile, there's contact information there. You can send me an email or a personal message through LinkedIn. Just to make sure it's clear, because I don't know how this appears on your site, my last name is Selch. That's Sierra, Echo, Lima, Charlie, Hotel, and my first name is Zach. So if you look me up on LinkedIn, you'll find me and you can reach out to me.   Jen: Perfect, yeah. Be sure when you reach out to Zach, let him know you heard him on the podcast so he has frame of reference. That will help, and you'll wanna do that so you can also check out that article, and he's got others up there too that are great as well. Zach: Yeah, thank you. Jen: So thanks, Zach, go ahead. Zach: Oh, I was just gonna say I put up a series of articles about hiring a regional manager that I'm very proud of. So that's something...you know, I'd suggest people...if they wanna read it, they're more than welcome to.   Jen: Wonderful. I recommend that as well. So thank you again for joining us, and thanks everyone else for listening in, and we'll catch you next time with an all-new episode of the "Allbound Podcast." Have a great day. Announcer: Thanks for tuning in to the "Allbound Podcast." For past episodes and additional resources, visit the resource center at allbound.com, and remember, #NeverSellAlone.