Podcasts about zach yeah

In this episode of the OnTrack Podcast, we explore the innovative BOM Portal in Altium 365, a cutting-edge tool transforming PCB design and electronic development. Tech Consultant Zach Peterson sits down with Ananth Avva, General Manager at Altium's Cloud Platform, and Damir Khayrutdinov, Product Manager at Altium, to discuss the tool.  Altium's BOM Portal, compared to ActiveBOM, offers a seamless and efficient approach to managing bill of materials (BOM) throughout the product lifecycle. We dive deep into the capabilities and features of the BOM Portal, including its integration with various CAD tools and its role in streamlining design-to-realization processes. Learn from our guests about the trends and challenges in electronics development and how Altium Designer 24's BOM Portal addresses these issues.  Key Highlights Discussion on trends in electronics development Reasons for building the BOM Portal on Altium 365 Challenges in BOM management and how the BOM Portal addresses them Insights into the relationship between ActiveBOM and the BOM Portal, how it works, customer response, future developments, multi-board systems, and the future vision for Altium 365 Resources and Links Follow Ananth Avva and Damir Khayrutdinov on LinkedIn Learn More about BOM Portal Here How to 'Shift Left' and Connect Procurement and Engineering? Altium 365 BOM Portal Step-by-Step BOM Portal Webinar Transcript Zach:  Some of the features that you just mentioned sounds a bit like ActiveBOM in Altium Designer and I think the more experienced Altium Designer users out there will notice this. So, how exactly does this new tool compare with ActiveBOM? Does it replace it or does it complement it? Damir Khayrutdinov: Yeah, it's a good question. ActiveBOM is a BOM tool what was designed to help engineering team release design BOMs with all needed information and capabilities such as adding alternates, line numbers, custom lines, et cetera. And seems it works well based on level of adoption and user feedback. However, it's embedded into the design tool, Altium Designer. Zach: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Altium OnTrack podcast. I'm your host, Zach Peterson. Today, we're talking with Ananth Avva, General Manager of Altium's cloud business and Damir Khayrutdinov, Product Manager at Altium. We're gonna be discussing one of the new features in Altium Designer 24 and that feature is the BOM Portal. I got to see a short demo of it before this episode and so I'm very excited about this new feature and I hope all of you will be as well. Damir and Ananth, thank you so much for joining me today. Ananth Avva: Yeah, likewise. Great to be here, Zach. Zach: So, what are some of the trends and problems that you're seeing in the electronics development space, Ananth? Ananth Avva: Yeah. So, I think the common root cause is the velocity of the actual development process continues to accelerate and the proliferation of electronics as everyone probably listening to the podcast, they're no stranger to that. But I think that's the root cause but the symptoms show up and I would say in three different areas. The first one is, sort of, mapping requirements and intent to the actual design. So, when you start going from functional to physical to actually the layout, are you actually bringing those requirements all the way through, right? The second one, while in the post Covid era, we've seen supply chain, et cetera, settle down. Supply chain, and also just compliance for components 'cause that's still about 40% to 70% of what you're building is a big area of focus especially as we're getting into whether it be geopolitical tensions in the Red Sea, all the way to trying to understand your actual full traceability of where the components coming from down to the fabrication plant. So, that's a very big area of focus, especially for our aero military customers. The third area, I would say, is getting into some of these emerging themes like sustainability and getting down to what is the footprint of what I'm making and 80% of, sort of, the sustainability aspects is done in design. And so, bringing some of those thoughts, especially when you're thinking about your BOM and you're thinking about, sort of, orchestrating your entire supply chain, that's come up and starting to come up, especially with DPP requirements coming in Europe. And lastly, it's the collaboration with manufacturing. So, we deal a lot for obvious reasons with designers and that handoff process and making sure that the manufacturers and the components that they're selecting versus what was in design and then people are moving lockstep. That continues to be a big focus. But all of these four areas are sort of the symptoms but the root cause is, again, just the velocity with which development's happening. Zach: Well, given the velocity that you've mentioned, it sounds like that was part of the motivation behind building a lot of these new features in Altium Designer 24. So, what was the motivation behind building the BOM Portal on Altium 365? Ananth Avva: Yeah, I think with Altium Designer, I mean that's obviously where we have our design audience, but we wanted to build a front end where other folks can come in and start collaborating and very specifically, your component, sort of, manufacturing personnels or even the masses where they're able to actually get that visibility. I think of, sort of, that BOM as the first, sort of, physical manifestation where the design is actually born, right? You're in the design to realization space, that's the first front end that everyone can actually look at and collaborate on. And so, the motivation for doing this in the cloud and basically having this sort of abstraction layer out of AD because one of the key things is, the BOM Portal, while, you know, it's highly functional and highly integrated into Altium Designer, it's mixed CAD. So, we'll actually work with all the CAD tools. And so, we really wanted to make sure that we have that one front end where it's not just for designers but it's also for all of the other satellite professionals that they touch and they're able to come in and collaborate to ensure all the issues that we just talked about in the electronic development process. We have a way to mitigate those risks and have those participants come in and basically get that view and also basically get the ability to edit and collaborate on the design itself. Zach: So, since we're here to learn a bit more about the BOM Portal tool, Damir, maybe you can tell us what are some of the BOM management challenges that you've seen across the industry that inspired your team and the development of this new tool? Damir Khayrutdinov: In addition to the standard challenges and BOM and supply chain management for electronics such as chip shortage and second sourcing, we noticed that the processes and tools used for that are mostly from 90s. Most still use Excel files and emails for that. So, to get the PCB BOM ready for ordering, the procurement team works with exported Excel BOMs. This process typically involves four, five emails with collaboration about three or four contributors who are responsible to make decision. Yeah. So, this takes time to interact and because of the friction happens later in the process, cost of the work, time and money wise, is more expensive. Of course, there are companies who well adopted with POM MRP and the ERP systems, but even the company implemented such systems, the level of its adoption is different. So, we track the cases when engineering use POM PDM, but procurement still works with Excel, shared drives, et cetera. Another common problem is fragmented approach to accessing and analyzing technical specifications, compliance information and supply chain data. Typically, procurement expert quality engineers and compliance specialists have to navigate through multiple platforms to gather necessary details about parts. The result in scattered data, yeah, manage it across different systems, often leading to limited access to all of these team members. And we can talk also about product teams and OEM specifically. For such teams, the BOM management is not finished once the BOM is released. You should be aware of the manufacturability of your released PCB BOM during the end customer warranty period or product production cycle, which might be not just a few weeks or years. So, for such teams, BOM management is an interactive process that is time consuming and error prone due to constantly changing supply chain. For such teams, the manufacturability is a function of a time. So, the release BOMs needs to be constantly monitored. And in order to manage that, most of the teams still use manual processes for that which is not so effective. So, I would highlight these three common challenges which are at across the industry. Zach:Yeah, you mentioned Excel files and emails. I will admit I'm guilty of that one, but I think it's because of the lack of anything better and everybody else does it. So, you're kind of shoehorned into doing this because there just hasn't been anything better really. So, given all of those issues that you brought up, how does BOM Portal help solve some of those challenges? Damir Khayrutdinov: Yeah. In short, the BOM Portal helps to take advantage of rich parts and supply chain information to scrap BOM and identify risks from multiple angels. It might be availability, it might be cost, it might be compliance, second sourcing, et cetera. Next is the collaboration aspect, which is, I would say, one of the core features of the A 365 platform. So, with the BOM Portal, you can get the advantage of constant platform for engineering and procurement team in one, so no exported files without context anymore and you have a common collaboration process in one. And third, I would say that we didn't really use it, but it's a parts watchdog feature which is currently in the closed beta, but it helps to deduce supply chain risk and ensures continuous production by proactively tracking and providing warnings for supply chain issues, prompting timely action to avoid any disruptions. Of course, we still offer parts traceability or we call it very usage which simplifies the identification and assessment for potential absolute issues. So, these three things. Zach: You know, some of the features that you just mentioned sound a bit like ActiveBOM in Altium Designer and I think the more experienced Altium Designer users out there will notice this. So, how exactly does this new tool compare with ActiveBOM? Does it replace it or does it compliment it? Ananth Avva: Yeah, it's a good question. ActiveBOM is a BOM tool what was designed to help engineering team release design BOMs with all needed information and capabilities such as adding alternates, line numbers, custom lines, et cetera. And seems it works well based on level of adoption and user feedback. However, it's embedded into the design tool, Altium Designer. And ActiveBOM has a strong dependency on the design data. So, in order to use it for procurement, you need to share design, all design and provide access to the design tool. Next is that it helps on the design stage but not beyond it. For example, you can create the ordering from multiple PCBs which need to be assembled. It's also not effective to use in a production stage. For example, in order to add additional alternates suggested by your contract manufacturer, you need to release the wall design in ActiveBOM. The BOM Portal is designed to support BOM management in all electronic product lifecycle stage. So, in addition to the generic BOM tool capabilities for scrapping, it includes capabilities need to control obsolescent for the released boards, compliance management and part search capabilities, especially for alternate search. So, it's definitely not just a BOM tool, not just a BOM editor as ActiveBOM is. Zach:So, if we could, let's dig into how the BOM Portal works. Can you make this a bit more tangible for our listeners. Damir Khayrutdinov: As I mentioned, the BOM Portal provides benefits for the different roles and support BOM management in all lifecycle stage. We can start from the early design stage where BOM Portal can speed up the process of prototype BOM scrubbing and preparing it for purchasing. I can share my screen and just share how it works. Zach: So, we're looking at Altium 365 right now and I see a bunch of projects you have on screen. Damir Khayrutdinov: So, I have this proto design. It has just version 1.1. If I open it, it'll open it in a separate tab. I believe you still see it. And here is a viewer, online viewer, which is available in A 365. There is schematic viewer, PCB viewer and of course, bill of material. And as you can see, engineering was focused only on critical parts. So, there is no any part numbers specified for generics such as capacitors or resistors, et cetera. And in order to prepare it for purchasing, we have the capability to create a managed BOM from the design and scrap it without touching of engineering data, which might be critical for some cases. Yeah. So, once I click to create a managed BOM from design, procurement is able to select what ORM should be used. We also support it. And once the bill of material will be created, it'll be stored at the same folder as original design. So, it takes a minute. Yeah. So, we can refresh the page and here is my BOM which I just created. If I click on the original design, you will see that now I have a child BOMs and link to this procurement BOM created from the design. So, let's open this bill of material. And what we see? We see exactly the same bill of material what was created by engineering, but for the part numbers which are not specified, we see this lamp icon which means that exact map is not defined and it's true. We don't have exact part number for this BOM line, but BOM Portal try to analyze all information about this BOM line, about this component, and it has some suggestions. So, if I click on this lamp, you see that BOM Portal suggested multiple parts which has parameters specified in BOM line and they are colored with green. In order to see all parameters, we can switch to the advanced parametric search and we see what data is actually was analyzed and used in order to help engineering work with procurement actually find parts. So, you will see that BOM Portal analyzed designator and description and track that this is capacitor. The capacitance is 100 nanofarad. We detected voltage rating, we tracked the case package and we have suggestions. As a procurement, I will pick up just a component which is in stock with minimum order quantity which is also shared here and in stock. Yeah. I would pick up this one. No, it's not a good because we have not recommended for new design. I will pick up this one and click Use. In this manner I can scrap all my BOM and also, I can even improve it. You see that there is one part which was specified by engineering has obsolete lifecycle state. Maybe it's good for the prototyping because this part is in stock et cetera. But as procurement I will try to find alternate and just notify engineering that there is another component available in the market. And how I will do this and how BOM Portal help me is that we have try alternate search mode which provide alternates specifically found for this original part number and we have confidence core which means that from this information, you can understand how this part is compatible with the original one. So, this is how BOM Portal can speed up the process on BOM scrubbing for proto BOMs. And other case, what I would like to share with you is prepare BOM for production run. For this, I have this bill of material which is available in my- Yeah, I just exported it to Excel file. It has just a few columns, designator, quantity, manufacturer and MPN and some of the BOM lines have alternates defined. So, let's upload this Excel file into the BOM Portal and see how it will work with it. So, one second. Demo version 5. Yeah. Once this BOM file will be uploaded into the BOM Portal, it'll be automatically under the version and revision control as any other managed design, which is also a benefit for data management things. So, I have these BOM file uploaded. I open it in BOM Portal. BOM Portal ask me if there are alternates is defined? I will say yes because we don't know what exact means these lines which means designators. And here is it. So, we enrich. What BOM Portal did? It enriched the data which was available in the original BOM file. You see, the same four columns. But additionally, you can see all data provided by our data provider. So, in my case, I use pro-level subscription with SiliconExpert integration and I can use both of them in my BOM scrubbing. So, you can see that I have two lifecycle columns, one is getting from IHS Markit, another one from SiliconExpert. And for some cases, it's quite useful. For example, for this part, IHS Markit doesn't know about any- There is no any information about lifecycle, but SiliconExpert has it. Another example is with one of the challenges on scribing BOM for production run is adding alternates, is adding alternates to non stop production run on your contract manufacturer. And the BOM Portal has this capability to add alternates from different sources. For example, for this case, we will use alternates defined in my library, which means that it's company approved alternates. So, they were previously tested and approved to be used in my company. So, I will just click on add additional, add alternate online and we'll see all alternates, a little bit for this BOM line for this component. I see alternates from my library and I also see additional alternates which is coming from data providers. So, I will use this one. Next is, that usually, production run is not going for one or multiple BOMs. Yeah, you can have a production run with a thousand of boards and we can check is there any issues related to the production run to the number of production quantity. Yeah. Let's put 10,000 and check what we'll have. In issue step, I see that we have supply chain issues that some of the BOM lines have insufficient stock which might be also a problem for my production run. And how can I fix that? I have favorite suppliers and I see estimated BOM coverage coverage. So, I will just use additional suppliers here and we'll see that some of the problems have gone after that. So, right now, I see that out of stock only one part or insufficient stock only two. So, in this manner, we can scrap and prepare BOM for production run, and once it'll be ready, we can release it. And next, we can do comparison with original BOM files. So, these capabilities, it's not allowed in just in ActiveBOM tool. Yeah. And the last one what I would like to mention is how the BOM Portal can help for obsoleteness teams or quality teams. So, as I mentioned previously, we have this used parts report or parts watchdog, which is currently on beta. But what it can do? So, it grab all parts used in all my PCB BOMs and share risk information in one simple page. So, for example, I can be focused only for the critical parts and... One second. Yeah. I have this filter by component type. So, right now, I see all used parts in my workspace. I can filter out them by, for example, ICs and easily see what the status is for IC components in my workspace, in my products. One I see has discounted lifecycle states, and here, I also see in what projects, so I easily can identify what projects affected by this issue. So, this is how BOM Portal can help and speed up process on BOM scrubbing and help to mitigate supply chain risks. Zach: So, you mentioned earlier one of the very interesting features is grading of alternates or replacements. And I have to be honest, that is something where I have spent a lot of time trying to find either an alternate source through a broker when something is out of stock or just a totally replacement part. And it's really hard to find something that will work sometimes that won't force you to go back in and change the PCB layout before you start producing something. So, I have to ask, are the replacements being graded based on pin compatibility or are there other dimensions that are being used to grade the replacements? Damir Khayrutdinov: So, we utilize the supply chain data and parts data provided by allowed data providers. So, here we currently have Octopart, IHS Markit, SiliconExpert and soon, also Z2Data will be also supported. So, the confidence score provided by Octopart and IHS is just a basic rating from one to zero on how well a component will work as an alternate. SiliconExpert, however, provides a detailed grading system that evaluates component based it on various parameters. For example, rating A means that it's a pin to pin compatible replacement with exact electrical features. So, my answer is that depends on the data providers supported in your workspace, you will be able to use data providers, you will be use data provided by data providers uploaded to your workspace and alternates is also shared by these data providers. So, we have confidence score from our partners. So, it's not a data which was calculated on the file for example. Zach: So, I have to ask what are customers saying about the BOM Portal? Damir Khayrutdinov: One of the comments we have gotten from some customer is that BOM Portal allows them to replace their homegrown systems that needs custom development and maintenance. This shows us that we are really on the right track. Our customers already invested a lot to have their common custom solutions done. Still, this is not their core competency. Here, we are coming with as an electronic focused company with long history of successful software development. Another comment is that they want more meaning that we covered single BOM use case pretty extensively and now people wants to get multi-BOM use cases. We're working on the actively sought part reports I just shared with you and now we started project called Consolidated BOM which will allow users to optimize procurement for a given product, not just a single PCB board. Also, we would like to stress that we are really counting on customers feedback. We are proud to develop solutions to get positive feedback from our customers. It's not to say that we are fully bottom up as we do have a vision where we want to take the product, but we are bottom up enough to give our users flexibility they need. So, please to try BOM Portal and provide feedback so we can take this to the next level. Zach: So, regarding your vision for this tool, what are some of the future developments that are planned for it? Damir Khayrutdinov: The top end request is ability to work on a level of multiple BOMs versus a single board BOM. I already mentioned that we started project called Consolidated BOM. Another area is integration with ERP and POM, which is requested mostly by enterprise guys. And pretty constantly, we are getting requests about BOM review workflow. This is another example where our customers start developing their own solutions as there is nothing flexible enough on the market available. Zach: Just to clarify something, you said multiple BOMs. Would that be for, like, a multi-board system? Damir Khayrutdinov: Yeah. But I would just highlight that there is a case called consolidated BOM for ordering, when procurement expert needs to order parts for multiple BOMs which might be not used in one product. Yeah. You have separate PCBs just needs to be assembled. But another case is multi-board BOM, which is a part of the product. And this is a kind of next thread and it also in our roadmap, but it'll be implemented with a multilevel and multi-PCB BOM approach. Zach: So, I have another question here for Ananth. We've spent a lot of time talking about and learning about the BOM Portal, but, of course, it is part of Altium 365. So, if you could, could you talk about the future vision for Altium 365 more broadly? Ananth Avva: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think in the opening of the podcast, we talked about some of the areas of challenge and I think the goal for Altium 365 is to basically bridge the idea to realization processes, right? As evidenced by the BOM Portal, one of the first areas that we're focused on is bringing data and the right data in context. So, bringing the requirements in, so capturing the intent is going to come up here pretty quickly where we're going to have requirements tool that's specifically built for electronics. Those requirements then will automatically not just map into design but also start going into supply chain decisions. So, one of the questions that you had asked, Zach, on, well, is it going to a pin level? If that's a key requirement, we can actually make that as a trigger or a rule in the BOM Portal. And then, the next step is, obviously, then going into EMSS and tightening, sort of, our collaboration layers with EMSS where they can come in and engage. So, I think the first step that we're doing is building the right front end to have the common data layer that traverses, sort of, the decisions that are being made from start to the finish. The second is building a system of engagement on top of that system of record. So, what do I mean by that? All of these co-pilot/suggestion style interfaces that you're seeing with BOM Portal where we're reducing the cognitive load on whether you're a procurement professional or whether you're an engineer and actually ensuring that cognitive load is symmetrical, like, meaning just because I'm going to make a change or an engineer makes a change in the design, having the ability to either put cost constraints on them or vice versa, right, because you had to do something at the PCB level and the procurement team needs to know that now, the overall cost of the particular board has changed. Bringing those types of decision support tools and making this a system of engagement where people are actively collaborating to an outcome as opposed to just, sort of, for the sake of collaboration where you're getting visibility. That's something that we're working on and we're already seeing where for every, sort of, PCB designer that we have or for every two to three PCB designers. We have one non PCB designer coming into 365 and engaging. And this is everywhere from software engineers to mechanical engineers, to component folks, to procurement folks, to manufacturing engineers. So, bringing all those roles and bringing the right context in which they can engage, that's the second piece. And then the last piece is we have the system of record and you have the system of engagement. That's where context based AI applications become incredibly powerful, right? So, obviously, some of the things that we're looking at is, can you look at the data sheet and can you mine, sort of, the parametric information. The data sheet in terms of the quality assurance that Damir said where, yeah, there's third party tools like SiliconExpert that are doing it, but what about the right type of winning combinations, right? So, if you're going into a system level modular design, maybe, as you're building out the BOM and now that we understand the layout map, that we understand the functional requirements, we're now able to actually give you a suggestion on here's the right winning combinations, "that give you the best performance at the best cost" from a particular component manufacturer. So, a lot of what we're doing right now is, sort of, foundational to start building that system of engagement where folks are coming in and servicing the right front ends and reducing the cognitive load. And once we understand the behaviors and once we understand what's happening, we'll obviously bring more "AI based applications" that will continue to accelerate that. Zach: So, this all sounds very exciting and I'm excited to see it all develop. Damir, how can anyone who is interested in all of this learn more about the BOM Portal and try it for themselves? Ananth Avva: Yeah. The best way is try it yourself. Everyone is invited to a free evaluation by going to our BOM Portal webpage and the free three hour is on top of this page. You just put your email and get evaluation. We also have a BOM Portal webinar on January 24th in Europe and on January 25th in the United States where we will talk in greater detail about BOM Portal and give you a demonstration of the use cases we discussed today. So, welcome to our webinar. Zach: Yeah. And anyone who's interested, make sure to take a look at the show notes and you'll see some links where you can learn more about the BOM Portal and access some great resources. Thank you both so much for being here today and discussing this. In my opinion, this is a really exciting feature and I think it's gonna be a great productivity booster for engineering teams. To everyone that's out there listening, we've been talking with Damir Khayrutdinov, Product Manager at Altium, and Ananth Avva, General Manager of Altium's cloud business. Make sure to check out the show notes. You'll find some links to some great resources where you can learn more about the BOM Portal. If you're watching on YouTube, make sure to hit the subscribe button and hit the like button. You'll be able to keep up with all of our podcast episodes and tutorials as they come out. And last but not least, don't stop learning, stay on track, and we'll see you next time. Thanks, everybody.

Description:  The world's best Lifestyle Engineer, Zach White is sharing how losing his focus and balance ended in burnout and divorce. In his words: Nothing prepared me for the darkest days of my life. While he would never wish a tragedy on anyone, he was thankful for this experience. It forced him to ask bigger and better questions, and he was able to completely transform the way he works and how he lives, and he is going to share his wisdom with us today. Shownotes:  Zach shares his personal story of how losing his focus and balance led to burnout and ultimately, divorce. He reflects on the darkest days of his life and how this experience forced him to ask bigger and better questions, which led to a complete transformation in the way he works and lives. Zach's journey is an inspiring one, and he generously shares his wisdom with us, providing insights into how to achieve balance, focus, and success in both our personal and professional lives. From his personal experiences, Zach has developed a unique approach to coaching, one that is holistic and takes into account all aspects of an individual's life.   In this episode, we discussed:  Losing focus and balance can have serious consequences, including burnout and personal upheaval. Difficult experiences can lead to personal growth and transformation as long as we're willing to ask bigger and better questions. Zach's holistic approach to coaching takes into account all aspects of an individual's life and can help us achieve balance, focus, and success in both our personal and professional lives.   Connect with Zach White:  Website - https://www.thehappyengineerpodcast.com   Podcast - https://plnk.to/the-happy-engineer Zach White on Linkedin   Connect with Sabine Kvenberg:  Sabine Kvenberg on Facebook Sabine Kvenberg on Instagram Sabine Kvenberg on Linkedin Sabine Kvenberg on YouTube BECOME Podpage Sabine Kvenberg Resources   Transcript 00:00:00 Zach: The thing that will stand between you and your dreams is fear. And so we need to step out of our comfort zone, have the courage to face those fears, and take action in our life. So if there's one thing I could tell you, it's to crush comfort and create courage because the life of your dreams will not be found in your comfort zone. And the sooner you embrace that and start living out at the edges of what's possible for you, the faster you're gonna see your life increase in ways you could not even imagine. 00:00:34 Sabine: Hello, my name is Sabine Kvenberg, founder and host of BECOME. The  content will inspire you to reach your aspirations and become the best version of yourself. I feature interviews with successful individuals from various industries, delving into their personal and professional journeys and their strategies to achieve their goals. We have to become the person we are meant to be first. So we can live life, we are destined to live. That means we must overcome challenges and work through difficult times to learn, grow, and become the new more fabulous version of ourselves. I'm so glad that you are here. Let's get on this journey together. 00:01:25 Sabine: I had the pleasure of sitting down with the world's best lifestyle engineer, Zach White. If you want to see results in your life, you have to have the courage to step out of your comfort zone and pair that courage with a proven system of success, what he calls  Lifestyle Engineering. And you can accelerate more than just your career. And this is what I talked with Zach about in our interview. Not only is he sharing his story, but you will learn what it takes to have more balance. Welcome, Zach. I'm so happy to have you as my guest today. 00:02:04 Zach: Oh, Sabine, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me.  00:02:09 Sabine: Oh, let's get started by, just, tell us where you are right now. I think you are somewhere in Michigan, is that right? 00:02:19 Zach: Yeah, yeah. You found me sitting in my office, which is in a coworking space here in southwest Michigan. A small lake town. If you're not from the area, you wouldn't know it, but it's called Benton Harbor and just a mile from beautiful Lake Michigan. And I was mentioning  to you before the recording, so we were finally feeling some springtime weather, which for Michiganders, is a big deal, like putting that cloud cover and cold weather behind us, ready for some sunshine and some lake life. So bring it on. 00:02:53 Sabine: Oh, right. All right. And yeah, here, the sun is out, but here in Florida, it is seasonably cold. We are in the 60s, and for, end of March, it's pretty cold. So. But I guess, it all depends on. 00:03:11 Zach: That's right. It's all relative. Uh, 67. I can't wait for 67. That's, we're still a month or two away from 67, Sabine.  00:03:20 Sabine: So Zach, you are a lifestyle engineering coach now, but you started out as an engineer. So how did you go from engineer solving problems to totally shift lifestyle? So how did that happen? 00:03:45 Zach: Yeah, well, I joke, Sabine, that I'm a mechanical engineer by my degrees, but I'm a lifestyle engineer through the school of hard knocks and life lessons. So my actual background is in mechanical engineering. To your comment, I have my bachelor's from Purdue and my masters from U of M, both in mechanical engineering. And I went into Whirlpool Corporation to build my engineering career with big aspirations and big goals. Just like most engineers who come outta college, do wanna make a name for yourself, make an impact, go get those promotions, and build a successful career. And in the journey towards that success, I made some big mistakes and I ended up burning out, finding myself divorced and depressed and disappointed with how my career had gone, but more importantly, how my life fell apart in the process. And it was the recovery from that rock bottom experience where lifestyle engineering was born, asking new questions, finding new ways to succeed, that considered my whole life's success, not just my career. And very happy to say it worked. I had incredible success after, and that's what then led to me doing this full-time as a coach and as a CEO of Oasis of Courage. 00:05:08 Sabine: Oh, fantastic. But one thing that you said, I think is so oftentimes overlooked, and that is the fact that sometimes we have to hit rock bottom to realize what we really ought to do in this world and what gives us the joy and the freedom to live a happy and fulfilled life. So when you started working and you had all the successes and your career took off, what was it that really made you realize the career is not everything? So what was that darkest time in your life that really made you, shall I say, wake up?  00:06:03 Zach: The wake up call moment in anyone's journey is always, you know, very, you know, poignant, easy to remember exactly where I was. And Sabine, I'll tell you the story in my world, at the time, everything was fine. You know, I thought I had it all under control. And I was on a work trip out in Tennessee working at one of the factories where Whirlpool has a manufacturing facility. And Sabine, I came home from the trip and I was tired. It'd been a long trip, working long hours. And I really hadn't talked to my spouse very much while I was gone. And I was expecting to come home, to her being there. And the house was empty. And I walked in and I was confused, thought maybe she went out, you know, I called, she didn't answer. And then I'm walking around the house and I found a note on the table that essentially said, I don't think this is working. I'm ready to get divorced.  00:07:05 Zach: And that moment for me was the wake up call. That's when my entire world came crashing down around me. And the truth is, looking back, Sabine, that I was lying to myself about everything being okay. The signs were there long before that moment, that things were not going well at home. But I had chosen to ignore it. I had chosen to pretend outwardly that everything was okay, and I just put my focus on the things that were working, and I ignored the things that were not working. And as you can imagine, the tension between that just grows and grows. And, you know, eventually to your point, if you don't do something, you hit rock  bottom. And I'll be honest, that was a very, very painful night. I mean, a lot of tears, a lot of heartache, but some powerful things shifted that night in my life. And it began with being honest with myself and being honest with the people who loved me. You know, calling my sister, calling my mom, telling them the truth for the first time that my life was not what I was pretending it was, and I needed help. 00:08:13 Sabine: Wow, what you said was so impactful that number one, we oftentimes, choose not to see the signs. We try to avoid and ignore them because it's uncomfortable.  00:08:32 Zach: Yeah.  00:08:32 Sabine: But if we do more of those, it becomes even more uncomfortable or even worse, like in your case, you found your house empty. What I liked, what you just shared, that for the first time, you were honest, you called your parents and your mom, your sister, and really told them as it was. Isn't it so true sometimes, in family we hide what's going on and because we don't wanna show our weaknesses perhaps? So what was the process once you get really raw and honest? What was the process for you as far as getting through it? 00:09:24 Zach: Grief comes first. You know, I'll be honest, the first few days or weeks, Sabine, were just kind of messy. Very messy. A lot of tears, a lot of confusion. But the relief of telling the truth the way I did, gave me enough weight off of my shoulders to take a next step. And for me, beyond just talking to the people I love, that was going to see a counselor, getting on the calendar, going and working with a professional therapist, that's saying, hey, this is happening. I need help. I'm in a lot of pain. And the grief is real. And you go through these stages of suffering and grief. And that was very real to me. It was very, I mean, physically painful, emotionally painful, spiritually painful to go through. But I think the most important thing was the willingness to sit in that place, to just allow the pain to be present. 00:10:22 Zach: And that's something that I was dodging to your point earlier, Sabine, like pretending that it wasn't there for so long. There was a lot of built up negative energy in my life that needed to be let go. And so that was the first stage, was just a willingness to let my life be a mess for a while, and acknowledge that I wasn't as, you know, well put together as everybody thought I was. But from there, after, you know, you're in that kind of trough place. Your face is grinding against the floor of rock bottom as it were, right? You know, then you stand up and you start to just put one foot in front of the other. And what I tell everybody, who I've coached, who's gone through any form of burnout or suffering or a rock bottom experience like this, or if you're going through it right now, you have to bring the time horizon in a little bit. 00:11:12 Zach: We're not gonna solve the whole thing in one move. We're not gonna go, create the perfect life in one day. Let's zoom, way in. I like to call it drawing smaller circles. Rather than solving for the big equation, let's just solve, for this afternoon, what are we gonna do this afternoon to make sure it's a little bit better than yesterday, to make sure we're not going back to those same patterns or habits that got us stuck in the first place and put one foot in front of the other. And as we build momentum, we can begin to extend that time horizon again and think about bigger goals and longer term dreams again, you know, entering into a new relationship. Again, in my case, all of those things. But at the start, let's just focus on the moment in front of us, right? What's the next thing we need to do in drawing those smaller circles and prioritizing a shorter time horizon because it's so overwhelming. We don't have the cognitive ability to go think about these longer term things. So that's my most important lesson from that time, was look, when you're really under pressure, when you're really overwhelmed, or if your life is completely confusing and falling apart, let's just zoom, way in. You don't need to solve everything. Let's just get today buttoned up the best we can, make the best next decision, and then we can come back to tomorrow. 00:12:33 Sabine: It's so true. Couple things that I got out of what you just shared. Number one, the willingness to sit and let it pass. And also recognize our grieve, our suffering, and not just chopping it away, because if we don't let it out, it just fester and make us perhaps bitter or whatnot, right? So. 00:12:59 Zach: Yeah. 00:12:59 Sabine: Just going through that process is a resolving process and resolving journey. And then you were able to move forward again. And what you did, you got help. And we all need help at one point or another in certain situations.  00:13:21 Sabine: May is stroke awareness month. Life Line Screening can help detect someone's risk of having a stroke or cardiovascular disease. Each year, more than 700,000 people attend one of those screenings for peace of mind or early detection. And I am one of them. You see, my mother passed away from cardiovascular disease and I want to do everything I can to feel safe. So join me and schedule your screening today. To book your appointment, simply click the link in my show notes. 00:14:02 Sabine: Have you ever tried to build your own website, start a newsletter, or build a course and charge for it? Have you ever wanted to make money online but are totally confused by all the different systems you need to have? That's why I use Kajabi. You can build your webpages, blogs, and membership sites. You can create offers, check out pages, and collect money. You can host your videos, you can start your newsletter list, capture emails, start your marketing funnels all in one place. It makes it fun and easy with awesome tutorials and support. Since I've joined Kajabi from the beginning, I have a special affiliate link that I would like to share with you. A 30 day free trial. So nothing to lose, but everything to gain. Just go to my link that's in the show notes, sabinekvenberg.com/resources and we will redirect you to the free trial page. And if you are just starting out and want to get your offer out for sale in just three days, let me help you do that. Visit my webpage, by the way, that I build on Kajabi and apply to making it happen. Now, let's get back to the show. 00:15:33 Sabine: So after you went through that grieving process, and another thing that I liked what you're saying, taking one step at a time, cuz that's another thing I believe a lot of people think, oh, they have to resolve everything either in their personal life or even in business venture. If you have to go through a very challenging situation sometimes, no, you cannot go from A to Z in one step. You have to take steps in between. And those little steps, when was your decision to actually make changes in your life after you got through that grieving process that really led you to become the lifestyle engineer that you are today? 00:16:25 Zach: Yeah, Sabine, there was a point, and I wish I could pinpoint exactly when, but I really can't. It's something that came gradually through the healing journey where I realized that the passion and the ambition inside of me to be successful in my career, to make an impact with my life and in the world through engineering and through, you know, the great mind that God had given me and the the skills that I had and that was still inside me, right? Going through burnout and divorce and depression did not eliminate something that was born inside me and my purpose for life. And I still had that fire there to do something. But right next to the fire for achievement was this fear of going through something like I had gone through already. It's like, there must be a different way to go, achieve something meaningful with my life but not suffer like this. 00:17:26 Zach: And it was that moment where I said, okay, I don't know the answer to that, but I'm unwilling to do nothing. I would rather keep going and try again and fail again than do nothing. I'm more afraid of, you know, getting to the end of my life with regrets than I am afraid of failing again. And so that's when I hired my first coach. I had worked with a therapist on the grief and this idea of recovery and healing, but I knew from other people who I had as mentors and people I respected, that coaching was a powerful catalyst to forward progress and change and making results happen in your life. So I hired a coach and I presented them with this challenge and said, hey, I want success, but I don't want to go through this again. There must be another way. I need help. 00:18:16 Zach: And I began working with a coach and, you know, the rest is history in a way. I went on to five promotions in five years. I doubled my income, I had an incredibly fun time working less hours than I ever had before. And along the way, I captured all these lessons and really distilled it down for the engineering mind because, you know, as an engineer, we think a  bit differently. We approach the world a bit differently. And that became the lifestyle engineering blueprint that we now coach our clients in. But it was honestly just learning as I went, how to do this in a different way. 00:18:50 Sabine:Yeah. And as you said, as we experience, as we learn, we can implement and teach it to others. So how do engineers learn differently and what's the difference between an engineering mind and everybody else's mind? 00:19:08 Zach: Oh, we don't have enough time on this podcast to talk about all of the differences. You know, if you are an engineer, you already understand and appreciate some of this and most people know at least one engineer. And you can point to some of the stereotypes that are common. So let's just, you know, be honest about what these things are. For one, generally speaking, we'll paint with broad brushes here, more introverted, more shy, generally speaking, they see the world in a black and white way. And I'll include myself in this. I used to be this way because we're trained to go find the right answer. And mathematics and science and most of the schooling that we go through is all rooted in learning the principles and applying them to problems in a way that finds the solution. And we end up in this very narrow approach to living where everything has a solution and often it's one right answer. 00:20:03 Zach: Then we come outta college and go into our careers. And it's hard enough to face the reality that there's more than one way to design something or to solve the problem. Then you add on the complexity of all the emotional and social intelligence required to work on these complex cross-disciplinary teams. And it really can be overwhelming for a lot of engineers to adapt to that. On top of that, let's put even one more layer. The engineering mind is trained to go find everything that can break, everything that can go wrong, all the points of failure in every system. That's what we get paid to do. And we wanna take everything to a point of failure in life. It's like, this is the way we think in terms of design. Well, anybody who's in psychology or cognitive behavioral therapy or coaching will tell you, if the thing that you focus on constantly is the negative side, if all you're looking for are points of failure and what can go wrong, that's what you're going to continue to get more of and create, especially in your relationships. And people get frustrated at engineers for always, you know, shutting down their ideas or telling them how things can go wrong or not. Well, let's forgive them in a way cuz it's the only thing we're taught.  00:21:22 Zach: And that creates a lot of problems in our relationships and in our lives as well as in your career development. So that's just naming a couple of obvious ones, Sabine. There's more, but we need to adapt the way we think about career growth and then lifestyle design. This idea of balancing the rest of our lives in the context of those challenges. You know, how do we overcome that in a way that engineers can wrap their heads around, which means systematically in a logical way, in a way that's gonna align with their strengths. Not just go tell an engineer, hey, stop being like an engineer. Like, that doesn't work. You can't just tell somebody to stop being themselves. 00:22:03 Sabine: No, that's so true and I really admire that you tackle that from that perspective, being an engineer. I mean, our two worlds can't be any more far apart because I'm on the total of the spectrum. I'm a creator. You know, I'm a performer. I'm just like. 00:22:26 Zach: Yes. 00:22:27 Sabine: Hey, show me the world, right? And math was never my strong point. I am not getting satisfaction with solving problems. I mean, I do, right? But you know what I'm saying?  00:22:41 Zach: It's  different. It's different.  00:22:42 Sabine: It's just different, right? But as you said, the engineers in this world and even if you are not an engineer, you might be an introvert, you might be a problem solver. That's your mentality, that's your personality. And those people are probably looking for a coach like you who can approach it from that angle. So I like that. 00:23:10 Zach: Yeah, you're right. It's not unique to engineers, that's just a group that I really resonate with. But for example, we have a client in our program right now who works in sales, but her mindset is an analytical one, and she has some of these same qualities in her approach and her background. And you would think, sales, how is it possible to be an introvert and succeed in sales? Well, you'd be amazed, you know, it's not uncommon for someone to end up in a place where they are constantly having to face some limitations, where their personality doesn't serve them in their role. And this is an example where someone says, okay, I really need to overcome these things in order to be successful, even more so than an engineer might. And so, yeah, there's a lot of people who connect with this approach, who may not be in STEM professions. 00:24:01 Sabine: And you also have a podcast called the Happy Engineer Podcast. So tell us about that podcast. Who are your guests and what you're trying to achieve with it? 00:24:15 Zach: Well, the Happy Engineer was named that because at the end of the day, if you get big success in your titles and promotions at paychecks, but you hate your life, then we have not succeeded yet. So I really believe, Sabine, what we're all looking for here is to love the journey towards our dream and our vision. So the Happy Engineer is an entire series of conversations around that idea. How do I build my career to the level that I want, whether that's CTO or just senior engineer, it doesn't matter. But also balance what I love in the rest of my life, to honor the time I want with my family, to take care of my health, to really look at myself as a whole person and not become a victim to some of the cultural challenges of, especially big organizations where the pressure to deliver can be so high and engineers are stressed out.  00:25:09 Zach: Engineers are struggling with dealing with all these demands, especially when you add a spouse and some kids and a mortgage and all these other challenges of living life. So the Happy Engineer Podcast brings guests from engineering, you know, folks who've succeeded at this and are living on the other side of the lessons learned, as well as people from these other disciplines who can help us to address areas where we're not strong. You know, health coaches or mindset coaches, people who can really dig into the areas that an engineer may not explore very often on their own. Because we tend to be drawn to the sciences and we love to listen to tech speak and that kind of thing. So it's a very well-rounded set of conversations because I really do believe we wanna be well-rounded in our success. 00:25:54 Sabine: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I go onto podcasts with the wisdom that I can contribute to the audiences and, you know, it's all about that balance, right? And when we are open to listen to the other person or to the other “side,” just in general, it is very important to be open. Otherwise, we are getting so narrow minded, so almost, like the horses with those, what you call it, the sight. 00:26:33 Zach: The blinders. Yeah. 00:26:34 Sabine: The blinders, exactly. And you see it in all areas, you know, of personal and work related politics. Oh, my goodness. If we are not open to listen to others, then we can get really, really stuck.  00:26:49 Zach: No doubt.  00:26:50 Sabine: So, yeah. 00:26:51 Zach: Well, and you are a great role model of this, Sabine. I mean, I love your content. I actually just listened to episode 41 of Become with [Brandon Kumar Sammi]. He was on my podcast as well. And just the power of those conversations and the idea of becoming what this whole show is about, it begins with that openness. If you don't lean into a growth mindset and  an open coachable spirit, then you're gonna miss that opportunity to become the best version of yourself. So I think there's no one better to talk about this than you. 00:27:23 Sabine: Oh, good. Good. So, well maybe I'll… can tell something to your listeners as  well and contribute to your listeners. I would love to, but well, we are out of time. Oh, my goodness. You know, I always like having wonderful conversations. I could go on. 00:27:42 Zach: I know. I know. 00:27:43 Sabine: Forever and ever. So if people want to get in touch with you, what would be the best way? 00:27:51 Zach: Thank you, Sabine. And for what it's worth, I agree, we could go all day. I understand why Joe Rogan and some of these other podcasters have three and four hour long episodes because it's so fun to have these chats. You know, you mentioned the Happy Engineer Podcast already, and if someone out there is listening who wants to hear more from me or get deeper into lifestyle engineering, just wherever you're listening to become, jump over and give a  follow to the Happy Engineer. You'll find us on all the platforms. But if this really resonates for you, maybe you are an engineer or you know one who really needs help with this and is looking for support to build their career and get to the next level, it would be an absolute honor to give you a free coaching session and share with you what we do and how we support people and see if it's a fit to work together. So if that's you, then grab your phone and send a text message right now. The word, Lifestyle. The word Lifestyle, send that to 5-5-4-4-4. It's one of those short codes, really simple, Lifestyle to 5-5-4-4-4. We'll send you the information to get on our calendar. And if it's a fit, we'll get you a free session with me and provide as much value as we can. So it'd be an honor to do that for your listeners, Sabine. 00:29:02 Sabine: Oh, fantastic. And I'll make sure to have that information in our show notes as well. So if there would be one piece of advice that you would give, not only engineers, but just in general, maybe a quote or something like that, what would that be? 00:29:20 Zach: The thing that will stand between you and your dreams is fear. And so we need to step out of our comfort zone, have the courage to face those fears, and take action in your life. So if there's one thing I could tell you, it's crush comfort and create courage because the life of your dreams will not be found in your comfort zone. And the sooner you embrace that and start living out at the edges of what's possible for you, the faster you're gonna see your life increase in ways you could not even imagine. So crush comfort and create courage, that's a decision you'll never regret. 00:30:00 Sabine: Thank you so much. That was just a perfect ending for this podcast, and I wish you all the best and I look forward, having another conversation. 00:30:11 Zach: Thank you so much, Sabine. You're amazing. I appreciate the invitation and blessings to you and your amazing audience. It's been a pleasure. 00:30:18 Sabine: That was my interview. And if you enjoyed it, give us a five star review, leave a comment, and share it with your friends. Thanks for listening. Until I see you again. Always remember, serve from the heart, follow your passion, and live the life you imagine.

It's time to get more specific with the ways we are supporting one another. This world is messy, motivation doesn't often come to us, we have to find it and The Fit Mess is an example of how growth can come from becoming more intentional. Listen in for their story of recognizing unhealthy mental patterns and choosing to start something new. If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co . And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.In this episode you will learn about:The separation of depression and anxiety.Fears and disbeliefs that come with starting a podcast. Recognizing you are not alone in your mental health.Motivation is a very fickle friend.How to continually choose the intention instead of the unhealthy path.The path of ignorance is easier but unfulfillingThe evolution from friends to business partnersThe importance of pushing forward despite distance, families, ect. Episode References/Links:The Fit Mess PodcastThe Fit Mess Guys on IGTiny Habits by BJ Fogg PhDThe Big Leap by Gay Hendricks  If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.Be It Till You See It Podcast SurveyUse this link to get your Toe Sox!ResourcesWatch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!Lesley Logan websiteBe It Till You See It PodcastOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley LoganOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTubeProfitable PilatesSocial MediaInstagramFacebookLinkedInEpisode Transcript:Lesley Logan  Hello, Be It listener. How are you babe? What's up? How are ya? Really? Are you good? Um, I asked that because I'm actually really excited for you here, I have two guests for you today. And what is cool is you'll hear how they met. And one of the things that they did was like, notice that the other person was a little bit more specific around how they were doing. And there's these little signs that we put out into the world that show that we are down for a different kind of conversation that we are open to new things and new relationships. And, and I say this because it is at the heart of what this conversation is, there's a ton of things you're going to hear. And I hope that you challenge yourself to see yourself in the story. Because while they're talking about putting a podcast together and becoming friends, and you may think that your life is a little different, there are things you can see in the story that will make sense to you. But I hear a lot that people are wanting new, deeper relationships. But when people ask you how you're doing, do you just say, I'm okay? Or do you use a different word that's a little bit more specific around how you're doing that day. And that doesn't mean everyone's gonna pick up on it. Right? But going back to even the conversation we had with Jessica Valant, when she said, ladies, what we can do when we are waiting for our kids. And, you know, at school instead of just going, Oh, I'm good. You could just you could just like mention a symptom or a feeling that you're having, and maybe share those things. One of my girlfriends that I have at the gym like I'm not in menopause yet, but she is sharing her journey with me. And it allows me to connect with her in a different way and for us to have different conversations. And so if you are someone who's looking for more meaningful relationships in your life, I hope that this week's episode with the host of The Fit Mess Podcast inspires you to share yourself in a different way with people to dive deeper into meeting who your people are and finding those people and it's not the easiest thing that you'll ever do, in fact, but most things that are worthwhile are not easy to do. So I'm excited for this. I can't wait for you to hear it. There'll BE IT action items of course you know, I love them always. But I really do think that these two are very unique and, and give you a lot of room to play with them in your own life. Here's Jeremy and Zach of The Fit Mess Podcast.Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring Bold, Executable, Intrinsic and Targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.Hey, Be It listeners. I'm so excited because I have two really cool dudes here. I'm really excited for them. I met them through this whole podcasting world, and I got to be on their podcast. And, you know, I, I find it very fascinating how people end up working together and how they end up starting new things. And so Jeremy and Zach, thank you so much for being here. Can you tell the Be It listeners who you are and what you guys are up to?Zach Tucker  Well, I'm Zach. And so we, we're the hosts of The Fit Mess Podcast, we, we, you know, Jeremy and I are kind of two odd guys, and that we talk about our feelings and our emotions and be vulnerable. And we try and spread that word. And, you know, Jeremy, Jeremy lives in the past with some of his depression, I live in the future with my anxiety. And you know, once a week, we come together, and we're in the now and we do our show. And we talk about all the things that people can do to manage their mental health, their emotional health, their physical health, and just be better people overall, living in a world full of chaos.Lesley Logan  Oh, my gosh, there is so much to talk about with that, right there.Jeremy Grater  Yeah, he did, he hit on it otherwise, you know, I'm Jeremy. And we started the show about four years ago. And it really was born from a natural relationship that grew between us, we were having conversations with each other about the struggles and challenges that we had to take care of, like he said, our mental, physical and emotional health. And in being really vulnerable with each other. He knew that I had a history in podcasting. And he made the realization that this is not something that we hear a lot of as guys talking about their feelings, talking about how hard it is to do all these things, and all the challenges that we have to overcome to to just feel a little better every day. And so eventually, he twisted my arm and twisted and twisted it. And then it almost broke. And I said, "Okay, fine, let's do a podcast." So here we are.Lesley Logan  So I love that description of one of Jeremy in the past, and you're in anxiety in the future, Zach, I think a lot of people don't realize like that those two things, like are separate, right? Like depression is typically when you are most thinking about the past in a way that you can't have it to had or like something and go certain ways or, or not even the pres... like just like, you get distracted by that. And then the anxiety of just like thinking about things that haven't even happened yet. What I'm wondering, though, is like, Jeremy, since you had a history in podcasting, Zach you didn't like, what was, what, did you have any fears about going into this and sharing these thoughts and these feelings? Because I mean, there's truth like, you don't have listeners in the beginning. I mean, I have your friends and family, but that's almost worse. Like I almost was like, "Oh, my mom is listening."Jeremy Grater  Right, right. ... way more filtered because mom's gonna listen. Yeah.Lesley Logan  So was it, what was what were the steps you guys took? And like, what were the fears or wonders that happened before you got started?Jeremy Grater  So for me, I had, you know, many years of radio experience at that point. And I've been podcasting since like, 2004. So the idea of a podcast was was nothing new to me. And it was one where I very much shared like, like, the more ridiculous the most embarrassing stories about myself because it was it was like a comedy show. The whole point was to share how ridiculous my life was. And so I didn't really have any hang ups with that. But because I was very new to sort of, you know, biohacking or like trying to take care of myself any sort of wellness thing. I just thought, you know, this is for people with certificates on the wall. This is for people that went to big schools and learn things and have some specific tool that they're gonna craft and like sell you on. And I just was like, I'm not that guy. I'm just a guy who's done some stuff and it's kind of worked out and it's, you know, might help others but I don't know. And Zach insisted that no, that's everyone's on this journey, everyone's just a few steps ahead of somebody else. So this is designed for the people that were just a few steps ahead of the people that that are struggling, like we were a year two, three years ago. And the more research I did, and sort of look into the space, and I found he's right, it's a lot of interviewing the people that are the experts that have done the work and, and then relating with your own personal experience, how those, those practices can really benefit your life. And that was what got me over the hump and convinced me that this was the right thing to do.Lesley Logan  I can resonate with that.Zach Tucker  And, and from my side, you know, Jeremy is the one who's comfortable in front of a microphone. And I think today, I'm okay, like, I have no problems doing that. But I still remember our very first show, and like, we walked in, and Jeremy and I were having these conversations one on one. And in those conversations, I was like, Oh, and this and that, and this and just, you know, on fire. And then we got in front of the microphone, it was like, ... I don't know what to say, I don't know what to do. This thing is in my face, I don't. So it was very, very nerve wracking, very anxiety producing for me. And then on top of it, like, you know, I was comfortable with Jeremy, talking with, you know, my feelings and emotions and vulnerabilities and things like that. And even though we had no listeners, like to your point, like, you know, parents listen, and you know, some friends listen, like I was, I was terrified of spilling all this information out about me, and putting it out there for anyone to hear. So it was it was very nerve wracking at the beginning.Lesley Logan  Well, I think those people are listening, you can resonate, maybe you don't have a podcast or not even think about starting a podcast. But if you are trying to go live on Instagram or trying to create a post for something, or I remember when my husband Brad was like, "You have to have a YouTube channel." And I was like, to Jeremy's point, like, "Who am I to do that? There have been people have been teaching for 30 years, they should have the YouTube channel. I've only been teaching for for four and a half years." Like, and he's like, "No, no, you just you're gonna do a YouTube channel." And even though like, no one even knew I was doing, I didn't tell a soul I wouldn't even post about because I was so afraid of like what people would say. And it took until like my first comment that people were kind and like, "Oh, thanks for putting this out there." I was like, "Oh, okay, they're not going to come after me." (Lesley, Zach and Jeremy laughs) You know, like you we build up some in our head about what could happen. Clearly Zach and I are like an anxiety world, like in the future these all these things can happen. But like, if you actually just take a step back and go, okay, really like the entire YouTube followers are gonna like go crazy on you all have podcast listeners who don't have yet are gonna think something. And I think it is very easy for us to get in that worry state of that. And then also, it is hard, you're not born looking at a dot or like you're not, it's not a natural thing to just come up and start sharing your thoughts and your feelings, knowing that other people are going to be listening and like, you whisper those things into the restaurant that come up, you're like, "Let me lower my voice because I don't want all these people in the restaurant to hear." So I think it is really difficult to do those things. And and I just want to I want to say like, to Jeremy's point you guys mentioned like who you are for, you guys were like we're going to talk about for people who are like, we're a few steps ahead. And I think a lot of us think we're trying to talk to everybody or your posts are for everybody. If you're a teacher and watch it, listen to this. Or if you maybe you're making crafts and you're like ever like you're not you're making it for like these people and so you're not for the people who are expert, biohackers those people are listening to somebody else, but you're for the person who's like, "I don't even understand the words they're saying." Like, for example, I listen to Huberman sometimes and I'm like, "How, is anyone listening to this guy? I need to slow him down. I have to look up some words." Like I who am I saying.Jeremy Grater  Yeah, that's definitely something that I still struggle with, in many ways, especially when it comes to like the Instagram lives or whatever. You know, I've gotten to a point I was talking with somebody about this the other day that like, the closer I get to the microphone, the farther the filter go, goes away from like, what I feel like I can say, but when it comes to like, looking into my phone, like walking around like this, talking to nobody, even if there's 500 whatever, people, I'm talking to a device, and I still have that barrier, that's tricky for me to like, break down that wall and go, "No, I'm actually talking to somebody. Somebody's hearing this right now in a month, in six months, in a year, whatever." (Lesley: Yeah.) And, and sort of just, like I'm just I'm always trying to, like get things out of my way. And that's one that's still in my way is breaking down that wall and just being okay with I'm just gonna put this out there because it could help somebody and I don't I don't know, that ever had the fear or have the fear that someone's gonna like, you know, rage about it or whatever. I worry more about this person who who takes my advice, and it somehow harms them. And I don't I'm always worried that I'm going to tell somebody something and they're going to try it and somehow it's going to bring more pain. And (Lesley: Yeah.) that's the thing that really scares me. I can I can take the wrath, I can take the comments and the hate mail and all that like that, whatever. But if I actually end up doing the opposite and harming somebody that's that's what definitely concerns me.Lesley Logan  Yeah, I understand that a lot. When you, so your four years in that's like not a new show. (Jeremy: No) (Zach: No) How have you guys, have you guys evolved what the show is about? Or are you still on the same path? Like, what has been the journey that you guys have gone on with this?Zach Tucker  Yeah, I think generally speaking, we're still on the same path. We have changed the message a little bit, just based on all the guests that we've had come on. And we've had these realizations of, oh, 25, people have said the exact same thing, we should probably focus on that. But the original intention of the show was, you know, the name is The Fit Mess. And the the, the idea that we had around it was, you know, to take care of yourself in today's day, and age is hard. And it's actually messy, and it's not perfect like, and to expect perfection in doing any of these things is, you know, going to be is going to be a useless effort. And the analogy I like to use is, you know, like, if you have, if you're in your house, and you're in your bed, and the house is completely cluttered, like hoarder, cluttered, right, and you can't get to the kitchen. You don't have to clean the whole house, you just have to clear path to the kitchen, and then you can eat. And then if you have to go to the bathroom, you can clear path to the bathroom. And then if you have to get to the front door, you clear path, and eventually you'll make, you'll make enough paths where the clutter will start to clean up. And you don't have to do it all at once. And that's really what we're trying to do to send that message from the very beginning that, you know, being healthy, mentally, physically and emotionally, is is something you can't do all at once. You have to pick and choose small steps along the way. And I think the two things that really kind of popped out for us along the way was this questioning your own beliefs as you go along this journey, and motivation. Jeremy says that, you know, way better than I can, but you know, like, you can't wait for motivation to come to you, you just have to be the person who does the thing that you want to do. And that, I think that took us both by surprise, because we were both like, "Wow, we listen to this guest and we want to do this thing, but I'll do it Monday, or I'll do it next week." Or, you know, wait till I'm you know, feeling energized. And, and we just kept hearing over and over and over again. Motivation doesn't come to you, have to go get it yourself. (Jeremy: The other ...) So (Jeremy: Sorry) yeah, go ahead.Jeremy Grater  I was just gonna say the other part of this that that I think has evolved, but has remained foundational to it is that it's very, it can be very lonely, to have these pains and these fears, and these, all these things that hold us back. And so we wanted to be there for that person and say, "No, us too, we feel it too, we have the same struggle." And the further we've gone on this journey, it becomes even more isolating often because you end up shedding a lot of the friends and a lot of the connections and the (Lesley: Yeah) things that used to the life that you knew, and all of a sudden you're just constantly just going down this dark tunnel of what's what's that glimmer of light ahead. And it can just be so lonely. So we just very much wanted to create a space where people could hear other people particularly guys, you know, we aim for guys when we went into this because we didn't hear a lot of this. And so we just wanted to be there for them and to show them that it's okay to have these feelings and have these thoughts and to go through this stuff. But what's been really interesting is that while we talked all these guys, it's it's their wives and girlfriends who show up and say, "I wish my boyfriend would listen to this. I wish my husband would listen to this because he could really gain a lot from this." So that's that's been the other sort of hallmark is just being a point of connection for people because it's just so lacking these days.Lesley Logan  I love that you said that because it's so true. And like we have a lot of guests who come on the show who've told people you know, in different ways about boundaries, like there's an episode that'll have come up before you guys that she was like hardcore like, about like, if you are letting if you are not upholding your boundaries, you are basically like, like, like not like not then and I mean ruining your life. It was even more dramatic than that. And I was like, she's not wrong for so many people letting go of those family members is really hard. And find... and so... and and having access to surrounding yourself with people who are on that path ahead is so hard. And one of my previous guests said, then your podcasts are a free source of friendships that you can hit, you can spend more time with your podcast hosts. And if we are the average of the five people you hang out with and you could just hang out with them until you can get yourself to a place and I think that is really cool that you have set this up for clearly their wives but hopefully them someday (Zach: Yeah) because I do think that you can start to feel a little bit crazy. Like when you, I go to a family reunion or wedding you're like, "How did I come from here?" Like, like, "What, where how did this happen?" And so you can feel like you're like not even a unicorn but like there's like a like some weird spotlight on you. And so to hear from other people like actually I'm the same we're doing the same thing and you're not alone. And it is not easy to be the one that evaluates your your beliefs and who looks at yourself under a microscope and like decides to make some changes. You're not alone in that, other people are doing it too.Jeremy Grater  Well, I know how far I've come and even now, like, I'm at this weird like crossroads in my life where like, I'm kind of in a struggle of my own right now. And I can feel the pull to go back to, oh just give up on like, this is just way too much like reading and self reflection and crying and pain, like, just go back to not giving a shit and just show up, but you know, go get some job and just live the normal life. Like, it's just it's, I feel that pull, because it's so much easier. That path is easier as (Lesley: Yeah) this one is... I think I think it is, I think it is because it's it's sort of that idea of, I don't know that it would be now. But living with the ignorance of what I don't know about myself and all the things that I could explore that was an easier life. Because pain, oh, beer fixed until tomorrow than it hurts. Oh, beer fixed like, it's just this awful cycle that is really unhealthy. But now that I know what I know, it's almost I think it is impossible to go back. Because it's, (Lesley: Yeah) it just seems so difficult. It seems harder to make that turn. But there's this pole of I want that ease back, I want to just to just go through the motions and show up but I know better. And so every day I have to wake up and I have to read the things and talk to great people like you and do these things that help keep pushing me forward. Because it does it just it's a lonely difficult path. But it is so much more rewarding than the one that I was living.Zach Tucker  Yeah, (Lesley: Yeah) and I have. So my, you know, my, the way I grew up, like I had a fairly traumatic childhood. And things happen to me along the way that like, by the time I got to 20 I was like, ridiculously anxious, shy, overweight, like 300 pounds, like just everyone thought I was going to be dead or in jail, you know, just just not in a good place in any way, shape, or form just due to the environment that I was in. And that's when I was around my family. And I kind of disappeared and moved to Seattle, and got away from my family. And that's when like most of my journey happened. And my the family that I do hang out with. They're the normal ones. They're the ones that I like, and I actually appreciate. But every time I go back to the town I grew up in and hang around my family. The feelings of who I was when I was 20 resurface. And I hate those feelings. And it's such a good reminder for me of, "Yeah, this was really hard, and you need to keep pushing, and you need to keep doing more work because that was bullshit."Lesley Logan  Yeah, yeah. One of my one of my friends were the guests early on, she recently had to go see her family. And she, she's done like all the work like she's done, like all the things. Right. And she's like, she's like, "Lesley, I went back there and I was like, I was 13 again." And it (Zach: Yeah) was just she's like, "I have more work to do because clearly I have not healed all of that yet." And I think it is so important for us to do that self reflection, because we can keep growing and we can and we can share it with others. There was a couple books. So I want to wait for motivation, because I do think it's this interesting thing that people will use as an excuse to not take action. And BJ Fogg says in his book Tiny Habits that he describes motivation is a very fickle friend like super like you would always go to a party with this friend. Like this is the friend that you would like do fun things with. But you would never ask this friend to pick you up from the airport. So like (Zach and Jeremy laughs) this ... like you would not rely on it to do anything that's actual actual importance in your life. And, and also, the harder something is the more motivation we need, which is why he talks about making things as simple as possible so that you don't need the motivation, you can just do it. The other thing Jeremy brought up like, there's this pool you think you move forward and then there's this pool. And it makes me think of Gay Hendricks book The Big Leap if I don't know if you've read it, but it is one of my favorite annual books to read. It is an annual read because it is all about whenever you get outside of your your like comfort zone. So like every time you get a new level, you're comfortable again, right? Whenever you like actually get outside that comfort zone, you will have this pool, it can be worry. It can, you can cut pick fights, you could actually get sick. Like there's, there's these things that can happen. He picks like, like six or seven different things that everyone does to like pull themselves back to where they were. So they feel very safe. And like in this, like this is how things are and it is so fascinating. Every time I read it because I pick up something new. And I will you know take there'll be a new level we'll have something with the podcast that will go well or something with the business and then I can start to think about all the things that aren't going well like oh, well we haven't done these seven things actually. So let me just like get back into us a different spot where like nothing is going well.Jeremy Grater  Right. Totally, totally. And I've been doing that a lot. I went through this major life change last year. Literally like left my 20 year career, sold my house, left the town, everyone I knew left my country, moved to a different country, moved to a town and they met in the middle of the mountains where I knew nobody had no real job, no idea what we were going to do. But we took the leap, we just went, this is something we want to do. And there was a lot of like visualization and things that had to happen to make it all happen, but it eventually did. And now that I've been here, all of that excitement of that year of, "Oh, we got to do this and talk to the lawyer and make sure this happens and book, the truck and do all that." Now we've we've settled, right, like, we're here, the kids are in school, my wife has had a job, I'm on the verge of like some things panning out there. And there's just like this comfort that sort of settling in. But we still haven't really like found community, like we've sort of like, built the blocks. But now we've got to like, flavor it with the friends and things like that. But we're still we're so close to home that we go back a lot. So I have that same situation where I'm back into feeling familiar setting with familiar faces. And so there's this, that's where I think some of this push and pull comes from is like I'm there for a weekend. And then I'm home back home here for a couple of weeks, and then a back there for a week. (Lesley: Yeah.) And just that like sort of living in the two worlds, I think is where a lot of my conflict is coming from. (Lesley: Yeah.) And it's really hard to move forward when I'm still so anchored in the past as much as I am. And so, you know, I think the just really just trusting your journey is the is the key, right? Like (Lesley: Yeah) believing in the Northstar that you set for yourself and just keep pushing for that no matter how much the winds want to push you back to where you were comfortable where you started.Lesley Logan  Yeah, you know, one of the things that Brad and I say was so I don't want to say good, the wrong word, because it's a bad place. But like, ha... we moved to Las Vegas on June 1 of 2020 from Los Angeles, a town we thought we'd never leave, right. And people were like, "Was it hard to settle in?" I'm like, well, we couldn't really go back to LA. We weren't missing anything. There was no birthday parties. There was no weddings, the whole city was shut down. My clients were all doing virtual anyways. So like, for us like there was, it was almost like we were just down the street because you there was nothing going on there. Right? (Jeremy: Yeah.) And here, we there was it was sort of opening but things were opening where the casinos, I'm not going there. So like, we kind of just got to like get used to like, where's the grocery store? Where are these things and there was no pull back because there was nothing to go back to. And it wasn't in a year later, when we finally met someone here who like she knows everybody. That's the key Jeremy, you got to find the person knows everybody, you got to get to that person. So for us, she was the facial salon owner. So she knew everybody and she is a connector like by nature, like that's just who she is. She's like, the more the merrier kind of person, you got to find that person because now we have a trainer that we love, we have friends and on fourth of July, we went to a barbecue like there's all these things. And so now when I go back to LA, I don't have that pool. Because yes, I miss everybody. And there's some things that I miss or some coffee I miss. And there's a burrito, that's just so good. (Lesley, Zach and Jeremy laughs) But (Jeremy: There's always a burrito.) There's always a burrito. But there's also this like, well, this is nice to visit, as (Jeremy: Yeah) opposed to gosh, I miss this. You know what I mean? (Zach: Yeah)Jeremy Grater  And that's that's how it was largely in the beginning. But yeah, I totally hear you it. It's one of those just matter of time, find the right people kind of thing.Zach Tucker  I just, I just had the kind of the same experience. I moved back to New York from Seattle in June of 2019. And then the pandemic hit like six months later. And, you know, I was kind of just figuring out the basics and everything. And I didn't have the community that I wanted there that I had in Seattle, until I went to I found this one gym where like the owner of the gym knows tons and tons and tons of people. And then I made a couple of friends at the gym and it just kind of spread from there. And then I went back to Seattle. What? Like two months ago, Jeremy? (Jeremy: Yeah yeah.) And like, you know, it was good to visit is good to see everyone. But like, I was like, "No, this isn't home anymore." (Lesley: Yeah) That it's not, this is not.Lesley Logan  Yeah. So how did you two, I guess I don't know, actually, how you two met? And then and then how has that, how has your relationship evolved now that you guys work together? Because it was like two friends who talked and share their feelings. And now you're, you know, there's like a, I mean, the podcast is somewhat of a business. Right. So like, you know, so how does that change things?Zach Tucker  So, so my, my wife and I moved to Seattle, in 2010. And we, we had she got pregnant shortly thereafter. So our wives actually met, they were part of a fit moms club. And they were going to do a race like so many weeks after giving birth to their kids. So we have, you know, two daughters that are very close in age. So they started hanging out a little bit and then they decided, well, you know, I think they shared about each other and they're like, "Oh, they're both really big Star Wars fans." (Lesley laughs) So we kind of got to get these guys together. So there was like, you know, breakfast and maybe a lunch and like, things like that. And, you know, I still remember it pretty vividly, you know, like, sitting down and like sizing him up and like looking him up and down. I mean, like, all right, I gotta do the manly thing and talk about sports and you know, like, what team played last night and this beer and like, you know, all in cars and like all that stuff that I'm really not interested in. And, you know, I think he was probably doing the same thing. And it just, you know, little, we chipped away at each other, you know, like little comments here and there, how you feeling, you know, and got more than an okay, occasionally and it kind of dove into just deeper, deeper conversations over the years. And I let Jeremy talked about like transitioning from like friends to work because like, I'm probably not the right one to speak about that. Because my full time job is like, really, really demanding. So Jeremy is the one who does most of the work. And like I just, you know ... on the interviews, he gives me crap about it a lot. But I let him talk about that. (Lesley laughs)Jeremy Grater  I mean, there's definitely an evolution, right, when when all of a sudden your business partners and most of the conversations are, here's the deadline, here's what we got to do, make sure you show up, don't be late, you know, what all that all this sort of stuff. And then, you know, the show is where we sort of are able to pull that curtain back a little bit. But but honestly, between, you know, he's got his thing going on, I've got my thing going on, there's 2000 miles between us, we don't have the opportunities that we had, as friends to just like, really check in as much. You know, I think that there have been a few times in the last year where, you know, things, things got really dark for either one of us, and we could call each other and say, "Hey, you know, this is not shelled, this is life. And then I need to, I need to, you know, share this or whatever." So there's still room for that, you know, obviously, the invitation I know is open both ways to continue doing that. But I know that a lot of what our show is, is sharing our struggle and sharing, you know, and I don't even know that we're really struggling as much anymore. We've come so far that I don't know that, that it's the same as it was in the beginning, I think there was a lot of complaining, right? There was a lot of just whining, this is hard. And I don't know how to do this. And and now we know how to do it. It's now it's you know, how do you start, you know, start the fire that keeps burning and keeps it going? And where do you find that motivation? How do you create that motivation so that you keep showing up every day? (Lesley: Yeah.) And so we do share those experiences within the show. And it's just the the great thing is there is no filter there. So it's, it's very real, it's very authentic. We're just exchanging what's working for us and what's not. But definitely, you know, when you put 2000 miles between people, it's going to be tough to keep that ...Lesley Logan  Well and you have families, unlike other jobs you do. This is not the only thing that you do. And I think that's really important for people to hear. Because we have a lot of people who have a job, and then they want to do something else or, or they have a project that they did with a friend. And so if you if you're not intentional about the friendship part. It's the same thing I work with my husband, we strive to be intentional about the marriage part. Otherwise, (Jeremy: Right) it's work all the time, right? Like it's (Jeremy: Yeah) just something that really can it's so easy in our society to do that. And I this one girlfriend that we will use each other's like work calendars to book coffee dates, but we'll go, "Okay, personal life first. And then we'll get to work." Like we, (Jeremy: Right, right.) you kind of have to label like, this is personal and now let's go into the prep. Okay, now let's work. And that can be difficult, because you may not want to rock the boat, you may not want to bother someone, but if people really care about you, and you say, "Hey, this is a life thing. Can I talk to you?" Most often people will go drop what they're doing to be there for you, even if it's for five minutes, or they'll say, "Can we call at me in 15 minutes? I got to do this thing." Like people do want to show up for other people if they know, I just said oftentimes they don't know because they're busy doing all the whirlwind that exists in their lives. And so it's not personal. It's not they're not thinking about you. So I think it is really important. I love that you guys say like, "Hey, I gotta talk right now, like, this is something that's really important." People need to know that that's what we have to do sometimes to get that support that we need.Jeremy Grater  And definitely reach out right like if that is something you need reach out, because like you said, no one's out there going, "Oh, I wonder how Jeremy is doing right now." Like they're, they're on their way to work. They're dropping the kids off at soccer. They're making getting dinner ready. They're doing it like they're not sitting there wondering how ... It might be a flash in their mind for a second. But, you know, I can't sit here and go, "Oh, nobody ever calls me that I'm so alone. This sucks." Like that's on me if I'm if I'm lonely and I need connection, I need to reach out and make that connection. And and it's the same, like you said, a million things going on but you have to make room for that stuff. Otherwise, you just keep stuffing that down and stuffing that down. And then you know it comes out and other ways that are not as productive.Lesley Logan  Yeah, yeah. So as you guys are continuing on with the pod, like what are you most excited about with the podcast next? What conversations are you are you guys hoping to have with people so your listeners can hear them?Zach Tucker  Well, you know, I think we, we've had so many conversations and to be honest, like a lot of conversations are starting to repeat over each other. You know, like a conversation from 18 months ago is very similar to one we're having. We're having today. I'm really excited about you know, like pushing forward into more of the motivation standpoint and and really just exploring how to keep up with with these changes that we want to make or that I want to make in my own personal life. I struggle a lot with with time management, like I said, my job, my full time job is pretty demanding and Je... I know Jeremy shakes his head whenever I say that, because I literally come into these interviews really hot like or late. (Jeremy laughs) You know, so just like really figuring out that balance, you know, talking to people who can help you with that balance of, here's the thing, here's how you make time for yourself. And here's how you maximize that time for yourself while also taking care of everything else. Because like you said earlier, like it's a whirlwind. There's so many things going on. And it's about time management, it's about getting in all those things. And you said earlier, take care of yourself first. I want to I want to dive deeper into that, because we all know the right things to do. We all know kind of what works for us. And we're all unique individuals. And you know, creatine works for me, it doesn't work for everyone like, you know, something like that. But how do you fit that all in? And how do you do it in a way where you don't absolutely go crazy. That's what I'm really excited about.Jeremy Grater  And I think for me, we've we've been in a place now with the show where I can't remember the last time that we had to go find a guest, a lot of people come to us. And I want to I want to get back to like when we started it was nobody knew who we were, we didn't exist and we had to cold call and beg people to come on the show. (Lesley: Yeah.) And somehow we pulled off incredible guests. And that was like that was the spark for me that was like, "Oh, this this is great. We're gonna really do something with this." And now it's it's kind of become routine, we've gotten comfortable, you know, the the email comes in. Yeah, that fits, we can we can do something with that, that'll be a good, a good conversation. I want to get back to really exploring what I am doing. And find the people that can tell that story that can help me tell that story of how this works. We had someone on I think, I think her episode was posted a couple of weeks ago, but actually had a session with her yesterday talking about neuro linguistic programming. I had a session with her and it blew my mind. Like we because we did the interview before I actually had done the work. And I know this is relatively old modality or whatever. But it was new to me. And I was completely blown away by how in this, you know, 20 minutes or whatever it was like I went from like a nine on a pain scale to a what were we even talking about? (Lesley: Wow) ... just through this, like, basic Q&A and the way she said the things she said and the way I responded. And I was blown away. And I just was like, "I want more of that in my life. I want to (Lesley: Yeah) I want to be exploring more." And not just sort of doing my routine and sharing what's working. And oh, that's an interesting book. Let's talk about that. Like, I want to really dive in again, and get really curious about what's still out there that I haven't explored to share that.Lesley Logan  I 100% understand, because when when I started the podcast too, it was like, I had to seek out the guests. And I was I was always like surprised when certain people said yes. I'm like, (Jeremy: Yeah) "Thank God, think that's amazing." And then you do get to a point where like, there's people who are pitching you and like and that seems convenient. And they seem interesting. And for those of you listening, it's kind of like when you first became when first your business like you are to see yourself in the story. It's like you go out and you're trying to find all the clients and all of a sudden you start to get these referrals and like you get more referrals and like, it's good, but like none of these people, not none of them, but most of them don't light you up. Like you probably wouldn't pick those people again, you'd be like, well, they're fine. And so it's like getting back into that space where like, actually, I want to just be the one in charge and seeking out and asking the people and I find that really the most fun is like I don't mind people pitching at me at all. I get them all the time. But I am a lot more I like if I would I have sought out this person if I had known what they were doing. You know, and and that is the same thing with the clients that I coach and the people that were like, what I have, like, actually, like gone out and sought this person out. Because if not, then like, that's nice. And let's put them over here. And it's not a never. It's just a not a not right now.Jeremy Grater  Right. Right. Right. For sure.Zach Tucker  Yeah, yeah. And it's, like you said it's very, very convenient. And it's easy to fall into that that part of it. And, and I actually really loved you know, those those times where like, you know, when we were, Jeremy and I would sit down for half an hour and be like, "Okay, who do we want to talk to?" And we'd make that list. And then we you know, do all the cold calling and I'll never forget the day Jeremy texted me. He's like, "What are you doing next Thursday at 12:30?" I was like, "Nothing. Why?" And he's like, "Okay, we're talking to Sean T." And I was like, "What? Oh my God. So amazing." (Lesley: That's insane.) I absolutely love that feeling. And we haven't had as many of those those moments lately. (Jeremy: Yeah ...)Lesley Logan  Well, I'm the accountability queen. So I feel like, I feel like I need an update from you guys before the end of the year. Like, did you get more prioritization of your of your calendar Zach and Jeremy? Have you been like seeking out your like dream guests?Jeremy Grater  Right. Definitely. That's it's on my list for sure. (Zach: Yeah ...)Lesley Logan  All right ... We're gonna take a brief moment and we're gonna come back and find out your BE IT action items and where people can find you, follow you, listen to see if you guys do this things that you're saying you want. (Jeremy, Zach and Lesley laughs) No pressure.Jeremy Grater  You'll find out.Lesley Logan  Okay, so where where can people listen to your podcast, where you guys like to hang out on social media?Jeremy Grater  The podcast and pretty much everything you're gonna find this, the website thefitmess.com. And then we're on all the main social media things at The Fit Mess or sorry at @fitmessguys. So at @fitmessguys on TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, whatever. We probably spend the most time I think, well we have a Facebook group, we spend a lot of time in there. And then otherwise, Instagram seems to get a lot of traction. So we hang out in those two places, primarily.Lesley Logan  Awesome. We will link all of that below. And you guys can listen to your pod on any place that podcasts (Jeremy: All the things.) are playing. Yeah ... Yeah. Okay. So next is the bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted steps people can take to be it till they see it. You each can have as many as you want. So who wants to go first? (Jeremy: Go ahead Zach.)Zach Tucker  I can go first, I think the one thing that has made the biggest difference in my entire life. And I'll start high level will go a little deeper as a little bit deeper with some details. But is to really and I mentioned it earlier is questioning your own beliefs. So as you're going through whatever journey you're going through, you know, whatever you have learned as a child are taken in from somebody you know, and believe it wholeheartedly. It might not be true. And to really open yourself up to and question those truths. I know, for me, just as an example, you know, as a child, I was called fat, I was called ugly, I was called stupid, from multiple sources all over the place. And to this day, at 43 years old, with a relatively high IQ, a relatively trim body, you know, like, I still feel, I still feel fat and stupid. And those are, you know, truths that I believe, based on things that happened in my past. And, you know, that's just one example. But really, as you're going through, as you're reading things, as you write things off, as you say, that'll never work for me. Really, really question why you believe the way you believe something, and just be open to the fact that you might be wrong. And realizing that you're wrong, could change your entire perspective on something and take you in a direction that you never thought you could go.Lesley Logan  I like that a lot. I think that's a great intrinsic action item, you guys. What about you, Jeremy?Jeremy Grater  It sounds big and kind of flaky but it really starts with the decision. And I don't mean, I'm going to, I'm going to do the workout and I'm going to start Monday. I mean, you really have to decide. My journey began because I had a knee injury. And my brother and the advice I was given was get on a bike. And I was complaining to my brother about it. And he said, "Well, dude, all you have to do is decide you're the weird guy who rides his bike to work every day." And I had ridden hadn't ridden a bike and you know, 20 years or whatever. And I was like, "Well, that's insane." And then I thought about it. And the way that he said at that time, it stuck with me. And I decided he's right. I'm the weird guy that rides his bike to work every day and a week I had a bike and I was biking to work every day. And it was literally making the decision and only like feeling I am that person. I don't have to become I am them today. I don't have the bike yet. That's it, that's just a minor hurdle on the way. But when you make that decision to become that person, it becomes really easy to as you'd like to be it till you see it to start taking those steps. But it has to be more than, "Oh, I gonna get to the gym. Oh, I got to eat better." But like, you have to decide, "I'm the person who eats better. I'm the person who goes to the gym." Like it just has, you just have to own it, you have to put that hat on, and it has to be a part of who you are. So I mean, I know that's kind of vague and woowoo we and I hope that's enough of an action. But it really is the thing that at every point in my life when I was the most scared I wasn't the most challenged. I didn't know what to do. When I just decided there's there's no with there's no wishy washy here, I just am this person now. That's when the biggest changes have happened. And I've been able to face those fears and overcome them.Lesley Logan  Oh, I do love that. I mean, it's not to me, it's not wishy washy, like you're giving people permission to make a decision for themselves. And, and before they're, before they are the thing. You know like and so I think that it's amazing. You guys, thank you so much. This has been a really fun conversation. I feel like we're colleagues even though we're not but also I think it's really fun for people to see behind the curtains of how things are done and what the thought process that people go through and then also how you got to where you are. So thank you for this. Y'all, how are you going to use these action items in your life? What were your takeaways from this podcast? Please tag @fitmessguys and the @be_it_pod with your takeaway. Share this with a friend and I know most of you have male in your life, so you can actually just share a podcast, share The Fit Mess Podcast with them as well while you're at this so you can share this with your girlfriends and that with your guy friends and have an amazing day. Until next time, Be It Till You See It.'Be It Till You See It' is a production of 'As The Crows Fly Media'. Brad Crowell   It's written produced, filmed and recorded by your host Lesley Logan and me, Brad Crowell. Our Associate Producer is Amanda Frattarelli.  Lesley Logan  Kevin Perez at Disenyo handles all of our audio editing.  Brad Crowell  Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music. And our branding by designer and artist, Gianranco Cioffi.  Lesley Logan  Special thanks to our designer Jaira Mandal for creating all of our visuals (which you can't see because this is a podcast) and our digital producer, Jay Pedroso for editing all videos each week so you can. Brad Crowell  And to Angelina Herico for transcribing each of our episodes so you can find them on our website. And, finally to Meridith Crowell for keeping us all on point and on time.Transcribed by https://otter.aiSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/be-it-till-you-see-it/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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.

Change For The Better Is Possible, Small Steps Add Up To Big Losses with The Fit Mess Guys In this world of instant gratification, we want to take action today and see the results tomorrow. It usually takes us a while to get to the point we feel we need to make a change. We have to realize it takes time to see results. Change is possible, and taking small measured action is generally better for sustainable change. Get started today, it's never too late. About Jeremy and Zach Zach Tucker and Jeremy Grater are the founders and hosts of The Fit Mess. For nearly a decade, they have pushed themselves to learn more about their own physical, emotional, and mental health. This has created a passion for using their acquired knowledge to help others. As hosts of the show for over 2 years, they have had the opportunity to speak to a wide range of guests, including some of the biggest names in health and wellness. Zach Tucker, along with his wife and young daughter resides in Albany, NY. Zach has a passion for helping people define and meet their wellness goals. He thinks that every person is different and there is no one size fits all solution for someone's wellness. He is on a mission to share his story and some of the tools that helped him on his own wellness journey. Zach is certified to teach yoga and Insanity® Live.Jeremy Grater is a married father of two young girls and also lives in Seattle. He's spent the majority of the last decade experimenting with a variety of wellness tools to improve his mental health, lose 70 pounds and share what's helped along the way. He's also been in the broadcasting and podcasting business for about two decades. www.thefitmess.com www.feedingfatty.com Full Transcript Below Change For The Better Is Possible, Small Steps Add Up To Big Losses with The Fit Mess Guys 00:00:15 Roy Hello, and welcome to another episode of feeding fatty. I'm your host, Roy Terry. So we're the podcasts. That's chronicling my journey, Terry, my helper through this journey of wellness, losing some weight, getting in better shape. And, from time to time, we have, professionals in their field that come on and today is no different than Terry. I'll let you make our introduction of Jeremy and Zach. All right, 00:00:38 Terry Zach Tucker and Jeremy Grater are the founders and host of The Fit Mess for nearly a decade. They've pushed themselves to learn more about their own physical and emotional and mental health. This has created a passion for using their acquired knowledge to help others as hosts of the show. For over two years, they've had the opportunity to speak to a wide range of guests, including some of the biggest names in health and wellness, Zach and Jeremy. Welcome to the show. 00:01:12 Roy Yeah. Thanks guys. Thanks for taking time out of y'all's day to be with us. We just, I guess we'll throw it out there and see kind of what's new, as were talking in pre-show, some different new weight equipment and things out there, and Jeremy said he has started running, so we'll just kinda first off. It'd be nice just to find out, kind of how you guys found yourself here. 00:01:36 Zach Yeah. I'll start off because I think, my story goes all the way back to being a baby, of just being set up on a, poor, starting line in life. I had some heart defects. I had an absent mother, just, lots of issues, lots of trauma as a child, which led tons and tons of overeating. And, at one point in my life, I was, close to 300 pounds and eating terrible, not exercising. I was, not in great shape. Over the last 20 years, I've made small little changes to turn the health around, to make myself look better, feel better. I had to focus on the mental health and it was a long journey. Jeremy was also following behind on that as well. At some point I was giving him some advice and, we sat down one day and we're like talking about being vulnerable about, the journey that we're on and talking about the struggle and how hard it is. 00:02:42 Zach And, we came to the conclusion that, we need to get this out there and we need to share these conversations with other people, especially men who are sometimes afraid to share their feelings. Yeah. 00:02:56 Roy Wow. That's yeah. That's a, basically a carbon copy of where were, I've struggled. I've had, I can definitely go back and see, I'm kind of the opposite as a kid, I was very skinny, like to the point, people were like, oh my gosh, you got to eat to live. As an adult, definitely four or five stages where, put on 20 pounds, 25 pounds at this stage for this life change. Then, now I find myself here and it's just, it's hard because, we do good sporadically. We can do good for a couple months. It's like, we have an event change and, then things change. I typically go back to my old ways. So, we talk a lot about that. Surgery may be an option for people, but for me, I always thought if I don't change the way I think then I'll never, I'll just go back to my old ways. 00:03:50 Roy Anyway, but thanks for relating that story. I mean, it is, I think it is good to be vulnerable and that's why, Terry encouraged me. She's like, Hey, you need to get this out there because people are struggling. So anyway, Jeremy, what's your story? 00:04:05 Jeremy Similar, not quite the same trauma as a child, mind was much more garden variety, alcohol in the family and kind of absent father stuff. Yeah. Both parents working. A lot of, latchkey kid or the eighties thing. And it is funny. I remember I was around third grade when I really developed some really bad eating habits and it was like, my best friend would come over and we would just hang out and watch TV and raid the pantry during every commercial break. Right. That set me on a course of doing that for far too long. Yo-yo dieted most of my life and, got into, my career and about midway through my career. I really started recognizing a lot of imposter syndrome and really feeling like man, one of these days, they're going to figure out they made a huge mistake hiring me, and they're gonna, they're going to show me the door, know, and that lasted for about 10 years. 00:04:53 Jeremy I finally started getting into some therapy and that turned my life around. My therapist introduced me to meditation. That really helped, calm all of that noise and quiet. A lot of those voices that told me it wasn't good enough. I still don't get me wrong. I, I battle every single day I've fought depression my entire life. Meditation was the thing that set me on the course to doing other things. Along the way I had a bike crash got injured pretty badly. And, but I was finding that through biking. I was, I was also meditating. It was just this very in the moment experience where the whole point is to not die on the way to work. You have to be so in the moment and so focused on what's happening right now that I started trying to push that into other areas of my life. 00:05:41 Jeremy Like Zach said, along the way he and I met through, just through parent groups, we are our friends, our kids are we're friends, and we started hanging out and were just having these really authentic conversations. That's something I've always looked for in a relationship with any of my is who can I have real conversations with and who am I talking about the Mariners with? Who do I want to spend my time with? Especially because the Mariners suck. So, but like Zach said, we, the more we have these conversations, just, camping and whatever, were just like, we don't hear enough guys talking like this. So, like I said, we just felt like this is a show that needs to exist. 00:06:19 Roy Yeah. For the rest of the baseball world out there, you may want to tell them who the Mariners are. 00:06:31 Speaker 4 The Rangers, I mean, come on. Yeah. Right. Oh yeah. 00:06:37 Roy Yeah. That's why we holler for the red Sox or the Yankees, for winter. So, let's talk about that because, your ride at, the good thing about me I'm to an age that it's like, I am who I am. I mean, just because I don't admit that I'm overweight to myself, it doesn't mean that other people that look at me can't I can't figure that out. So, I mean, at some point you just have to say, Hey, I got to own this, but it's the funny thing for me is I don't think about myself as being overweight or, I picture, and I don't picture myself as old either. I'm thinking like that 25 year old in better shape self that's, just who I am until, you walk by a mirror or try to put some clothes on after being in quarantine for a year. And it's like, oh my goodness. 00:07:28 Roy Things are different, but so, let's talk about the difference in Mindshift body, habit shifts, things like that. Was there a point that for y'all either one that the, it was the, your mind engaged and then that's where your habits followed or did you kind of get on that path to habits and then the mind followed after that or some form of that? 00:07:56 Zach My first, my first, real big change was, so I used to smoke cigarettes as well. Okay. And, ate a McDonald's every day. I mean, it was, there was some pretty bad habits there, and it was, my mind shifted because of a comment that my boss made. And, I interviewed for the job and I decided to wear a nicotine patch that day. So I didn't smell like cigarette smoke. I got the job and I got hired in my first day, my boss looked at me and said, oh, you smoke. If I had known that I would have never hired you. Oh, wow. Right. Like that hit me really hard. I was like, wow, this habit, this unhealthy thing is now going to be a, a detriment to my professional career. Yeah. That was the first step of like, well, these are gone and my mind started shifting of what else am I doing? That's bad for me that will, not look in my professional career and right. 00:08:57 Zach That's when I started running and doing the little things, but that was the main shift for me, was this external judgment from somebody who said something like that. It just completely 180 degree my thought process of what I was doing to myself. Yeah. 00:09:14 Terry Yeah. Somebody else may have, you want, you always want to be in control. You want to think like, you're, you feel like you're in control, but it's for you to be able to know, to recognize that and actually act on it. That's those are the keys right there, just going ahead and act in on something that was a judgment call to you. That's that's good. 00:09:40 Zach Yeah. Acting on it was, I, I say, I quit smoking, right. That was probably one of the hardest things I ever did in my entire life. Like that is no joke, not easy. So, it's easy to say now. Right. But, at the time it was incredibly difficult, very painful and a big struggle, but it was worth it to make that change. That's awesome. 00:10:07 Jeremy I think I've had probably three really significant, moments that really changed everything for me. And, one was when I, I had the dumbest knee injury you've ever heard of in your life. We, I don't know if you guys have this out there, but Amazon, they deliver groceries. Yeah. We are, our daughter was very young. She was like, still in the crib. One morning the Amazon guy shows up at like six in the morning and he's dropping the groceries off and the dog loses his mind, starts barking. If you've ever had kids, that anyone who wakes up your kid deserves to be. 00:10:41 Speaker 4 Punished. Yes. I just, 00:10:43 Jeremy I rolled out of bed to like quickly try and quiet my dog. Somehow like rolled my knee and just collapsed on the ground. Couldn't couldn't walk, totally hurt my knee, literally getting out of bed. And it was the stupidest injury. And, so I started going to physical therapy for it. The physical therapist learned about my background and all that. She said, if you don't get on a bike, you're going to end up replacing both of your knees. Now. I was like, wow. Okay. I can do that. I bought a bike on Craigslist and started biking to work. And, and it was funny. I was having a conversation with my brother about it. I was like, yeah, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to, it's a 10 mile ride. I don't know if we'll be able to do this every day. He's like, dude, you just need to decide. 00:11:20 Jeremy You're that weird guy, that bikes to work every day, just make that mental shift and you'll do it. And he was absolutely right. Literally the next day I started biking to, and from work every day. So that was the first one. Another one was like I mentioned, yo-yo dieted my entire life. The conversations I was having with Zach, were camping one weekend sitting around the campfire and he was talking about how he had just lost, like, I don't know, 40 pounds or something in a few months doing the keto diet and like most conversations I often have with Zach, I started with, you're crazy. How do you do that? That's insane. Okay. I gotta try it. I tried it and I lost 70 pounds using the keto diet and just like some light exercise and of fasting and came off in a few months. So that was the other one. 00:12:07 Jeremy The other was, I've battled depression, my entire life on and off of various meds, to just to try and curb it. None of them really worked for me. And, it was shortly after my bike crash. I was on some opioids for awhile. I was like, man, these are really good. I stopped them after like a week. Cause like, that's, this is a dangerous road to go down. Once I stopped taking those, I also stopped taking my antidepressants and then it was new years. I had just a few beers, like nothing crazy woke up the next day with a hangover and just was like, I am just done. Like, those few beers were not worth feeling like this. Yeah. Literally quit drinking. That was like three or four years ago now. Those three things have been it, there's just, this really locked in mental shift where I just went, I'm done living that way. 00:12:57 Jeremy Yeah. I'm going to live this way now. Those three things I've never really looked back on it. 00:13:03 Roy Yeah. I'll just go, I can relate to the Amazon incident because I had almost a similar one. Usually they come in the afternoon or whatever. We've got a little, we live out in kind of in the wilderness. So, the front camera went off and usually it's like a varmint Armadillo or raccoon or something walking across. I just rolled over, pulled up my phone and looked at it and there was this car sitting up on the road that just won't leave. So, I did the same thing. I catapulted out of bed over both dogs and, threw the shoes and, slipped on the floor and getting out there. And it's just the Amazon grocery. I'm like doodles. She was at cigar in our space. Yeah. He delivers groceries at six 15 in the morning. Good. 00:13:47 Speaker 4 Tell him, I forgot to tell him, 00:13:51 Roy Talk about, Zach mentioned the opinions of others. It's funny because I being a heavy person, when I look at heavy people, I still have, negative thoughts. Let me just put it that way. I don't ever think about people thinking that of me. You really stop and think about, oh my gosh, all these, negative opinions that people form of me just because they see me without even meeting me or knowing anything. Now I try not to make the cover of the Walmart people page on Facebook with my pants riding down and my shirt riding up. I do try to stay, totally covered up, but still, I mean, it's just like people view you as inferior or damaged or something, but I don't know. I think about that, hasn't been enough to change me and it's like, I still continue on doing these things. So I don't know. 00:14:51 Roy It's I gotta give you credit for being able to, make that change based on that, because I, I wished I could, it's just been a struggle, finding that thing that works, that continues. We talked a little pre-show about, I'm good for about two, three months of something. If we have a little change in the way life goes, that, were doing good back in the fall and then Terry was gone for about three weeks. And, yeah. I mean, then McDonald's and taco bell became my best friend again, driving up there to try to get something to eat. Instead of cooking in, anyway, that's just kind of my downfall. It just be nice to be able to string together six months or a year, and stay on that path. Any advice either, but any, either one of y'all want to throw out about that would be very helpful. 00:15:41 Zach Yeah. A couple things. So, so the mindset of like what you look like. I do have like a quick, I I've, being 300 pounds, I have always felt as though I was a big guy. And internally it was never quite enough. Like I would push myself so hard to like work out, to eat, right. To the point where I made a comment to my wife one day that, man, I'm still, really fat. She was like, dude, you realize that I can see your abs. Right. She made me take a picture and like, they weren't showing much, but you could see a couple of ad muscles. That was a moment where like in our heads, we, for me anyway, even though I wasn't really that big anymore, I still felt really big. I was working really hard on it. Like that internal mindset of like what you think of yourself is really important to make sure that you're telling yourself the truth there. 00:16:43 Zach Yeah. To the other question of like, how do you stick to it? You can't like, that's what I had to accept. I would go really hard for three months and then I would cave. Yeah. I would beat myself up because I caved and cave more because I beat myself up and it would be this never ending spiral. Yeah. Three months later, two months of those games were gone. I've really just come back to like the 80, 20 principle. Right. If you're doing the right thing, 80% of the time, it's okay to go wild 20% of the time. Yeah. Right. Be okay with that and be forgiving of yourself for it. 00:17:24 Roy The thing is that forgiveness, because you're exactly right. When you fall off the, whatever you're doing, the Eaton exercise. I, I realized to lose weight exercise, doesn't need to be, we can lose weight with our diets 70, 80% or whatever, but I just feel like I've got to have that exercise. It makes me feel so much better. Anyway, it doesn't matter if we're talking about diet exercise or whatever. It's like, once you fall off, then it's like, so hard on ourself and then the non forgiveness. It's like, well, I've already, had three tacos that, what's it going to hurt? I'll have another, I'm going to go ahead and eat bad today. And then tomorrow I'm going to change. Tomorrow goodness knows something else pops up to where, it just, you just kicked that can down the road further and further. 00:18:12 Zach Yeah. I also try and schedule things too. So, ing that I'm going to be 80, 20. Saturday is kind of my, and I know some people don't like cheat days, but this is for me works well. Yeah. On Saturdays. I do whatever I want. If I don't want to work out, I don't work out if I want to eat pizza and ice cream, I do that. Having that schedule for me is actually really helpful knowing that I'm going to have a 20% of going crazy. Yeah. On Wednesday when I have that craving, I, I just go, okay, let's write that down. You're going to have that on Saturday. 00:18:44 Roy That's a, that's a good tip. I like that. 00:18:48 Terry Yeah. Just having something to look forward to that helps. 00:18:52 Zach The, the problem with that is once you do have the cheat day though. For me on Saturday, I eat all, I have sugar and junk food in your body. On Sunday you have that craving and it's really hard to go back into it. It doesn't work for everyone, but it definitely works for me. I wouldn't w it's something you can try. 00:19:13 Roy Yeah. Yeah. I've, I'm that way about, I guess I feel sometimes like I have to be totally strict and can't let anything creep back in because just that one, that little door opening for me, it's like back in the day when they came out with the little skinny blue, the skinny bell ice cream sandwiches, I mean, those are great. They're probably work well if you eat one, but if you eat a whole box of was like, well, that was so good. Let me just have six of them, and I, I'm an ice cream fanatic too. That's, that's even harder to give up something that is, and we talked about this with the, more of a psychologist type person the other day that, I, I grew up with ice cream, it was a reward. Now I'm thinking about that instead of thinking about, Hey, let's go celebrate and have some ice cream. 00:20:07 Roy It's like, what I get on my, TX band and do, 25 pull-ups or something, trying to shift that mindset from it's a reward because I think it goes back to the validation of us is that's what growing up, that was always the reward or the treat is, Hey, let's stop by dairy queen and let's go up to the soda fountain and, get a banana split. Trying to change that from, we can still celebrate, but now, it needs to be a physical activity, either walking or pulling up doing something to better ourselves, better myself. 00:20:43 Terry Jeremy, you were talking about, I think it was you, did you say something about meditating? 00:20:48 Jeremy Yeah. I was just going to say kind of two things on what you're talking about there. One I know for me, I look at my weight issues as being a symptom of my emotional and mental health issues. I can tell by looking in the mirror, how much I still have to do inside. That's where for me, the more I meditate, the more that I do that inner work, the more strength I find to do the outer work, to do the running and the other things. That's something to consider, but also, I just want to commend you on the fact that you're on this journey. This is an incredibly difficult journey at any stage of your life. Well, thanks. But, but especially in a system where the food that is affordable and accessible is garbage, right. Much of what you have available to eat goes against your body's biology and the way that it wants to live. 00:21:44 Jeremy You're fighting a losing game almost every bite fall. Yeah. To the amount of knowledge I think you need from a nutrition standpoint is almost impossible. I think for most people who have busy lives and things to do, because it's just not something that we're taught in a way that makes sense as we're growing up. Yeah. Every ad is, oh, you deserve a treat today. Well, yeah, maybe, but maybe I don't, maybe I'm just lazy. Maybe I just want to eat garbage because it tastes good. That makes me want to eat more garbage. So, so that, so two things there, but one, I think that is really important. I do think that for a lot of people, food is an escape from whatever the issue is that we're struggling with whatever trauma we haven't dealt with from our childhood, whatever. I do think that the, at least in my experience, and I'm no doctor here. 00:22:38 Jeremy The more work you can do, dealing with what's going on inside will allow you the freedom and the desire to do the work on the outside. And, and for me, exercise is almost never about building muscle or getting stronger, or it's all in my head. The more I run, the more I bike, the harder, the yoga, whatever I'm doing to push my body is all about releasing those demons. I like the phrase I like to say is a tired muscles, quiet, dark voices, because the more you quiet those dark voices, the more you're going to be able to live a healthier life and make better choices. 00:23:13 Roy Yeah. No, and I think you're right. And that's something, yeah. I don't think I've told, we haven't really put this out there, but what, cause I think back about that, what am I not dealing with because it's just been so difficult. I just I've become to feel that if I wasn't dealing with some, or wasn't not dealing with something, if there was an unresolved issue, it would be a lot easier. I'm actually going to do, I'll let Terry say the name of it. Reiki, Reiki. 00:23:41 Terry I did my first Reiki session yesterday. 00:23:43 Roy I'm actually going to go try that. And, supposedly it can, it's supposed to be a big release with some things like that. So, I'm open to try and I just I'm to the point in life that I want to make changes and it's, things that I've done in the past just haven't really worked or they've worked. Then, like Zach said, you put it all back on eventually. And, I'm just ready to make a change, for a lot of reasons, but just to get all this behind me. So. 00:24:13 Jeremy Something, something to consider too, like you seem to be aware of the pattern, right? Like it two or three months of this is going to fail me. Yeah. Just when you go with, go into whatever you're going into go, I'm going to do this for 30. I'm going to do this for a week next week. I'm going to do that. Like, just give yourself smaller goals because none of us is going to stick to anything for a year, for 10 years for it's never going to happen too much is going to get in the way. Right. Today I'm going to decide every day, this week I'm going to go walk for 20 minutes next week, it'll be 30 minutes, whatever it is, but just give yourself those smaller goals. And, and the more you pick up those little wins, the confidence grows and you'll be able to score those bigger wins. 00:24:53 Jeremy That's. 00:24:53 Roy Great. Yeah, that's a good point. Cause I, I am too much in that, looking at a year lifetime or whatever it is instead of just, and I guess this gets back to the meditation and being in the moment is just take it one meal at a time, one day at a time, one step at a time. It's, I guess it's the other part I, I have to say is it's daunting because it's like, the impatience is all I can say is like, it, and I think why haven't I been impatient, putting on all this weight now, all of a sudden I'm here now, all of a sudden I'm impatient. I want it all gone. It took years to get here. It may take years to get away from here, but it's like, nah, if I do something, if I go out and walk around the block, I expect to come home and I've lost 15 pounds or something ridiculous like that. 00:25:46 Roy It's like, it's just take it that whatever I did today, exercise wise and eating wise, that's better than what I was yesterday. I, trying to break it down into those smaller wins is definitely something I can work on for sure. Sure. 00:26:00 Terry Yep. Have you guys done a plant-based diet where we're delving into that now? Do much about the plant-based? 00:26:12 Zach I can I'll let Jeremy talk about that because I am a carnivore and I love hamburgers and steaks and chicken. Yeah. I've, I think I've tried it once or twice for maybe a couple of days. And, while I'm sure there are some health benefits and I'm sure there's some good stuff about it. I just really enjoy hamburgers. Jeremy's the vegetarian though, so we can talk. Okay. 00:26:39 Jeremy Yeah. I've been a vegetarian for probably 25. Oh, w w with occasional cheats here and there. Yeah. Any diet, if you don't do it right. You're, it's just a mess. When I talked to him nutrition at one point and a nutritionist at one point, and they said, I kind of told them what I, and oh, you're not a vegetarian, you're a cheese and bread. Attarian, you know, that's not good. You don't want to combine your fats and your carbs at every meal because that's how you put on a bunch of weight. So, definitely I think any diet, if you do it well, is going to beneficial. There are loads and loads of studies that will tell you a plant-based diet is ideal, is what you should be doing. I, I read a book, man, I'm forgetting the author's name now, but he broke down diet in a really simple way. 00:27:29 Jeremy It was just like, eat food, not too much. Oh, what's the third thing, eat food, not too much. Mostly plants. Yeah. His whole point was like, so much of what we eat is not food. Much of what is in the store is not food. If it didn't grow out of ground or it doesn't walk on the ground, it's not food. Right. You know, I, I eat impossible burgers. I eat, I eat tons of like processed fake meats to get my protein because I'm lazy. Because I have childhood associations with, a meat and potatoes diet. It's a lot of just a conditioning that I need to break. Yeah. But if you can eat, yeah. I mean the more locally sourced and plant-based, and not too much is a pretty simple rule to live by. And, and, I definitely think it's worth experimenting with, if you haven't before. 00:28:17 Jeremy Yeah. Why not? 00:28:18 Roy I haven't in a, we're in a touch second week and I feel like we're doing good and we're not the we'll never eat meat again. Were talking the other day that, if we get hungry for Terry was craving a hamburger yesterday and out so bad and she had to go somewhere and I'll say, well, just get it on, stop by and get one on your way. It's not a big deal. We, I think because the other part of this is, I think the more you tell yourself, oh, you can't have that. The more, psychologically, we want that. It's like, if we want to eat a piece of meat or a piece of fish, just we can do it, but I just, we're trying, I want to eliminate that because I've gotten to feel how, when I eat beef, especially it just, it seems to weigh me down and bother me the next day. 00:29:01 Roy Like being, not being able to get up. I'm telling you that, I felt my inflammation go down the last couple of weeks. Also just being, much, easier flinging up out of bed with a lot of energy and feeling good, but that's, and it's have to be fair to say, that's not meat or beef or proteins fault. That was, that was my fault for eating at the wrong time of day. That's another thing that we kind of have to talk about that goes with this. We, we're doing the intermittent fasting, so we try to eat our last meal by seven and then we're not eating again until lunch. So, I feel like that has been the most beneficial for me because I'm a late night eater. I mean, at nine, 10 o'clock at night, man, I am ready. Before, before Terri, man, I would physically get in the car at nine o'clock at night and go up to the convenience store and raid the shell, and get the little nacho bowl and a candy bar and come home and eat it. 00:30:03 Roy It's something about going to bed, feeling that full, satisfied feeling. Trying to get rid of that as well as the other thing, I kind of laugh about is that if I get just a little twinge of hunger and empty stomach, I'm like, oh my God, that must be death knocking at my door. It's like trying to realize that feeling can be there for a couple of hours and I'm probably not going to pass out or have any negative reactions. So, that's something that's like, oh my God, I felt my stomach. I need to run to the cabinet and load up on something, ? 00:30:36 Zach Yeah. I I've so I intermittent fast most days. It's actually 1:30 PM here right now and I still haven't eaten anything. I probably won't until dinner at this point, just because, if I eat now, my dinner will be ruined. Like my dad would always tell me. But interim and fasting is great. It really teaches you the difference between I am actually hungry for food and my body is craving food and I need the energy from food and the, I have something emotional or mental going on that I want to go crack the cupboard open for it. I did a three-day fast one day, or over three days, I did three days. That was such an eyeopening moment because you go three days without actually eating anything. All of these little, I had all these moments of like, I need to go eat Y oh, you're about to do a task that is hard or something that you want to avoid or remind you of something. 00:31:44 Zach I had all these connections in those three days of why I wanted to go eat. None of it had anything to do with being hungry. Yeah. It was, it was a really great realization. 00:31:54 Roy That's awesome. I had, I I'm going to brag. I don't usually do that. I want to brag about last night. I was sitting here putting together one of our episodes and, I don't even know why I just got up, went to the cabinet, opened it. This is like, what? Nine 30 got up, went to cabinet, opened it up and it was chickpeas. So, I mean, I have to say it wasn't like Doritos, but, and I had the chickpeas out. I had them open. I had my hand in it and I thought, why am I eating these it's nine o'clock I'm not supposed to be, I don't want to be doing this because it'll make me and I actually put them up without eating them. For me, that's a huge victory because what I have found too, is that it's that mindless eating, like in the past, I would have gone over there, ate a handful of, and then, 10 minutes, 15 minutes later realized, wow, I wish I hadn't had done that. 00:32:43 Roy Or, you know why I wasn't hungry. It was just a habit. So, yeah, I'm kind of fighting that too is just breaking these mindless habits of always feeling like you have to have something in your hand, eating. 00:32:56 Zach Good for you though. You were at the point of no return. That's, that's hard to turn back from that point. 00:33:01 Roy I, it was so bad. I actually had to wash my hands to get all the salt off of my hands. I have my eye on that board. 00:33:11 Jeremy We had a really interesting conversation. A few episodes ago. We had a guest, Dr. Judson brewer, and he's really big on curiosity when it comes to breaking habits and whether it's addiction, food, whatever. And we talked about that specific thing. Because I'm the same way I have to fast, otherwise I will nine, 10 o'clock whereas the popcorn where something quick that I can just emotionally escape into. Yep. And he raised the point. He's like, just get really curious every time that those urges come up, rather than giving into them, rather than fighting them, rather than like having this volatile relationship with that experience. Just get really curious with why do I need eat right now? What does is my body sending me a signal that says, Hey, you're really hungry. You're about to snap somebodies head off, or are you bored? Are you sad? Are you lonely? What's driving this? And it is amazing how just asking yourself, why am I doing this? Yeah. 00:34:05 Jeremy Will completely shift your relationship with that moment. To put you on a course, to your bigger, better offer, right? Your bigger, better goal. If I want to feel better, I don't want to wake up with this Dorito hangover. I want to wake up clear of brain fog and I'm ready to take on the day and know that I don't need to eat until lunch because I'm not going to starve. I'm in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, I'll find foods. 00:34:28 Roy And the paramedics are at nine one. They're just a moment. Give me an Abbey and get me back up on the ground. 00:34:34 Jeremy I don't think they delivered Doritos. I mean, 00:34:38 Speaker 4 By the way, I go by QT and grab us some bags and stuff. 00:34:43 Roy Yeah. That's a, I guess a good question for you guys since y'all have y'all are pretty far down the journey, but one of the, I was just thinking about the name of our podcast is feeding fatty. It was kind of a irreverent comment when were kicking it around, cause I just said, we're trying to find a name and all the healthy ones are taken or sound too corny. Were like, eh, and I just said, yeah, we could just say something like, feed no fatty. And Terry said, yeah, that's it. The other thing I think about is that, I think I will always be, even if I lost weight and got to where I want to be, I feel like I will always be that heavy person inside that I always have to be on guard. It's like, and I'm going to ask, I asked this question of both of y'all, but it's like being a reformed smoker, being a reformed drinker, because I, I'm not, I never smoked like packs and packs a day, but on the may have one and there are times that cigarettes, you smell very good. 00:35:41 Roy I mean, they smell good enough. You could eat one. It's like, I'm not even a, really a smoker, but that temptation is always there. I assume that temptation is always going to be here with food. That it's something you got to fight forever or not fight, but deal with put it that way. 00:35:57 Zach Yeah, it is. I mean, it's always there's a lake Jeremy side, right? There's a whole industry on making sure that, this kind of food is there and there's marketing and it's made to make you want more. The way I've tried to live is, for every, all of every single attempt that I've made at eating healthier, of it has stuck. The next time, a little more stuck and the next time, a little more stuck. Now if I look back like, I had to take my mom somewhere one day and she wanted to go to McDonald's and I had been eating healthy for three months and I ate McDonald's and I felt so bad after eating. McDonald's like brain fog. My body hurt my stomach was in doing somersaults. Even the next day for a couple of days, I didn't feel good. I thought about it and I was like, okay, I have now conditioned myself to feel good when I eat good food, because 20 years ago I would eat McDonald's for lunch and dinner and then I'd go back for a snack. 00:37:09 Zach And that was just normal for me. Every time I've tried to eat healthy, right. You're just going to reinforce it more and you're gonna fail and you're always going to go backwards. For me, that's always been the case like now where I'm at now, while I still don't feel like I eat as well as I want to eat, I look back at the journey and how much it's different. Yeah. How much change there is, how much the, those little steps have now added up to this one big thing where I'm doing pretty well. I could still grow, but I'm doing pretty well. Yeah. 00:37:46 Terry It's good that you realize that now because you guys, I mean, you guys have young kids too, right? I mean that you have to factor all a nine-year-old, you have to factor all of that in and what your world can handle and, how much time you have and trying to do, that's what we just get caught up in the rat race, going through the drive-through having everything right there at our Beck and call. That's gotta be an issue too. I mean, that part of it. 00:38:19 Zach Yeah. Well, and also, I mean, having my daughter watch what I'm doing, right. It's for me, it's, I watched my dad, I watched my mom and it was poor choices. Those poor choices lived on in me. It's my responsibility kind of break that chain and have my daughter watch me make good choices most of the time yeah. With the occasional reward. Right. And, and break that chain. She doesn't grow up in the same way, having those, poor relationship with food that I always have. Yeah. 00:38:51 Terry Right. Yeah. I always, I have, my daughters are almost 23 and 29 now. I used to tell them all the time, I thought you were only three. I'm sorry, did I say 29? And. 00:39:07 Speaker 4 Let the cat out of the bag there. But. 00:39:11 Terry I used to tell him all the time and I still do just joking with him, add that to your list for therapy, for your future therapist. That's just something that you're going to have to, but the more that you, like you were saying, your daughter's nine and she needs to emulate you and your decision, your choices. She doesn't have to deal with this later on in life. Yeah. 00:39:35 Zach Trust me that there's plenty of other things that I'm doing that is going to need therapy later. She has, she'll. 00:39:41 Terry Have a running list. It'll go forever. 00:39:44 Zach She has a little notebook that says notes to my future therapist. 00:39:48 Terry Get rid of that. I mean, gold frame it, 00:39:51 Roy Well, the other thing is that we're, I'm getting to a point of, we start thinking about outliving our wellness and that's a new little catch phrase that we like to use is because, you see so many people that they age and, either they're, they've got a good mind and their body's broken down or their body's broken down and they still have a good mind. A lot of times they have to have intensive care from somebody else, a family member typically. So, at some point I've started really thinking that one through that, I wish I'd have started earlier, but it's never too late to start, but the sooner we can think about what are we going to look like when we're 80, because, nowadays they talk about, diabetes or they talk about dementia being the, type three diabetes. And, just some of the things that we've done with the quality of food that we've eaten and, it really can lead to our detriment. 00:40:51 Roy Sometimes that doesn't manifest it until later in life. 00:40:56 Terry Yeah. The closer we get to that's something I, 00:40:59 Speaker 5 Go ahead. Sorry. 00:41:01 Jeremy Yeah. I was just gonna say that's something that I think about a lot too. I've had a number of friends and family members that have had cancer. I always think it's so interesting how we need that. You're going to die really soon unless you start eating this way. I, I constantly say to myself, get online and Google what your doctor would prescribe. If you were diagnosed with cancer and start eating that right now, it seems really simple. There there's an outline, there's a nutrition plan to fight off cancer, but we don't start eating it until we have it. Exactly. Yeah, I think about that a lot. I also think that is one of those things similar to, I'm going to do this for a year. I'm going to do this for five years. Yeah. If I worry about how I'm going to feel in 30 years, I'm going to lose sight of what do I need to do today. 00:41:48 Jeremy Right. To me, it's just, it's those baby steps. It's whatever I can do today to better than I was yesterday is ultimately what's going to happen when I'm 65, 70, whatever I look back and go, oh, those are the, I made good choices. I did the best I could with. 00:42:02 Terry I know. That's what we just got a, book is called how not to die. It's, it's amazing, but it talks about all those different diseases, the type two diabetes cancers, I just, all of that and inflammation. That's why we decided to kind of go with the plant-based diet because, we have different medications that we're on, for different things. And, just trying to get off of those, you can get off of those medications through eating properly, what you eat. Yeah. It's, that's what kinda turned us in toward that direction. Not only that, but, because it's better for us, not to pack on the pounds and all of that. I know we're. 00:42:49 Roy Way long on time guys, but just one more topic I want to bring up is the emotional, cause we're talking about this and, one, another big thing I'm struggling with and trying to break is that, not necessarily like the bad stuff, but more the good stuff, the celebrations, everything is emotional. Like let's go eat or get the ice cream for this to celebrate, but also, factoring in or thinking about it as fun because going out with friends and family and you go somewhere and you eat and chat and the reality is we can go eat healthy, but we can go chat with people and not have to eat bad or eat food that is not as good for us as we would like. So, not tell the story that it's very fresh in my mind that Terry was out running around one day and she called and said, I'm on my way home. 00:43:46 Roy Have you eaten yet? And I said, no. I started welling up inside, like, she's going to say, great. I am going by Chick-fil-A to pick up some stuff. She's like, okay, well there's some salmon and some asparagus in their fridge. I just felt like I just was deflated. It was like, all the air just blew out of me. That again, it's a realization that, oh my gosh, you have this, such an attachment to food that it, what does it matter? Does it really matter if I ate the chick? whatever I eat it's as long as it's healthy and it gives me fuel to live for another day. That's really all this is about, but these, all these attachments that we have, it's just crazy. 00:44:31 Jeremy I know in my case, all of that links back to sugar, the more processed and sugary foods I have, the way easier it is to cave into those cravings, to cave, to those emotions and eat that way. I, I mentioned that I, I started doing the keto diet after a conversation with Zach, and it wasn't even that strict about it. I just went, what, I'm just a hundred carbs a day. That's it, that's my limit. I'm going to experiment with that. And we'll play with that. See where that leads me. I got more and more strict about it. I started working out every day and doing these things. It was so funny because I distinctly remember this day at work when, one of my colleagues was eating wheat thins. She's just sitting at her desk snacking. I mean, she was like a cheerleader for the Houston rockets. 00:45:13 Jeremy I mean, she's in fantastic shape and she's, she can eat whatever she wants. She offered me some and I looked at it and it was as though she was offering me a hockey puck was just like, I was like, that's not even food. Like how, what you're asking by offering me this. I can't even process that as a question because you're not offering me food. My relationship just completely changed with those kinds of foods because I had just so completely cut them out of my diet and was feeling so good. They're just like, it just doesn't I two and three makes 47. That does not compute. I can't do that. Yeah. Just changing that relationship was huge for me. Again, not to be repetitive, but I just think that why question is going to be the thing that is a game changer for so many people. 00:45:58 Jeremy When I, when I still get an occasional, craving to drink a beer, I love beer. Love it, delicious, amazing. It just, it's, it causes more problems for me than solves them, although it does solve some problems, but by shifting to non-alcoholic beers, I've found some really high end ones that are really good, that tastes like real beer. You mentioned those reward systems and like the hanging out with friends, I can drink those and have that in my hand. It feels exactly the same as it used to only I don't wake up feeling horrible the next day. 00:46:36 Zach Yeah. Yeah. I quit drinking probably five years ago now, too. I was gonna use that as an example, the, it was a very hard thing to do because so of all of my friend group, I was the first one to do it. We would, but one of the things we would do is we would meet at a pub to socialize and everyone would drink beer. I was showing up and not drinking beer and I was drinking water. It was really hard to do, mentally, right. Because you go, you're going to drink beer. From the food perspective, I will say, I started earlier, like I did a three-day fast and having, that data of really reflective moments of why am I hungry? Yeah. Like what is the real here? I know I'm not going to die. What's the real reason. And, and just exploring that and being curious about it. 00:47:37 Zach I think that's one of the things that's really helped me is the curiosity, the, having the courage and to be brave enough to explore that stuff. Because if we're all being honest, right, you open some of those doors, you don't want to look inside. Right. Right. You want to keep them closed. If you can get to the underlying problem as to what's going on, right. It, it really does change your relationship now. Now my reward for, Hey, I want to go eat something. My reward is I go do 10 pushups. Yeah. I switched it. If I can. 00:48:14 Jeremy Jump on something that you said there too, even it doesn't always have to be the dark demon in the closet. I know for me, I have a habit of, during my Workday, I just, I need a reason to get up and walk away from the desk. Right. Way too often, it's go grab a snack from the kitchen. It used to be, go across and get another cup of coffee and a snack from the kitchen or whatever. When I get real honest with myself, the reason I'm doing it is I don't like my job. I don't want to be doing it. I won't come up with any distraction to go do something else, even if it's for two minutes. And even if it poisons my body. That's not like, dad beat me up when I was three. That's just, Hey, I got to find another job. 00:48:53 Jeremy This isn't working out for me. It doesn't always have to be basing your deepest, darkest fear. Sometimes it's just overcoming whatever the small hurdle is. That's right in front of your face. Yep. 00:49:02 Roy Yeah. Are feeling like we need that reason. Cause I'm the same way of being like, I love my job. Thank goodness. It's like, task within that, you bump up against something that's kind of hard. It makes you have to sit and think, and it, and I'm the same. It's like, well, let me just get up and get something to eat while I think about this. The other thing too is I, I feel so much better if I just go for a walk. If I take the same five minutes and go outside fresh air and clear my head, I would come back and even perform better, but not eating and then feeling bad. And, talking about the beer and stuff, around here going and having some, Mexican food with margarita and some chips, but I'm telling you, I could, and it's it, wasn't a hangover, but I could drink one margarita and the chips and I could feel so bad the next morning, till 10 or 11, o'clock it just a cloud and feel like, for my eyes and above was just full of congestion. 00:50:00 Roy So, that's been a big reason too, for me to switch some things and not to go do that it's because I just got where it makes me so feel so bad the next day, I'm trying to get out from under it got worse and worse. So. 00:50:14 Jeremy Yeah, your body's going to be the best teacher in all of this. It's just pay attention to attention or do whatever it is you're going to do and you'll make them, you'll make the right. 00:50:21 Roy Choices, guys. I know we're way late, for, we go couple things. What is a tool, a habit? What is something that each of y'all do in your daily life that adds a lot of value, professional, personal whichever. 00:50:34 Zach Yeah. I'll I want to make sure I mentioned something that I haven't mentioned already. So, as weird as this sounds journaling for me is a huge one. I, I currently use a, a product called the full focus planner and it's just a kind of a methodology and this planner that you get, your three biggest things done and you schedule everything. Within that, it's professionally personally, right? I schedule my healing time. I schedule my work time. I schedule my, family time and it allows me to be productive and not put things off, but it also gives me a place to get my thoughts out on a piece of paper, because once they're out of my head, they're not circling around and causing trouble anymore. So, and that's my own preference for journal. If you can just spend a couple of minutes with yourself, getting the thoughts out of your head onto a piece of paper and being grateful about it can make a huge difference in your day. 00:51:38 Zach Yeah. Way to steal my thunder. And you. 00:51:43 Jeremy Say the exact same thing. It is, it is so important to me every day to envision the day, the way I want it to go so that when I do run up against those roadblocks and I feel like, oh, I need to, I want to eat something I want to not work out. I can look back and go, well, what did I tell myself this morning when I was alert and on it and focused and knew what I wanted out of life. Yeah. And I can refer to that. It just, it really keeps me accountable. Most days what I wrote down doesn't happen. A lot of it does some of it doesn't and that's again, getting comfortable with forgiving yourself and forgiving that you cannot create the exact life you want, but you can work toward goals. Yeah. The closer you get, the better you'll feel along the way. 00:52:22 Jeremy Then, just in terms of something practical or something more tangible that I have been experimenting with, and it might sound weird, and this is probably a whole other show, but I've been experimenting with using CBD as a supplement. Because I've found that it really regulates my anxiety and my depression and it helps keep me focused. It's not, there's no high, there's no psychotropic effect. It's just, it's about balancing your body's natural cannabinoids to a level that is the way they should be functioning. That so many things like diet and busy lifestyle center. 00:52:56 Roy Okay. Interesting. Yeah. The journaling, it's funny, you mentioned it cause I've been trying to do better about that. And, not just, and I think like Zach said, it seemed like just getting things. It doesn't have to be stressed, but just getting the thought, whatever it is out of my head and on paper, it just seems to be so much more clearing. I feel like I've had a clear head, doing it too. So, 00:53:21 Terry Yeah. Zach, you mentioned it's so important to be grateful. I mean, just think about being grateful at least a few times a day, that has a lot to do with it. Just keeping that positivity go. And. 00:53:37 Roy Most of us have a lot to be thinking, yes, we do. You get it instead of getting focused on that negative and why we want to go eat, because let's focus on the, all the great things. We talk a lot about that too. If you've got 10 things on your to-do list today, and you get seven done, we beat herself up over these other three, but let's celebrate the seven. Let's take away some gratitude. Anyway, I'm going to wrap it up. You guys, we could talk for a lot longer, so thank y'all tell everybody course, how can they reach out and get a hold of, y'all talk about your, podcast. 00:54:10 Jeremy Yeah, the website is, thefitmess.com and we're fitness guys on pretty much every social platform that's out. 00:54:17 Roy There. Okay. All right. Well, great. Well, thanks so much. I can find us, of course, at www.feedingfatty.com. We're on all the major social media platforms, as well as the major podcast platforms, iTunes, Stitcher, Google, Spotify. If we're not one that you listened to, please reach out, be glad to get it added. So till next time I'm rolling. I'm Terry take care of yourself and take care of your family. Thanks guys. Thank you. Thank you. www.thefitmess.com www.feedingfatty.com

Doug and Zach worked together at Intel. Zach took a major risk and moved his family to the Ukraine so that his children could learn his wife's native language and see Europe from the perspective of a local. YouTube Video of Episode: https://youtu.be/UBLUS2Cvt98 (https://youtu.be/UBLUS2Cvt98) Doug's business specializes in partnering with companies and non-profits to capture overhead cost savings without layoffs to fund growth and strengthen financial results. Schedule time with Doug to talk about your business at www.MeetDoug.Biz [Music] [Introduction] Welcome to the terminal value Podcast where each episode provides in depth insight about the long term value of companies and ideas in our current world. Your host for this podcast is Doug Utberg, the founder and principal consultant for Business of Life, LLC. Doug: Alright, welcome to the terminal value podcast. My name is Doug and I have a guest today His name is Zach Everton. Zach can actually work together for quite a while back at Intel. And Zach has a very unique story. What he did was he actually left a major company in his hometown to go and live in Ukraine with his wife, who of course, is also Ukrainian, and their kids to give them a different life experience. And I brought Zach on because I think he's a really cool guy. And being he's kind of a hero of mine, just because, you know, he took a really, really big risk. And he's just figuring it out. Zach, how are you doing? Zach: I'm good.  Doug: Awesome. Zach: Excited to catch up with you. It feels like we haven't talked in a while, like, I know, like three years. Doug: Or so half years. Yeah. A little bit of background for all the listeners at home. So Zach and I both worked at Intel. I left Intel about right around 2018. And you Zach left shortly after that. But you know, it's been, you know, at the time of this recording is 2020. You know, the, the, you know, the year of everybody's misery, apparently memorable year in all of human history, probably. But yeah, it's been a couple years since Zach, and I've caught up, we reconnected on LinkedIn. And yeah, I'm just really interested in hearing Zach's perspective, just because the way that he has made his decisions is so different from the way that a lot of us do. You know, a lot of us are like, okay, you know, you need to get promoted, you need to make more money, you need to move to a bigger house, you need to get bigger cars, you know, you don't get more debt. And you and Zach actually made a very significant life change for the benefit of his kids so that his kids could learn about his wife's culture. That's just one of the things I've always really admired about Zach. So Zach, you just tell us a little bit about that. And you're a part of what I'm trying to do for all the viewers and listeners is to give them a perspective into some different ways of thinking just because of corporates kind of all tend to sound alike after a little while. And it's like, there's a lot of people and companies that are actually, you know, kind of regular normal salt of the earth kind of people. And I'm just really intrigued by people that think different from, you know, what, you know, what you see out of the 10ks and 10qs? Zach: Yeah, well I get a, it's hard to know where to start with all of it. But basically, you know, the choice that we made in 2018, to, to move to Ukraine, that was a meeting of two very strong forces. One of them was my wife being very tied to her Ukrainian culture, and wanting her children to be exposed to that and to feel like they were tied to it as well.  Doug: Yeah.  Zach: And the other force was me feeling like I had taken every safe option in my life. And like, I had never tried to risk something that meant anything. You know, I've often said throughout my life, that like, I don't value things I value experience. And you know, if you think about education, pre, you know, industrial revolution....

Zach chats with Aubrey Blanche, the Director of Equitable Design & Impact at Culture Amp, about re-imagining tech and belonging. She discusses her complicated relationship with race and identity, talks about how to effectively combat diversity fatigue, and much more. Click the links in the show notes to connect with Aubrey and check out Culture Amp's anti-racism plan!Connect with Aubrey on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Visit her personal website.Check out Culture Amp's anti-racism plan by clicking here.Donate to the Justice for Breonna Taylor GoFundMe by clicking here.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Check out our website.Struggling with your Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) work? Kanarys—a Black-founded company—has your back. Regardless of where you are on your DEI journey, we arm you with the insights you need now to take action now. From audits to assessments to data-informed strategy, we'd love to be the partner you have been looking for. Email stacey@kanarys.com or learn more at https://www.kanarys.com/employerTRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and look, you know what we're doing, right? Every single week we're having real talk in a corporate world. And what does that mean? That means we're having authentic conversations that what? Center and do what else? Amplify. Who? Black. And who else? Brown people. I keep on doing this weird call-and-response thing. I guess I'm just really excited. But the point is we're having these conversations, and we typically have them with movers and shakers, and that could be executives to entrepreneurs to social capital investors to activists to elected officials to public servants, authors, you know, whoever. We're talking to everybody. Typically these people are Black and brown, but every now and then we'll have some white or white-presenting folks on the podcast as well, and we're really passionate about that. Our goal is that if you're a Black or brown person or one of the onlys in your workplace that you listen to this and feel affirmed and heard, and if you're not one of those people that you take this opportunity, a rare opportunity, to really hear some frank conversations about, and from the persectives of, Black and brown people about being Black and brown at work, and you can use that information to be a better ally. See what I'm saying? So it helps everybody, and so like I said, every week we have an incredible guest, so let me just put our own collective back at Living Corporate. We've had some incredible guests though, and today's no different. We have Aubrey Blanche. Aubrey Blanche is The Mathpath - that's a math nerd and an empath, which is wild because that's, like, the Dark Side and the Light Side of The Force coming together. She's like a Gray Jedi. Anyway, director of equitable design and impact at Culture Amp and a start-up investor and adviser. Through all of her work, she seeks to question, re-imagine and re-design systems--now, y'all know we're gonna double-click on that in a minute--and practices that surround us to ensure that all people can access equitable opportunities and build a better world. Her work is undergirded--I like that word, "undergirded." Undergirded. Just say that to y'allselves, y'all. Undergirded. Undergirded by her training in social scientific methods and grounded in the fundamental dignity and value of every person. Aubrey, welcome to the show. How are you doing?Aubrey: Hey. Thank you so much for having me. I feel, like, genuinely blown away at the idea that I get to join you, and also your intro makes me want to cry. I just love what you're doing. I love the mission and the vision. And "undergirded" is such a fun word.Zach: It's so great, right? There's certain words that are just really nice to say. "Undergirded." "Plethora."Aubrey: Right? I mean, [I'm a?] deeply over-educated human being, so just occasionally getting to use those silly $17 words that you don't to, but [?].Zach: You don't have to. Erykah Badu once said, "What good do your words do if they don't understand you?" But that's for another conversation, another day. Look, I read your bio, or rather let me be honest--I took out, like, the first 20% of your bio for the sake of this conversation, but what does all of that really mean? Like, what do you actually do?Aubrey: Yeah, what do I do? I feel like what I try to do is crush white supremacy with capitalism, which is confusing conceptually, but really what I think I try to do is harness the privilege that I have and I guess the oppression I've experienced as this very liberal human, and we can talk about what that means, and try to use the privilege that I've had and try to figure out how to scale those out. Like, that's the [?] thing in my soul that I'm trying to do, and right now I happen to do that within the context of technology and investing and finance. What I'm really interested in is learning the rules of systems so that we can begin to evolve those systems so that they begin breaking themselves down where they are harming people.Zach: I like that. I like that a lot. There's a lot of nuance in what you just said, so that's why I'm really excited to get into this. In fact, let's talk a little bit about, like, this moment where we are, right? And before we do that, like, let's zoom in on our interaction about you being on this platform, right?Aubrey: Right. So for folks on the podcast, basically what happened is Zach was awesome and reached out to have me on, and my first sort of response was "Hey, want to be clear that I'm white-passing. I want to make sure that we have sort of BIPOC folks in front of my voice. I'm really happy to speak sort of to my people, but I also want to be respectful of not taking up more space than I need to," and that for me is because--it's really important to me just, like, on a basic, ethical level. Like, we have this moment. It's always been important to listen to those voices, and I've tried to create that space, but it's especially important now because so many people are listening. So I think I'm trying to figure out where my role is in this moment as a woman of color but someone who does have white privilege in so many settings, and then on top of that I'm trans-racially adopted, so there's even more nuance inside that sort of like--Zach: Wow.Aubrey: Yeah, it's a lot.Zach: That is a lot. Okay, so when you say trans-racially adopted, like, your parents are what ethnicity?Aubrey: Yeah. So I'm mixed, and I'm Mexican-American, and as of about a couple weeks ago I found that the other part is Irish. Fun fact - adoption is weird and keeps coming back to you. So my adoptive mother is second-gen American on both sides, Euro-American, and then my adopted father is actually Euro-American and Indigenous. So he's Choctaw and has been an Indigenous legal activist in addition to being sort of corporate counsel, but my dad, what's interesting is despite the fact that I grew up sort of in the Indigenous community and things like that is my dad is also white-passing. So my whole adoptive family looked hella white, but we actually had a really complex sort of racial identity within our family.Zach: I mean--so I think it's important, right? I mean, we're gonna get there in a minute, but... so you operate in this space, right? I know when I first saw your picture I was like--do you watch Steven Universe?Aubrey: I don't.Zach: Okay. So you should check out Steven Universe, 'cause, like, you give me strong Rose Quartz vibes. And it's a compliment. Like, you should look up Rose Quartz. She's great. But you kind of look like a star. Like, you do all these talks and all these things, and so outside looking in it's like--I think you sit in this space that's really interesting. So I'm not gonna profile you, 'cause I've listened to what you actually have to say, but you sit in this space that's, like, you speak about diversity, equity and inclusion, you are white-passing--like, your experience and your identity is much more complex than that, but you sit in this very influential space and it's, like, kind of--what I'm curious about is, considering the space that you've inhabited historically around this work, and when you think about this moment--like, it's kind of like a watershed moment, right? Like, people are really starting to call D&I institutions to account, particularly white women in these spaces and groups. I'm curious, like, is there anything right now that you're more sensitive to? You kind of talked a little bit about you've been thinking about it more. Like, where are you at just emotionally and mentally around this work right now?Aubrey: Yeah. So I think, like, the Overton window of what we can talk about to white people has shifted, and so what I mean by that is my personal philosophy is that I'm someone who was born in a situation that was let's just say much rougher than the one I got adopted into, and something I've always carried with me is--like, the phrase I use to describe it is "Little girls born like me do not sit in rooms and talk to billionaires." It's just a fact. Statistically speaking, there's no reason I should be in the place in the world that I am. And so what I think about is I've moved through these very white supremacist systems, right? Like, I got to survive 'cause I need more SPF than some people, and I've learned how those systems work, but the problem is I always felt really alienated by them because they didn't align with my sense of self, because for a lot of complicated reasons I really have been socialized and racialized as a Latina because of the social context I grew up in, and I didn't actually understand whiteness until I went to college and people stopped being racist to me, and I was like, "Wow, I didn't know that was optional." Truly, and it sounds really silly to someone I think, but just given the specific circumstances of my life that happened. So throughout my 20s as I sort of my grew in my consciousness on this I kind of said, "There are particular spaces I can speak to that people who are darker than me can't," and I own and acknowledge that that is a relic and a fact of a white supremacist system, but it's also still true. So what I try to do, and I will admit imperfectly, which is why I think we need people to keep us accountable to this integrity, is I try to talk to people who are going to listen to me more or I try to say things to shift the Overton window so that when darker people of color say them they receive less abuse. So I recognize when I say something first--and I say first meaning in ths space, not that it's my magical idea, that I'm less likely to just get shit on for it because I look like Karen. And so I think about it like, "Can I be the linebacker for Black women? Can I normalize that idea so that we can make that space less hostile so then I can go, "Now listen to who you should listen to, and let me bring that voice into the room"? So I think that's my dual responsibility, and now because suddenly we're seeing communities actually capable of listening to BIPOC folks without immediately abusing I'm much more careful about where I step back, because I think I have less internal intuition about where the correct action is, and so I'm trying to be more deferential. So that's where I am, but I wouldn't say that I know what I'm doing. I'm figuring it out. Zach: No, that's a really honest answer, and thank you for the context and background. I think your premise, what you started off with in terms of your purpose, is different than most folks. Like, if you ask most people their purpose, like, they're not going to say what their real purpose is, because most folks--painting with a wide brush, but I mean what I'm about to say--most folks' goal is to, by some degree, be white men, right? So, like, their goal is to get as much power as they can. So, like, your whole framing of, like, "I'm gonna block for this other person so that they can have a platform to actually speak, I'm gonna leverage my access and my power and my privilege to then create space for darker-skinned Latinx, for Black women, for other people who are societally, historically in different ways just on their face," no pun intended. Like, that's just not the typical goal, right? So we've talked a little bit about the nuances of your identity and your background, and that's incredible. I'd like to talk more about the concept of being white-presenting while also at the same time being a person of color, right? My challenge, Aubrey, right now is that, like, that "person of color" term is starting to become this, like, junk drawer thing where, like, everybody's a person of color, but we don't really specify or name identity in this work, even now. So, like, that's why with Living Corporate, we don't say "we center marginalized experiences of people of color at work," we say Black and brown because we really want to be explicit with who we're talking about. You know, you brought up being white-presenting. I'd like to hear more about the nuances of, from your perspective, Latinx identity and how you present versus culture and ethnicity, and let's also add, like, the dynamic of how people perceive you.Aubrey: So I think it's something I think about a lot, and I want to bring in another piece of my identity that's been really helpful for me in figuring this stuff out, which is I'm also a queer person. I'm, like, bisexual or pansexual or--I don't know, whatever's something that's definitely not definitely gay and not definitely straight, and I don't really think about it much harder than that, but I have a lot of things that are, like, queer signifiers in terms of my identity but, like, could also just be confused for [alt?] straight people. So again, most of my identities are invisible and liminal, and the way that I think about it is that we talk about that identity construction is a process, and so I can't change that, like, I didn't grow up in a Latin family, for example, and I would never lie about that. Something that was really interesting to me was--I have a friend who's Indigenous who gave me a framework for thinking about this because I've struggled with my legitimacy as, like, part of the Latinx community or how do I relate to this label, "people of color"? I have a complicated set of feelings with that language but think it can be useful in terms of identifying a collective. For me it was really about who I am, and my identity is actually not something that can be challenged. The fact is, right, my lineage comes from people in Mexico, but I also can acknowledge that I have both colonizer and colonized in my DNA, and that is something [I have to?] deal with, but the thing that a friend of mine said that gave me the legitimacy that my identity is real is he said, "I can't accept that the fact that we are pale means we are no longer from our ancestors, otherwise they would have been right that they could [BLEEP] the indigeniety out of us." And that, like, is probably pretty harsh, but for me I was like, "Yeah, you're right. There's an energy. There's a spirit. There's a culture." Now, I, for my own well-being did need to be put in a different family than the one I was originally born into. I've had to connect with and sort of become a part of my culture as an adult, so I've had a little bit of a different experience because of what was important for me. And so I think there's that, but I think to pretend, like, my experience in terms of economics, in terms of the way that I have experienced racism and racialization, are meaningfully different than most or a big portion of the Latinx community, and I think for me that tells me what my role should be. So I'm grateful for the folks who, like, welcome me into the community and don't do the, like, "You're not legitimate 'cause you have a different story," a story that also understands--here's a fun fact - my adoptive mother is the most incredible person I've ever met, absolutely saved my life, and also we know that women of the dominant race, you know, bringing children from the colonized race into their family is [?]. Like, both of those things are true, and so for me I say because I have this almost armor in the systems we live in, my role is to listen to my community and advocate to the majority for it because I can be a translator, because I can move between, and so rather than seeing my ability to play with those systems of oppressions as questions about my legitimacy, I relate to them as in they give me a special role for my activism in the same way I think each of us have a special role in the way that we bring our activism to life in line with our purpose and our unique privileges and oppressions. So yeah, that was really deep for you, but that's my honest answer, and I think I try to hold the humility that, like, I've definitely [BLEEP] up, right? I've definitely done things that were wrong, but I try to surround myself with people who tell me that when it's happening so I can at least try to minimize the way that, you know, my white fragility or my internalized racism or any other -isms aren't impacting the people around me.Zach: I mean, you out here just casually dropping wild bombs. You're doing a phenomenal job. You should continue on this path. Like, stay here. So let's talk a little bit about the culture summit in 2019 that you were at a guest speaker, a keynote speaker [at,] and you talked about diversity fatigue in tech, right? So it's interesting--we're going to continue to nail on this the next few questions, but I feel as if--so the majority has had to be aware or care about Black people for... let's see here, has it been, like, three months? Two-and-a-half months? Like, it's been a handful of months. Like, it hasn't been that long, and people are already talking about being tired. So, like, I'm curious about when you think about the concept of diversity fatigue with, like, white leaders, and especially as you think about it at an organizational level, like, what have you seen work well to manage diversity fatigue?Aubrey: Yeah. I think the thing about it--and this really relates to this idea that I say a lot, which is, like, [BLEEP] D&I, and what I don't actually mean is, like [BLEEP] the goal, and I think they're actually related things. People are tired. Like, I want to sit there and be like, "How dare you get tired?" But I understand how the human nervous system works, so I have to, like, deal with that as a real constraint. But I feel like diversity fatigue is partially happening because everybody's had the same ten diversity talks for five years. They, like, put some money into branding and putting a Black face on their website, and then threw their hands up and said, "Why isn't racism done?" And so when you describe it that way you're like, "Oh, yeah, that was never going to work in the first place." So I think the solution to diversity fatigue, rather than us, like, yelling at people who are tired, which is just going to make them turn off, and I, like, hold in my heart the frustration that we have to do this, right, because people are tired. They've done enough. But again, philosophical versus practical rationalism there. I think it's this move to equitable design that actually I think fights diversity fatigue, because what are people tired of? They're tired of being lectured at. They're tired of not doing. So instead of saying, "We care about D&I," my response is "If you don't have a budget and you don't have a time allocation, I don't care and you don't count," 'cause I'm sorry, your caring didn't help anyone. And that's what equitable design is, right? It's about what saying "What is my plan? What is my process? What is my data about what's broken and what is my idea and my action about how we'll try to fix it?" And when you go with that methodology, suddenly everybody gets a job. So maybe it's--I'm speaking about Culture Amp in this exact moment, our programs, right? Our Black employees' job right now is to attend the mental health program we're offering for them and to take care of themselves. That is their job.Zach: That is so healthy.Aubrey: Right? Like, that is your job right now. In our company anti-racism strategy, our Black [campers?], your job is to take care of yourself. We've made it clear. We've brought in experts. My job is to build the corporate strategy, you know? Our CEO's job is to fully fund the plan. This equitable design idea gives everyone a job, and it's hard to get fatigued with something when you've given people, like, little win breadcrumbs along the way. So I'm not [perfect?], and if folks want to they can check out Culture Amp's anti-racism plan online. We didn't just publish the commitment, we published the operating plan, and at the end of this sort of six-month cycle we'll provide an update for folks because accountability matters. It's real. Cultureamp.com/antiracism if you want to check it out. The pillars are easy, which is support and care, accountability, education, and then access. So for me that's what equitable design is. It's everyone taking a look at the actions that they're already taking in their day and going, "How can I design this to create a more equitable impact?" So maybe you're giving a career coaching to that friend of a friend's kid. Why don't you ask that student to find an underrepresented classmate who you're also gonna give a career coaching conversation to? I'm telling you. I did it last month. When you read a book written by a Black woman, why don't you make sure you go online and write a review for it, because then the algorithm knows that people engage with that book. Right? It's not about always--although certainly if you want to donate to the movement for Black lives and everything I vehemently support you. I think people mistake that, like, activism, that anti-racism, that D&I is something separate from what they're already doing as opposed to a slight edit of the things they're doing. So that's how you overcome fatigue, and I'm totally fine if you as an ally--like, you just did that coaching conversation with someone who would not have had access to an executive before? Like, I'm chill if you pat yourself on the back for that. Go ahead. Like, I know, "ally cookies" or whatever, but if you want to self-high five or you want to tell another one of your friends who isn't marginalized from that group, like, "I did a good thing," and you want a high five from another white person, fine. Cool. If it keeps you motivated and it gets you to do the next 10 things over the next 10 and 100 years, then I'm fully supportive of that. So I guess that's where it is. Like, we fight diversity fatigue by doing things consistently that actually work. Zach: I feel like a large part of this work is massaging white discomfort or trying to figure out ways to, like, Jedi mind trick white folks into caring about Black and brown people. And, like, I hear what you're doing at Culture Amp. The link will be in the show notes, 'cause I just looked at it and it's fire. So it's worth, and I also shared it with a couple of mentors, but I'd like to get your reaction to what I just said and, like, if you agree with that, then, like, is that tenable in today's climate?Aubrey: That's such a good question. I was a little quiet because I was like, "Is it, like, 60% or 80% of the work?" Right? No, I think it absolutely is, and it's the reason that I choose to do this work, because I think something that people don't talk about enough--and I talk about in some communities that I'm building--us white-passing folks are the tactical weapons to solve this particular problem, right? Like, I don't just, like, code switch, although I do that too. I literally identity switch at work minute by minute because I have the unique ability to, like, feel both sides of the coin 'cause I've lived both sides of them, so that's actually a lot of the reason I do the work I do, because I know how much of this is, like, managing white discomfort, and frankly, my face partially manages white discomfort to have discussions about racism and white supremacy. So I think that's true. Now, your next question is really important. Is it tenable or sustainable? I have a complex answer to that. So philosophically my answer to you is no. My deeply practical, science lady answer is it's not an avoidable problem in the short term. So this is a weird theory I'm gonna give you, and it has to do with drug addiction, but I think it's relevant for anti-racism work. So here's a theory I've never spoken online before. So there's something really fascinating about drugs and how they work on the brain, which is that the dosage and the frequency that they hit the brain completely changes the brain's response to it. So, like, small amounts over time create resistance. Large amounts at once tend to cause addiction. I'm vastly oversimplifying, but just work with me. So I'll say people who experience racism--not people of color, but people who experience racism, we basically have been given doses of racial stress throughout our lives, so we now have resilience to it. I'm nto saying it's good. I'm not saying it's ideal. I'm just saying it's sort of a descriptive fact of the world. So white people, we basically have to dose them with enough racial stress in the right ratios at the right time to get them to be able to have these conversations, because what the research is telling us is white fragility is actually, like, people's brains perceiving they're in danger when they're in absolutely no danger whatsoever. Like, that's neuroscience. So philosophically I'm like, "Yeah, it's not sustainable," but we have to think about ways to give people experience through racial stress, white people specifically, so that they're resilient and can have the conversations, and I think that's the process that's happening right now in a broader cultural sense is that white people--I mean, have you seen the New York Times Bestseller list? It looks like my bookshelf. [?] on one of my shelves called "What White America's Reading." So what I'm saying is I think we're in a moment where white people are being dosed with racial stress in a way that they never have been, and so I am saying that, like, we're still probably going to have another--I don't know, I don't want to put a timeline on it. That's a terrible statistician thing to do, but I do think it will change because more white people are educating themselves, and even, like, white people that are in my family that I've never seen talk about racial justice before are, like, texting me and asking me questions. So, like, I'm really hopeful. I know how the 17 million different ways this could go sideways, but I have to hold onto that hope because that's what motivates me to push so hard right now. So I think that there's a real chance that there's enough white people who are like, "Oh, I get some rules now, and I at least know to shut up and listen," that we could build a coalition that's big enough to actually create fundamental structural change. Like, I have to believe that's true because that's what I spend all of my time pushing for.Zach: Right. I mean, I struggle with the ways that this space plays with language. I don't know, like, to a certain extent, Aubrey, like, the language itself becomes like, this test and, like, just becomes very classist, and it becomes really exclusionary, because we're talking in these very, like, esoteric terms that kind of mean whatever, right, and we write long Medium posts about this versus that, but at that same time a lot of folks are still using equity and equality interchangeably. So we really don't understand--when I say we I mean, like, just the common person, not even a D&I expert but just, like, the common person. I do think a word though, when we talk about this space and we talk about achieving belonging at work is, like, redistributing organizational power. I don't often hear the word "power," like, really employed in conversations, particularly around Black engagement, brown people. I don't hear that word. Have you thought about that? Is that significant to you at all?Aubrey: I think I want to add another word in, 'cause I agree with you, right? Getting really esoteric about language, it excludes people who haven't had those discussions about those specific subtle differences. I talk about equity. I actually don't really use the word equality. I don't think about equality that much.Zach: I don't either, but people be throwing--I've seen it. I've seen it, like, some big brands have used the word equality. I'm like, "Why are we--"Aubrey: I'll just give my particular view, and I want to do this without, like, throwing shade, but for me I tend to see people use equality when they're familiar with a lot of the, like, deep social justice theories, because they're articulating the outcome, and equality is the outcome of the process of equity, and the process of equity, by literal definition, is about redistributing power and opportunity, at least in the way that I perceive it. I think the other term that we have to talk about or that I think about a lot, and I can't believe I work at a place where I have, like, advanced, deep conversations with executives about this, is [?] collective organizational justice. I think justice is helpful because there's--I just learned a new type of justice, which is, like, my favorite fact ever, but thinking about, like, what does procedural justice look like, right? Equitable design creates processes that create procedural justice. I think about testimonial justice. So how do I make sure that people's stories have the space to be told in the ways that they need to to respect human dignity and opportunity? And so I think redistributing organizational power is at the core of what I do, so really what I'm doing all day, whether I'm writing a corporate strategy or thinking about what hat I need to wear in a particular conversation, is I'm doing a power analysis of the situation. Like, a good example of this, and I'm gonna put this out there, when I think about power and systemic power, right, one of the most abusive things that exists that most D&I leaders aren't even talking about are forced arbitration agreements. You have just [?] or also class action rights. So by including that in your employment contract to all of the CEOs and leaders listening, what you are saying is "[BLEEP] you and your power. You have absolutely no recourse that is fair if we mess up and harm you," and I truly believe that that's true, because what you're doing is stripping that individual of the way that they might balance their power against the power of a corporation with backers, and that's even ignoring the racial power dynamics or the ableist power dynamics there. So I think we would be so much better served if we talked about power, but then the other important thing I want to bring in--and I realize it's your thing, but I'm gonna ask you a question, which is I don't think that people understand the difference between power with and power over, and it relates to [?] earlier where I almost laughed--not at you, but you said, like, "You're giving up power," and I almost laughed because I don't think by creating space for people I'm giving up power, because my definition of power is "power with," so I believe that when I move out of a particular space, I am gaining power because the collective is gaining power and I'm a part of that collective.Zach: But, see, in that though there's, like, this--I don't know. You have to have a different mindset and premise that you're operating from to even see that as power though, right? Because most people don't--it's a zero-sum game. There's also, like, a very capitalistic mindset to it too. So if you heavily prescribe to historically oppressive systems and you're not necessarily, like--you don't think in communal terms or frames, then you're not going to see it that way. I agree with you though that, like, the idea of power with and power over is--and it's funny, because I didn't know that's what you were going to say. I didn't know that that's what that meant in that context. I thought you meant, like, power with being like--I don't know, I interpreted it differently. I think about the fact that a lot of people don't consider the fact that, like, even if they aren't high in an organization, they still have power by way of their whiteness, and that's not a theoretical power. Like, it's a real power. As an example, let's pretend you and I work at Culture Amp and we are a part of the same team. We have the same job. In fact, I may be senior to you in the organization. The reality is, like, if you wanted to, you could just share a couple of points of feedback to other people around me and I could be fired. Not at Culture Amp, but you know what I mean. You have the societal--you have advantages to where if you say, "You know what? I just don't think Zach is really cutting it," or "I don't really think Zach is that bright," or "I don't think" whatever or "Zach makes me feel uncomfortable" or whatever the case is, right, and so what was a struggle for me is when we talk about power, yes, we're talking about, like, the white executives, or just executives period, like, people who are in positions of organizational authority, but also the people who are not in organizational authority who still can harm Black and brown people who should, on paper, be protected, even by the very pessimistic and harmful rules that that organization has created for its own leadership. Like, they still don't really even participate or benefit from those protections because of the color of their skin or because of a disability or whatever the case may be, you know what I mean?Aubrey: Oh, yeah. Absolutely, and I think that's actually something we don't teach people. I think it's, like, American culture in general is very aggressive. Like, a lot of our cultural values are about control, but we don't actually have a dialogue about it. So those of us on the bottom end of the distribution in any context tend to talk about it, but the people at the top don't, and so yeah, I think people--also because we're in this sort of capitalistic society. I say that as if I'm, like--capitalism is like traffic. I don't like it, but I have to be in it. I got that from Nicole Sanchez. I want to give her a shout-out. She's brilliant. I can only say that she's someone who has guided me and taught me, and I appreciate her wisdom, and I don't even have time to describe how much I think she's great, but I think that's it, that people don't understand power. And also I think there's this weird game in--I think it's everywhere, but, like, American culture lies about it, where the thing is people actually, like, crave power and status, but they have to lie about wanting it, and it comes from our whole lie about, like, "Classes don't exist in America," even though they obviously do. "We're not a classist system." Yeah, we are. I've been on every rung of it. Trust me, I know. At different points in my life.Zach: Right. Let's talk a little bit about--part of your bio I read included the concept of re-imagining systems, right? So I've had on a few guests, and many of them believe that this is a watershed moment for, quote-unquote, D&I, HR culture, like, that whole space. Do you think there's any radical re-imagining that needs to happen today or that really should have happened a while ago but is certainly, like, further mobilized by this moment?Aubrey: Absolutely. I mean, like, the thing is the phrase--it's been repeated to me, like, every week, like, "Never waste a good crisis." Well, what I mean is don't waste the attention on these problems, because attention is what can get you the solutions. So yeah, do I think it's a watershed? Gosh, I hope so. I hope that companies stop doing unconscious training and we have honest conversations about the fact that it was conscious design decisions in organizations that create intentional discrimination and exclusion. I've been saying that to everyone with a C-level title I can talk to. If you're like, "Unconscious bias," I'm like, "It was never unconscious bias. You were just too fragile to hear it. It was conscious failures of leadership."Zach: Listen... I'll never forget--this was some years ago--I was talking to a leader about... and it was literally on my way out, 'cause I left, and I made a risk log as I was leaving. I said, "These are just things you need to know about the project we was on and the people on your team. Here are things that would help you if you just considered the risks." Got on the phone. I had already resigned, so, like, it was, like, my last week, right? So then we're talking and she's like... one of the risk ops on there was--I literally made it so soft. I said "potential unconscious bias," and her response was "I've never had a situation where I've been unconsciously bias." And I said, "Well, by the very nature of the concept you wouldn't know if you had been unconsciously bias, 'cause it's unconscious." So it's wild when you think about, like, the multiple levels of grace and outs that white people provide themselves through diversity and inclusion work. It's just not to me about justice, not about equity, really it's not about Black and brown people at all, it's just about shoring up power and control while kind of, like, protecting yourselves from litigious risk, right? But it's not real.Aubrey: You know what, Zach? You just said the word "risk," and I want to one, yes, +1,000 you, and I want to talk about the way that risk can be re-imagined, and it's a thing I've been saying to lawyers and executives, not just at Culture Amp. Like I said, literally to anyone who will listen, because I figure I have my, like, Hamilton, my [?] energy about this, like, how much [?] can we get in this moment? Which is that we can decide that risk means the company losing business because we have to fire an executive who's an abusive [BLEEP]. Like, violations of human dignity are a risk we cannot bear, and we simply choose, when we identify abusers, to remove them out of our organizations. Like, that's a choice that people can make about the definition of risk. And frankly, even if you're talking in capitalistic terms, if you think about how much companies spend on, like, external legal firms when they get sued for discrimation, it is so much cheaper to fire an executive and hire a new one. Or anyone in the organization, right? If they're not an executive they're even less financially, you know, sort of creating return for the business. So again I go back to this idea of re-imagining. Let's take the words and the concepts and just ask the basic question - "Do we have to do it this way? Is there a better way?" A company could say, "We value people being treated well because we know that treating you well equals better cognition, which equals more innovation, which in this economy, in our business, equals more dollars and revenue." We can choose to act as if that is true, and that choice and that action is what builds the world in which it is true. So I'm saying this, like, I live in an industry where everyone's like, "We're changing the world." I'm like, "You're shooting a rocket into space. Someone did that already." Not to diminish that it's an incredible feat of engineering to get a rocket into space. It's incredible, but it's actually less incredible than being like, "Maybe we should treat our employees like full humans who are deserving of dignity." Like, that doesn't seem that bananas to me.Zach: Well, it doesn't though because you're rejecting white supremacy and patriarchy, like, full-stop.Aubrey: Because it's lame and it diminishes--[?] I could drive, like, what, a Lamborghini because I look white? Like, my soul is not better off. Other beings aren't better off. Sorry, I'm going off on a tangent, but white supremacy diminishes everyone, even those of us who benefit from it. Obviously those of us who benefit should do more work full-stop.Zach: Right. I feel you. I also think it's wack, but that's the reason. So what about this time right now scares you, Aubrey, mathpath, white-presenting woman, complex background. Like, is there anything right now that you feel more in the spotlight or more pressured?Aubrey: The thing that I'm, like, deeply afraid of in this moment, to be specific, is I know what the United States does to people who don't identify as white in history, and I'm afraid that white America won't take the signals that we're deep down the road to genocide seriously enough until we all start dying in higher numbers. That is actually what I'm afraid of, that white people don't think it's urgent enough to burn [BLEEP] down over, because the fact is, like, there are children in cages. This has been happening forever. We have police forces gunning down innocent civilians of all colors, although we know some communities experience that disproportionately. So what scares me? People wanting to lull themselves into a sense of security because they want the world to be better than it is.Zach: Yeah, it's scary. I think about where we are right now and just the death count because of COVID-19, and I think the fact that "defund the police" is still becoming such a--people are still pushing back so hard. I say, "Y'all, the data's right here. They're not solving crime. They're bleeding communities dry because the budgets are way too hard. We are underserved in these other service areas." And yet that's still, like, a radical, crazy idea. We're still pushing back against, like, the idea of reparations. Folks are still sending kids to school, right now, in the middle of a pandemic. Like you said, kids in cages. You're right. It's scary because--I don't know. There's a certain level of awareness that's been really cool to see. Kind of weird, to be frank. As a Black person it's kind of strange. But at the same time I'm looking everything and I'm just like, "Yo, this is--" Just talking about the pandemic alone, like, we haven't even hit the second wave, and so it's just like, "What are we doing?" So I hear you, that's a fear of mine too.Aubrey: That was the honest answer. It wasn't an upper, but [?] all of these things are under people's control, to pay attention, to advocate [?], and that's what I was going to link it to. Like, if that's not the world you want to see, refuse to live in it.Zach: Right, no, 100%. Okay, so let's wrap it up on this one. If you had to give three things executive leaders should be keeping in mind when it comes to engaging and retaining Black talent specifically, and in general a more socially conscious workforce--you think about Gen Z--like, what would those three things be?Aubrey: #1: You need to go to therapy to deal with your own self-esteem, control and power issues. They will absolutely come out in the workplace. #2: You must educate youreslf, and the Google machine is an incredible resource.Zach: And it's free.Aubrey: Free! There are so many people from Gen Z and the Black community that have put their thoughts and life experiences online you do not have to go bother someone who works with you. #3: What you value is not what they value, and they are coming to power. You need to learn how to gracefully evolve with the world. Those would be my most heartfelt pieces of advice to make what is an inevitable transition something that you can participate in and bring into the world as opposed to something you can fight and that will be painful.Zach: That's something that just kind of happens to you, 'cause it's going to happen, right?Aubrey: I mean, like, [?] is destiny. We know where this is going, so you can either be a part of that change and come into that new world or you can kick and scream, but it's coming, and it can either be fun or not fun, and that's really up to you.Zach: I mean, first of all, this has been fire. We haven't done sound effects in a while, but I still have them. Sound Man gonna put 'em in right here. And a Flex bomb too. There you go. Okay. So this has been incredible. You know what? I'm calling it right here. Aubrey Blanche, you are a friend of the show. Culture Amp, y'all are welcome here any time. This is not an ad. Culture Amp, what's up?Aubrey: Thank you for creating this space. I'm really grateful for this space to get to unpack these things. I guess my hope is other folks who have some life stories similar to mine get some wisdom and inspiration out of it so that they can do something that makes the world more incredible. So thank you so much for creating this space. I'm really grateful.Zach: Look, I appreciate you. This is great. Y'all, this has been Zach with the Living Corporate podcast. You know what we do. We have these conversations every single Tuesday, and then on Thursdays we have Tristan's Tips, and on Saturdays we have See It to Be It with Amy C. Waninger. So we have, like, a whole network really on one platform. You just have to check in when you check in, okay? But look, that's been us. Check us out. We're all over Beyonce's internet. Just type in Living Corporate. We'll pop up. I'm not gonna go through all the domains. We got all of 'em except for livingcorporate.com. We have all the other ones, so just type us in and you'll see us over there. Until next time, this has been Zach. You've been listening to Aubrey Blanche, leader, mover, shaker. 'Til next time, y'all. Peace.

Zach speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones about the state-sanctioned shooting of Jacob Blake, her personal career journey from the high school newspaper to The New York Times, the opposition she's experienced as director of The 1619 Project, and so much more. Click the links in the show notes to find out more about Nikole and The 1619 Project! Connect with Nikole on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.Check out her personal website. Find out more about The 1619 Project by clicking here.Donate to the Justice for Breonna Taylor GoFundMe by clicking here.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? This is Zach with Living Corporate, and yo... look, so every week we have a great guest, and I say this every time, but, like, don't front--who else but us? Like, we drop gems on Living Corporate, right, for the free. Like, y'all don't even pay nothing for this, right? Like, we just be givin' it to y'all weekly, and, you know, I mean, I'm smiling despite the pain I'm feeling, the frustration--you know, for those who follow me on LinkedIn or whatever, like, I had to let some things go 'cause I was just upset. I still have some stuff to say, but I'ma wait on it. I'ma wait on it for a couple more months, but that day is soon coming. But anyway, that's a story for another time. [laughs] Look, even with all the pain and frustration that's going on right now with the continuous brutalization of Black bodies in both white America at large and corporate America specifically, their just slough-footed shuffle in not really addressing systemic inequity. I'm excited. I'm excited about the guest that we were able to have, that was able to grace our platform, our flagship show Living Corporate today, and the guest we have is Nikole Hannah-Jones. Now, look, I'm not gonna go into some long biography of Nikole Hannah-Jones, also known as Ida Bae Wells, is one of those most prolific writers of our time. Shout-out to Black women. She holds it down. She advocates and speaks to the reality and lived experience, the historicity, of our struggle, and she's one of the people. She comes from--you'll hear in the interview, but she comes from a similar just, like, humble background that I do and doesn't tolerate disrespect similar to how I don't tolerate disrespect, so we just vibe on a certain level. I appreciated our conversation. The next thing you're gonna hear is the discussion, the interview, that I had with Ms. Hannah-Jones. Make sure that you listen to the whole thing, make sure that you check out the show notes, and we'll catch y'all next time. Peace.Zach: Nikole, welcome to the show. To say this is an honor would be an understatement, and I recognize, especially today, this is a loaded question, but how are you?Nikole: Hm. Thanks for having me on the show and for your persistence. You know, I'm fine. This is a hard time to be in. It's always a hard time to be Black in this country, and I am more blessed than most, so I'm just trying to maintain perspective.Zach: Yeah. With that in mind, I think I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you about the state-sanctioned shooting of Jacob Blake. Of course I have some questions about your work specifically and The 1619 Project, but I'd like to get your perspective on just the historically cyclical nature of violence against Black bodies and, like, in this moment, what if anything do you think can happen to break this centuries-long pattern?Nikole: You know, a few months ago I was feeling a tinge of something that is very unusual for me, which was a slight tinge of hope, and that is gone, and there's a reason I don't often feel it. So I just looked at some data, and despite months of protests, despite all of the back to back media coverage following George Floyd, despite corporations having a so-called "come to Jesus" moment, the stats on police-involved killings have not changed. We are seeing just as many people killed by police in the first half of this year as we saw last year, and I don't know what can force this country to change practices that have been 400 years in the making. In this moment where we know everyone is recording, where there's been months of protests against police violence, that an officer would, in the public view, grab a man who was not fighting him whatsoever and shoot him in the back seven times, it's extremely discouraging, because you would think--at least in this moment--there would be more care and more fear of consequences of treating Black people like they're still in slavery and like their lives don't matter, but we're not seeing that, and it's hard.Zach: Yeah. You know, I think about the fact that--I'm a fairly new father myself, so I have a 5-month old daughter, and I think about the fact that he was shot seven times in the back in front of his three kids in his car, and I was holding my daughter at the time--or rather I was splitting time, so I was cooking and I was feeding my daughter and I just so happened to look at my phone and see that, and then just, you know, I looked at Emory and I just started crying, 'cause I was just, like, this is--just the inhumanity of it... anyway, I'm really curious as we continue forward because I think this project and the work that you do, that you continue to do--thank you for your work, by the way, bless you for that--is just highlighting how inhumanely we've been treating, 'cause there's no way that you just treat human beings like this. And, you know, speaking of the work, I've read stories about editorial bias and how Black journalists will stop submitting certain stories that center Black people because they keep getting shot down or any, you know, Black or brown people. Your work beautifully and tragically captures our stories and experiences, and I'm curious what the internal journey has been like for you to find your voice, and then how long it took before your pitched stories started getting greenlit by different editorial powers that be?Nikole: Yeah, so I started writing about Black people as a high school journalist. That's why I joined my high school newspaper. I had a column called "From the African Perspective," and I joined my high school newspaper because--if your listeners know my story at all, they'll know I was bused into white schools as part of a voluntary desegregation order starting in the second grade, and as a high school student at a predominantly white high school where most of the Black kids were bused from the Black side of town, I knew even then that we were being left out of the story and the power of you shaping the narratives for your own communities, and the only reason I ever wanted to be a journalist was to write about Black folks, period. I was interested--I'm a news junkie in general, I'm interested in the news, I've always read the news, I used to read the paper with my father--I wanted to be a journalist to write about Black folks, and there were--when I started my career I had an excellent editor who encouraged me and supported me in wanting to write. I was an education reporter and I was writing a lot about school segregation and school inequality and disparate discipline that Black students were facing, and I was encouraged to do that. My next job was not the case, and I was penalized and punished for writing about Black stories or people of color in general and was told really that it was showing my bias, that these stories were not reflective of the readership of the newspaper, and had story idea after story idea killed. And this was during the historic Obama run for the presidency, so if you can't be encouraged to write about race when the first Black man has a chance to be president, when would be the right time? And I remember I would pitch these stories and my editors would say, "No, that's not a story," and then I'd see a story almost just like what I had pitched run in The New York Times and I'd be like, "Okay, it's not that I don't have good ideas, it's that they're not interested in this coverage," and I nearly left journalism. I was stuck. This was at a time when the journalism industry was in a death spiral. Newspapers were laying off all over the country, and so there wasn't another job to be had. Like, if you had a job you'd better keep it, and I was so depressed because that's what I got into journalism to do, and I considered leaving the industry, and the only reason I didn't leave the industry is because I just couldn't think of anything else I wanted to do with my life. I'd wanted to be a journalist since I was in high school and really felt journalism was my mission. Luckily I was rescued when I was recruited to come to ProPublica, and I remember when Steve Engelberg, who's the editor of ProPublica, asked me to interview and then ultimately offered me the job, I had a very honest conversation with him and I was like, "If I cannot tell these stories, I don't want to come. Like, I'm not gonna jump from this job to another job where I'm punished for wanting to write about race." He assured me that I wouldn't be, and I wasn't, and so ProPublica was really the place where I was able to develop the style of writing that I've become known for.Zach: To your point, like, with ProPublica and now, you know, the New York Times, I'm curious to know what it's like to write and work with an institution that publishes pieces and projects like The 1619 Project but then also has puff pieces about Trump supporters and then editorial pieces like Tom Cotton's. Like, I'm curious, is there any duality there that you have to straddle or frustrations that you have to manage? Nikole: Yeah. I mean, I'm assuming that's a rhetorical question because of course, right? [laughs] I mean, this is the nature of Black folks working in any white institution. It is the reality of Black people in America. There's always a duality, and yes, you can work at a place that simultaneously will support with every resource a project like The 1619 Project and run the Tom Cotton editorial, and I think we all, as Black and brown and Asian and indigenous people in these white spaces, struggle with trying to produce the work that you think is important and necessary because of the platform. I could certainly work elsewhere, but there's no megaphone like The New York Times. So understanding that platform does something for the work that you're trying to do, but also staying true to who you are and the work you're trying to do and fighting those internal battles to try to bring the actual institution in line with the work that you do. So I have, you know, my outward work that gets published, and then I have my inward work, which is working with other folks to try to push the institution to be better.Zach: And what I find so intriguing about that is, like, it's activism in two fronts, right? Like, you have what everyone sees, and then you have the work that you're doing to push systemic change internally. Can we talk a little bit about portions of white academia's response to The 1619 Project? Like, to an extent I would imagine negativity from members of the GOP as ignorant and dumb and doofy and goofy as they are don't shock you, but has any of it caught you off-guard? Nikole: Yes, of course. So I fully expected that conservatives would not be pleased with The 1619 Project, and I also fully expected--because I studied history for a long time and I understand the field of historiography--that there would be historians that didn't agree with all of our framing or who would quibble with "Why would they put this in? Why did they not put this in? Why did they focus on this and not that?" That was all expected. What I didn't expect was that there would really be an orchestrated campaign, a small group of historians, to not just say, "We wouldn't have done it that way," but to actually try to discredit the project. Because these historians, some of them, are highly respected and regarded, I mean, I've read their work myself, it lended a credibility and really gave those who didn't have good faith criticism of the project, who just didn't want the project to exist, it gave them the meat that they needed, and that's then really disappointing and disconcerting, because the truth is not one, and literally not one, of that small number of historians who opposed the project has never contacted me, ever. They've never said, "Hey, I think you've got this fact wrong," or "Hey, maybe you should change this," which is what you do in a normal circumstance if you feel a reporter has misrepresented something or not got something right. You contact that reporter and ask for that correction. I've never to this day received a single contact, and when the group of five historians who submitted a letter to The New York Times against the project, they included people on that email who weren't even involved--men on that email who weren't even involved with the project, but not me. So I think that speaks to motivations, is what I'll say.Zach: So I was gonna say--and, you know, continually we talk about just the role that Black women play in, like, you know, saving everybody and historically not having the advocacy and support that they need, and to your point around just, like, the misogyny of and presumption that, you know, you're being excluded in your project, and then on top of that being, like, somehow simultaneously being attacked and erased at the same time, right? Like, that's--and my question following up is I would imagine... so first of all, I think, for me, like, in this moment, Nikole, what I've been thinking through and coming to peace with is that it's not that people don't understand or don't see it. A lot of them just don't care, right? So for me, as opposed--I used to get into this thing around, like, trying to educate folks some years ago, and I think I'm just past that, right? I'm curious, like, how do you manage the emotional labor of folks being intentionally obtuse, misogynistic, of course racist. Like, you're so much in the spotlight, and as you continue to flex and grow folks get madder, and so I'm curious as to, like, what does your process look like as someone who is so actively in the forefront as a voice in this moment to take care of yourself.Nikole: Yeah. [lightly] Who the hell knows? I think that I'm a human being, and some days I have dealt with it better than others. Some days I've dealt with it in ways that I'm proud of and some days I've dealt with it in ways that I'm not. People forget, you know--and it's a good problem to have in some ways, but when the bigger your platform gets, people think that somehow you don't care anymore about what people say or how people try to treat and attack your work or you personally, but that's not true. I'm just a girl from Waterloo and never expected anybody would ever know my name. I just wanted to be a reporter, and to--and I think that because of that I also don't deal with disrespect in the way that people who come, I think, from more privilege or don't come from, like, such a scrappy background, like, things roll off their back in a way that they don't for me. Respect means a lot to me, and so I fight back, and I also understand that part of the kind of, like, vitriol that I get and my work gets is because someone like me should not be in the position that I'm in. Not just that I'm Black and a woman, though that's a huge part of it, but I'm also a Black woman who presents in a very specific way. I don't look the part that they think I should look. I don't talk the way they think I should talk. I don't defer the way that they think I should defer. And all of these are intentional decisions, right? I'm not a stupid woman. I know how I'm "supposed to" present and I refuse to, and so I understand that it's all of that, and, you know, I think what I try to internalize is the venom of your enemies speaks to the importance of your work, and if this work wasn't meaningful, if there wasn't some sense of fear or consternation about what this work could do, they wouldn't care about me and they wouldn't talk about me and they wouldn't write about me, and I have to always remind myself of that, that I'm doing this work for a mission. This is where it's helpful, you know, to have--Ida B. Wells is my spiritual godmother. Nothing that they could throw at me even comes close to what she had to deal with or even what my own grandmother had to deal with or my own father had to deal with, so I can deal with any of it.Zach: So, you know, we're gonna talk about my wife in a moment--and it's gonna make sense in a second--but when that series, that piece came out really seeking to discredit and undermine The 1619 Project and I looked at those names--because I have a network of academics as well, and so a lot of the people that were--well, some of the people rather that were in that group folks in my network knew personally and, like, really highly regarded, and I really looked at it and I said, "Wow. Nikole, this is a lot of power." Like, she has this much power that all these well-to-do white folks got together in a little Google document and started typing away to create, to do all this work, and that was my very first response was like, "Wow. This further lets me know that this is incredibly powerful and that she is seen as a threat to the institutions that be." So that's incredible. Thank you. Kind of continuing about your work, right, it's focused on segregation and its impact on marginalized populations. The New York Times recently helped produce Nice White Parents, which highlights a lot of the historic and present resistance to meaningful integration. That also reminds me of the interview you had on This American Life sometime ago. After your years of research, I have two questions, like, kind of back to back. One, does it seem like meaningful integration is possible, and then two, do you believe that integration is necessary to achieve equity?Nikole: Hm. So Nice White Parents is excellent, and Chana Joffe-Walt is the producer I worked with on my This American Life piece on Michael Brown's school district. What I love about it is that she--I mean, I've always said white parents are the most powerful force in any school district, whether they're in those schools or not, and that they often hold school districts hostage. School districts simply won't do certain things because they are so afraid of losing white parents, and I haven't seen anything that has spent that much time really exposing the way that that power operates with white parents who are supposed to be on your side. So if your listeners have not heard that podcast, they definitely should. And I saw some folks who were like, "I don't know if I want to listen to that podcast because I just can't stand to hear another white person who's shocked that racism exists." Chana is not naive, and there's no sense of naivety like, "Oh, my God. I can't believe these white parents are doing this." It's really like, "This is how we operate, and I'm going to expose it." So it's great. To answer your question, so possible and probable of course are two different things. Do I think meaningful integration is possible? Of course it's possible. We've rarely seen it, but it is possible. But in order for it to be possible it has to be--like Baldwin said, like, white people have to give up whiteness, and we also have to understand how much resources [?], everything from amongst private citizens, businesses, local government, state government and federal government went into creating the school inequality, still maintains the school inequality, and then if you're going to undo that and create a truly equitable, integrated school system, you have to apply equal amounts of power and resources, and we won't, right? The reason all of that power and influence was applied was because it was to the benefit of those who hold the power, and they're not going to apply the equal amount of resources in a way that doesn't benefit their power. So possible? Yes. Probable? Of course not. In terms of is it necessary? So in a practical sense absolutely. Nearly every school integration lawsuit that gets filed by Black parents or on behalf of Black parents initially begins as a simple lawsuit about equity and resources. You never see large-scale that Black people are just dying to have their kids in majority white schools, and so these lawsuits typically begin by saying, "Our schools are underfunded. They are not well-resourced, and we are suing because we just want the same resources in our schools as you allot for white schools," and then they begin that way and then they end with a push for integration as parents come to realize that they will never get those resources without white kids, and that's just true. It holds true in every region of the country. It holds true in rural areas, suburban, urban. It doesn't matter. In a country where we still have to assert that Black lives matter, which is really Black lives matter too, we know that the whole point of the separation is to deprive Black kids of resources and equality. The whole point of the separation is to ensure white parents get an inordinate amount of resources, and we just have never shown willingness to ensure that Black kids, and particularly poor Black kids, get the same quality of resources, and integration is the means to do that. There are things that we accept for Black kids that you can't imagine ever accepting for white kids, period, and we don't. So I wish that it wasn't necessary, but we've shown no other way that we're willing to treat Black kids the same as white kids unless they're in the same classrooms, and even then they're not treated the same.Zach: Right, and that leads into my next question. So I mentioned my wife Candis earlier. She's an educator teaching high school, and her district is starting remote. I know you've addressed concerns about the feasibility and effectiveness of remote learning during this time. As both a parent and a journalist who has specialized in equity and in education, what advice do you have for educators who want to provide a quality education from home to their students right now and what considerations do you think they should be keeping in mind?Nikole: God, this is so hard, and the public conversation has tried to make this simple. Zach: Really binary, yeah.Nikole: Yeah. It's either "open the schools" or "it's not safe, we can't open the schools," and either you care about kids' education and the inequality or you want teachers to die, right? This is the hardest thing, because one, we already have these structural inequalities that we have long known existed that are clearly being exacerbated, and there's no great answer. I know how much I struggled as a parent who is highly educated, who has a ton of resources, whose daughter has her own computer, to really implement online learning and the early data and research on the effects, particularly on Black kids, are absolutely devastating, and Black kids have the least wiggle room. They're already the furthest behind, so they have the most to lose. So I don't know what the answers are. I think where my frustration has come is you cannot, as educators, simultaneously say, "It's not safe for us to open schools at all, but I also don't want to be forced to do live instruction." You can't do both of those things. There's got to be compromise, and I think every parent has a newfound understanding for how hard teachers' jobs are as we've had to try to play a bit of that role in our own households, but we're all struggling to adapt to online. I didn't expect that I would be working from home either and having my child set off the fire alarm while I'm giving a talk, which has happened, but we have to really think about what this is going to mean for our kids in school districts that suffered to get proper funding for those kids before the pandemic and now are going to be dealing with slashed budgets, which I guess is my really long way of saying I don't know what the answers are, but I can tell you what is planned right now is gonna be devastating for low income Black and brown kids, and we have shown--I mean, look at the Democratic Convention and the Republican Convention. Nobody's even talking about "What are we gonna do for these kids?" No one's talking about "Okay, we need a massive funding package to ensure that these kids are going to be able to catch up once this is all over, to ensure they have technology, to ensure the internet is gonna be connected, high speed, to their homes." Like, there's no one even talking about this, and I know that what's gonna happen is ultimately we're just gonna have to--those kids are just going to have to deal with it, and they're gonna deal with it by falling further and further behind and being even more disadvantaged after this than they were before.Zach: So, you know, you spoke on something which leads me to my last question. It does seem, both the RNC--well, the DNC for sure from my perspective and as you listen to other folks, like, largely focused on this imaginary or not-so-imaginary white conservative in the quote-unquote middle of America who is debating voting for Donald Trump or not, and it reminds me of--kind of going back to the initial question I had around just the cyclical nature of history--a little while ago we had Dr. Jason Johnson on as a guest, and we talked about that, like, just how history repeats itself, and as we prepare for one of the most consequential elections of our lifetime, do you believe America is truly in a place to not re-elect Donald Trump?Nikole: In a fair election? Yes, but yeah... who knows if we're gonna have a fair election? It does not bode well, but yes, I think in a fair election, yes.Zach: Okay. Mrs. Hannah-Jones, this was phenomenal. Thank you so much for your time.Nikole: Thank you for your persistence, and thanks for having me on the show.Zach: No, God bless. Goodbye.Nikole: All right, bye.Zach: All right, y'all. That was--I mean, my gosh, y'all know what this is. Every single week we're having incredible guests, and this one was, like I said at the top, an honor, a privilege. Really excited. Make sure y'all check us out. Check out all the links in the show notes. Learn more about Nikole Hannah-Jones if you're not familiar, if you've been living under a rock. But the thing about it is, when it comes to Black media, even sometimes Black media posted on huge platforms like The New York Times, we miss it, so I want to make sure y'all check all that out. Make sure y'all check out Nice White Parents. This is not even an ad. I just got love for Nice White Parents. Shout-out to the team over there. And 'til next time, y'all, this has been Zach. Peace.

Zach chats with Kanika Tolver, founder and CEO of Career Rehab LLC and author of Career Rehab: Rebuild Your Personal Brand and Rethink the Way You Work, on this special Saturday episode themed around rehabbing your career. A senior project manager with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Kanika is no ordinary "social-preneur" - she's a rebel entrepreneur and certified professional coach, a serial innovator who's fueled by an extraordinary commitment to social change and helping others create their own "epic lives." True to her book's name, she outlines the importance of rebuilding your personal brand and rethinking the way you work, and she lists some of the telltale signs she experienced when she realized she needed to undergo a career rehab of her own.Find out more about "Career Rehab: Rebuild Your Personal Brand and Rethink the Way You Work" on Amazon.Connect with Kanika on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.Check out her personal website.Donate to the Justice for Breonna Taylor GoFundMe by clicking here.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate. Now, look, man, y'all know what it is. We're coming to y'all with real, authentic conversations every single week. So we're having these conversations talking about that real real, okay? We're having conversations that center underrepresnted, marginalized, underestimated, oppressed voices, experiences and lived identities in the workplace, and today is no different, man. We have a great guest. Her name is Kanika Tolver. Kanika Tolver is no ordinary socialpreneur. She's a highly decorated information technology federal government professional, rebel entrepreneur and certified professional coach and a serial innovator who's fueled by an extraordinary commitment to social change and helping others create their own epic lives, not to mention she's the CEO and founder of Career Rehab in Washington, D.C. Career Rehab focuses on assisting career transitions and transformations for students, professionals and retirees. Her company provides career coaching programs, events, webinars, and digital resources to help people reach their goals. She's the acclaimed author of Career Rehab: Rebuild Your Professional Brand and Rethink the Way You Work. In that book and in the conversation today we're going to be talking about, amongst a wide array of things, what's holding you back from taking the next step in your career. She's been featured on CNN, CNBC, CBS Radio, Yahoo, Glassdoor, Black Enterprise, Entrepreneur, The Washington Post--she's been all over the place, you know what I'm saying? So without further ado, welcome, Kanika. What's going on, now?Kanika: What's going on?Zach: All right, so look, I read the bio, but let's talk about, like, the why behind the career coaching and things that you do and really how you transitioned from tech and the public sector and, like, this social entrepreneur work that you're doing now. Like, how did that come together?Kanika: It came together because I was just really at a place where I felt alone at work, and I felt like, you know, I was growing professionally and I was making a lot of money, but I really felt like I wasn't being my true, authentic self, and I really wanted to help people. Like, I wanted to help people get to the places that I was able to reach in my career, and not having a lot of support at work just kind of--you know, my passion was doing career coaching and helping people with resumes and stuff like that, so that's kind of how I moved into the career development space. Zach: So then let's talk about, like, what were some of the key differences as you transitioned from working in the public sector, doing tech work to now going into personal career coaching? Kanika: I mean, I still work in the technology industry for the federal government, so I still have my day job as a federal government employee, but what it kind of looks like as far as being an entrepreneur and having a full-time job, it's pretty much me kind of been just building my career coaching clientele over the last three to four years. So I started off as a resume writer. I was helping people get a lot of good federal government job, a lot of good, high-paying tech jobs 'cause I was already in the industry, so I kind of started to do that and I started to kind of market myself online, and then I kind of transitioned into wanting a book deal and wanting to be an author and wanting to showcase a lot of the clients that had success with me in my book, but also I wanted to make sure that I was telling a true story of, you know, how my career life has gone for the past 10 years. I've had my own personal challenges. So that's where Career Rehab kind of came into play, 'cause I felt like we all need career innovations. You know, we all need to take our career to the next level in some way, so. Zach: You're absolutely right. I also think it's easy--when you consider, like, the history of America and, like, progress for Black and brown folks in the workplace, of course Black and brown people had jobs in corporate-like settings before the '60s, but when you talk about that, like, real influx, we really haven't been largely represented but for some less than, like, 50 something odd years, and we've only had all of our rights on paper--on paper--since, like, 1965, so... when you think about that, like, you and I, we're like the first generation of folks born with all of our rights--or we're the second generation. It gets kind of hairy, right, 'cause you think about, like, really Gen X, they're the first generation of people who were coming into the professional space with all of their rights on paper, and even still today, right, there are still folks who are, you know, 30 or in their late 20s who are first-generation professionals, folks who graduated from college. So when you think about, like, career rehab, the concept of career rehab or just needing to, like, really assess where you're at and what you're doing, those things--that's a novel concept for a lot of people who really just started getting into this space, you know what I mean?Kanika: I agree. I think me being more of a millennial, I think the Gen X'ers, they were the ones that really set the tone for, you know, helping to establish good--I would say the baby boomers established work ethic, right, being loyal to jobs. That's my parents' generation, and then you have the Gen X'ers who they started to get educated, they started to get jobs, but the millennials I think are the game-changing generation because we wanted more than just the education and the job. We want passionate work. We want work that matters. We want people to know our worth, and I think that Gen X'ers were a little bit more like "I'ma just do what I'm told to do and this is my job, I got it, I got my papers, I got my college degree, I got my education," but they didn't really rock the boat the way millennials and the newer generations are rocking the boat within the workplace. Zach: No, I agree with that. I think it's interesting because when you look at, like, the research that continues to come out, and then you look at social media that continues to, like, really be a game changer in terms of democratizing information and making things just really accessible, when you talk about just the reality of inequity, right, when you talk about, like, from pay inequity to opportunities to promote and rise within the ranks, to hiring and, like, the exclusivity of some of these social circles and how a lot of even these technology pipelines and things like that are really closed off. I do believe that we're in a different generation now than we were, you know, 15 or 20 years ago where we just didn't--people knew, but now we know we know, you know what I mean?Kanika: Right, yep.Zach: So when you talk about, like, career rehab and rebuilding your personal brand and rethinking the way you work, like, can we talk about some of the core tenets of that? Like, what does that mean, and where were you in your career that made you say, "I need a rehab?" Like, what were some of the telltale signs that you needed to rehab? Kanika: So rebuilding your personal brand was kind of, like, for me at a point where I was leaving my good federal government job to go into private sector, and I was scared. I was like, "Oh, my gosh. Like, I've been in the federal government space. This is comfortable," and I went to go work for a company by the name of Deloitte. I didn't know anything about the company, so I had to rebuild my personal brand as far as my resume and my LinkedIn profile to be able to talk the talk of private sector, because the government talks totally different than private sector. So that was a time where I was really going through a transition of being unhappy in my government job, and I was like, you know, "I have to rebrand myself if I'm gonna be able to get into a very innovative company. I'm gonna have to shift the way my brand has been looking as far as my resume and as far as, like, my LinkedIn profile." So that was kind of how I started to shift my mindset about how I thought about personal branding, because in government you just don't think about personal branding like that, right? You think about "This is a good government job, and I worked for this, and I'ma be here for 30 years," and my family and my aunties and my mom, everybody pretty much around me, was like, "Get a good government job," and I'm like, "This is not even really necessarily me, but I'm gonna do it." So that's kind of the shift that happened in my personal career.Zach: So let's continue to talk about this. I'm trying to understand when we talk about rethinking what it is you need or really what you want out of your career, like, what would you say are some of the biggest kind of, like, traps or patterns in your coachees that you see that lets you know that they need to be coached or that they need some help?Kanika: Rethinking the way that you work is a career mindset shift, because so often we don't really focus in on talking about, like, getting paid now, getting the money, power and respect. That's one of the things I coach people on, is it's not just about getting the job offer, it's about getting the money, power and respect, and the power and respect comes into play when you become a subject matter expert. You have the power and respect to be marketable. I think a lot of times in our community of people of color we just get so validated by "Oh, I'ma get this, like, nice-paying job," that we still don't get the power and respect at work, so that's a mindset shift. Another mindset shift that I see, that I have even applied to myself and even applied to my coaching clients, is things like "commute's worth the coins." It's okay to have a realistic commute. It's okay to ask for remote options from home. I think we so often are scared to ask for the work-life balance component of things in the workplace, and it has made us feel like we kind of, like, have a slavery mentality towards the job instead of the job offering us the things that we need in order to have balance.Zach: Yeah, and I think that also comes though from, like, a very real fear of loss, right? Like, you know, the system that we live in today, you need money to survive, and if you have people who maybe they've interviewed at fifty 'leven jobs and this is finally the job that said yes, it's hard to then, if you see you making those requests as a risk to keeping your job and then by relation keeping your lights on, you know, it's tough, right? So it's kind of like, you know, when you talk about that self-assessment to understand how to ask and then even facing those fears of asking. Like, what does it look like for the people that you talk to to help them get over some of the fears that they have in advocating for themselves?Kanika: I think one thing that I want to touch on when we talk about personal branding is that we have to continue to try to the best of our ability to align our personal brand of who we are as individuals with an employer brand that will make us feel like we feel good about this job situation, right? So it's important that when we're looking for jobs and interviewing for jobs that if there are things on our list that we desire to have in addition to our annual salary, if it's work-life balance, if it's paid time off, if it's remote options from home, I think it's important to do research on the job just as much as they're doing research on you as you come into interview with them. I think we apply blindly and we go on job interviews blindly not really looking at all of the other things that the job may or may not offer from a culture perspective or from a benefits perspective.Zach: And so then what does it look like to, like, assess a company to make sure that their personal brand does align with yours? Like, how does one go about that type of research?Kanika: So that type of research can happen through websites like Glassdoor.com. You can also--what I've done and what I've coached my clients to do is it's important to reach out to--what I usually do in the past is I reached out to Black and brown folks that worked at the company and I connected with them on LinkedIn and I either, you know, had a Zoom call with them or coffee chat or we met up for lunch, or we just talked on the phone, and I just wanted to get their insight on how the company culture is for them and how things have been working out for them, 'cause sometimes Glassdoor, it has some good, consistent information about the companies, but it's also good to talk to the people that already work for the company.Zach: Absolutely. I have folks hit me up on LinkedIn, Black and brown folks hit me up often. Let me, like, not even exaggerate. Like, a lot. A lot asking me about "I know that you work here now," you know, "Would you recommend this being a place for me?" What would be your recommendation or advice on how to ask and how to network, you know, in terms of asking people who currently work there and, like, how to reach out? What are some of the best practices for you?Kanika: Some of the best practices for me have been just developing a standard direct message template through LinkedIn and introducing yourself. The first thing you want to do is edify them, edify their profile, make them feel good, make them feel comfortable for them coming in to talk to you as a stranger. So I try to make the person that I'm interviewing like, "Oh, hey. I see you work at This Company and I see you have an awesome profile and you're an expert at this particular subject," and then I go in and I say, "Well, hey, I just wanted to reach out to you just to connect with you to see how you've been enjoying the company, and I'm interested in applying or I have applied to X job, and I would love to chat with you to see how your experience has been." So I try to send out maybe close to 10 messages, because not everybody's gonna respond back. Some people are scared to talk about company culture with a stranger, and some people just don't care--some people just don't really use LinkedIn and they don't respond, and a lot of people would be willing to share their experiences, and I try to get a diverse perspective. So I don't just say, "Let me just reach out to all the Black folks." I'm looking to reach out to a diverse set of people. So, you know, Asian, white, Black, female, male, you know what I mean? So I don't get just one perspective.Zach: Right, right. So let's talk a little bit about your work with [?] and your work with Entrepreneur, right? Like, how did you create that relationship, and what does it look like to maintain that, and how does it help the work that you do today?Kanika: I pretty much got a book deal with Entrepreneur a year ago, probably maybe December 2018ish I should say. Maybe a little bit over a year ago, but going into 2019 I got a book deal, and that relationship is really good. I was pretty much trying to get a book deal for a while with Career Rehab. Career Rehab actually got turned down by a lot of other publishers. So Career Rehab was pitched to Entrepreneur. They loved the idea. At first they had a lot of--if anybody knows Entrepreneur's brand and their magazine, they have a lot more entrepreneur, business-based authors on their roster, so they were looking for opening up an arena for more career topic-type authors, so I came in right on time for this particular time that they were looking for people, and they were looking for more minority women authors because Entrepreneur has a lot of white male authors. So that's kind of how that relationship happened. I got on the phone with them. I pitched them the idea. They really liked it. We started writing in January 2019, and then the book came out a year after that, this year, 2020. So it was a really good relationship. What I like about the platform and I like about what they're allowing me to do is they're allowing me to re-use a lot of the Career Rehab content in the book through articles. We're gonna be doing webinars. They're also allowing me to highlight other things that I want to talk about, like we featured Minda Harts. We're featuring Netta Jenkins with Dipper. So I'm using the platform to also highlight us in a way. You get it? So I'm using mainstream media, things that they've never seen from an African-American woman who's an author, but I'm saying, let's shed light on all of these awesome people that I know in my network as well.Zach: Yeah, I'm just really honored, you know what I'm saying, that you came on our platform to talk about your book, to talk about just some basic tenets on some of the things we don't know and how we build, and I do think I talk to folks--'cause I'm 30 years old, and most millennials, at this point they've been at their jobs for at least 5 or 6 years, right? Like, they've been working for 5 or 6 years, and a lot of us, we'll get hired somewhere after we do undergrad and then we do grad school, a lot of us will then be at our jobs for, like, 5 or 6--and those of us who didn't do any type of post-grad, you know, we've been working for 7, 8 years, you know, if not a little bit longer, and so I think it's important for us as we look at a new decade, like, what does it look like to do an assessment and make a determination of "Am I really where I need to be, and if not, what does it look like for me to create a path either at my current employer or to seek opportunities elsewhere?" Before we let you go--this has been a dope conversation--let's get some shout-outs in here. Where can people learn about you? I want you to plug your stuff. And then any parting words you have for us.Kanika: You definitely can find the Career Rehab book on Amazon.com. You can find me KanikaTolver.com. I'm pretty much on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn all @KanikaTolver. Those are my handles. They're all pretty much the handle, KanikaTolver. And, you know, you can just find me on, like, a lot of other podcast shows. I've done a lot of interviews, so yeah.Zach: Man, I appreciate you. Kanika, this has been fire. Y'all, this has been Zach. You've been on the Living Corporate podcast. You know, we everywhere, okay? You can check us out on Google or whatever your search engine is. Firefox, you know? What's another one... Edge?Kanika: Chrome. Safari.Zach: Chrome, whatever, you know what I'm saying? You out there. Just Google us - Living Corporate. You know, we out here, but if you're into domains, living-corporate--please say the dash--dot com, and then we're also at livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.us, livingcorporate.net, livingcorporate dot... shoot, all of the livingcorporates except for livingcorporate.com 'cause Australia owns livingcorporate.com, okay? So when y'all go to livingcorporate.com and y'all see corporate apartment rentings, don't be like "What happened?" No, I told y'all. It's living DASH corporate dot com, please say the dash, or you can do livingcorporate dot any other thing besides .com and we're gonna pop up, okay? Now, make sure you follow us on Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod or Instagram @LivingCorporate, and, you know, our DMs are wide open. If you have a question, a listener letter, you want to send in something for us to read on the show, we can do that. Until next time, this has been Zach. You've been listening to Kanika Tolver, CEO and author of Career Rehab, VIP entrepreneur with Entrepreneur, career coach, speaker, educator, technology consultant professional. 'Til next time, y'all. Peace.

Zach sits down with activist Tema Okun, author of "The Emperor Has No Clothes: Teaching About Race And Racism To People Who Don't Want To Know," to have a chat geared around white supremacy culture at work. She and Zach take a deep dive into a piece she wrote on the subject, dissecting several of the named characteristics present in the document. Check out the show notes to reference the piece and to find out more about her work!Connect with Tema on Twitter.Read her "White Supremacy Culture" piece by clicking here.Interested in her book, "The Emperor Has No Clothes?" Check it out on Amazon.Donate to the Justice for Breonna Taylor GoFundMe by clicking here.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Check out our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and, you know, we continue to live in really extraordinary times for some people. Frankly, these times have been this way for a while for many of us, but we have this, like, seemingly [?] to awareness and consciousness, and so I want to respect that. I want to respect where we are. And, you know, we've actually shifted up our interview schedule, and we're having more and more pointed conversations about the reality of white supremacy. So you've probably noticed a few episodes, and we're gonna continue to do that. You know, I shared on Twitter a couple days ago that, like, I think my baseline is just much angrier these days, and I'm at peace with that. And so with that all being said, you know, we have conversations on Living Corporate that center marginalized voices at work. We do that by engaging thought leaders from across the spectrum to really have just authentic discussions. Today we have a phenomenal guest, just like we do every single week, but it makes no less true that we have a great guest today, Dr. Tema Okun. Tema has spent many years working for the social justice community. For over 10 of those years she worked in partnership with the late and beloved Kenneth Jones as part of the Change [?] Training Group and now facilitates long-term anti-racism, anti-oppression work as a member of The DR Works Collaborative. She is a skilled [?] facilitator, bringing both an anti-racist lens and commitment to supporting personal growth and development within the context of institutional and community mission. She holds a BA from Oberland College, a Masters in Adult Education from NC State University, a doctorate at NC Greensboro, and is on the faculty of the educational leadership department at the National Louis University in Chicago. She is active in Middle East peace and justice work with Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions USA. Dr. Okun, how are you?Tema: I'm great, and I want to apologize upfront because some of those biographical facts are no longer true. I left the faculty of NLU several years ago, and I'm now active with the Jewish [Voice?] for Peace. Just to update everybody so that they don't think you or I are lying about [?].Zach: Thank you for correcting me, I appreciate that. So, you know, you've been in this work for quite a while. Like, we talked some months ago actually before my daughter was born, and--Tema: Oh, you have a beautiful daughter.Zach: Thank you very much. Yes, yes, you've seen her. Yeah, she looks great, and she's getting bigger every day. It's just so cool that she's changing all the time. What I'd like to know though is if you've ever seen anti-racist, anti-state-sanctioned violence protests like this in your lifetime in terms of just scale and scope?Tema: You know, you gave me that question ahead of time, and I want to say both yes and no, and I want to say yes because [?] during the Vietnam War protest time period and I lived during the AIDS protest time and the growth of the LGBTQ movement, and I do want to acknowledge that the grief and rage and resistance that we're seeing today is part of a longer legacy of people who have been full of grief and rage and resistance before us so that we don't isolate ourselves and we also take credit for this particular moment, which is unique in the sense of the reach, the brilliance, the clarity about the demands, and I'm very excited about, you know, the defund the police direction that this is taking, and so it's a yes and no answer. I'm so excited to be alive in this moment, and I feel like I was honored to live through those other moments as well.Zach: And, you know, it's interesting because it's easy to kind of forget about the history of protest or the history of, like, anti-racism work, and so then, like, things kind of come in cycles, and so, you know, new voices come up in new generations and it's almost as if these conversations have never been had before, but, like, I'd like to get your perspective on really, like, just these concepts, the concept of whiteness and then also, like, the concept of anti-racism. And I know those are big questions. I'ma give you space, but I'd love just to hear you talk about that.Tema: Well, I think part of what's really unique about this moment is that these concepts are more broadly understood within the resistance movement that we're seeing now than they ever have been in my lifetime, so that part is definitely true. When I started doing this work a gazillion years ago, [?] years ago or so, you know, a lot of people--there was not what I would call... I don't want to use the word sophisticated, so the deep understanding about what whiteness is, how white supremacy operates, how white supremacy is the culture that we're swimming in, how it informs who we are although it doesn't define who we are. There was not that clarity, and I feel like I've been a part of the generation of people who helped think about, develop, and--and I'm not taking credit for it. I mean, I'm part of the wave of people who sort of understood that it was important to ground us in understanding that, understanding the ways that white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, all of these symptoms of oppression have really shaped who we are, and we need to understand how they operate if we're gonna do something different and have a different vision. So what I'll say is I think--and this might be one of the questions you're gonna ask later, but I think that the thing that we need to be careful about is that white supremacy and capitalism and patriarchy are very, very ingenious, and what we've seen happen in every movement that has ever occurred historically in our country is that they get diverted from a justice focus to an access focus and that capitalism and white supremacy know how to lure us just enough to say, "We're gonna let you have power of a certain extent in our institution. We're going to let you have access. We're going to say good things about you. But don't rock the boat too much." Leaders going, "Defund the police? It's too vague. You don't have a plan." You know, when we talk about access to healthcare, people don't demand [?]. It's like, "Yes, we have a vision. We have a vision of communities where the billions of dollars that are spent on militarized police are spent on schools and community centers and making sure people have enough food to eat." That's the vision that we have [?] defund the police, and that's what we're gonna do and not get distracted by--so part of the backlash is gonna be fierce and hateful and violent, but the more dangerous part of the backlash is gonna be accomodation.Zach: It's interesting, to your point around, like, respectability, right, and so how people, like, use the concept of civility, like, as a cudgel, right, to really stymie progression. You know, we had Dr. Robin DiAngelo on Living Corporate a few months ago, and we talked about her work in studying white fragility, and, you know, and--and, not but... not but, but I've listened to perspectives on how white fragility is not necessarily, you know, anti-racist work. Can you share your perspective on that?Tema: Sure. One of the dangers of our movement--and, you know, I love our movement, and I love many things about it. One of the dangers of our movement though is that we can get really [?] about what being in the movement or what activism is, and so my feeling is--so I'm 68 years old. I've been around a long time, and [?] point in my life is that we need it all. We need it all. This is not a competition about, you know, who's doing it right and who's doing it best and where the focus needs to be. So our frame, the way--The DR Works Collaborative has also been closed for about three or four years. All of our materials are on our website, which we can share the address later, but what we--our frame is that typically racism shows up on three levels, on the personal level, the ways that we are with each other and ourselves, on the cultura level, the beliefs and values and standards and norms of the groups of people that we're operating within, including sort of white supremacy culture overall, and then our institutional policies and procedures and practices, and one of our racial equity principles is that you have to work on all three levels. And so what I hear Robin saying, and I think it's really important, is that those of us are white who work pretty consistently on our conditioning, [?] the invitation that we are extended to join whiteness and, in joining whiteness, to both disconnect from people of color, disconnect from other white people and disconnect from ourselves, because that's what the invitation is. An example of white fragility is if you are angry, if you are in full grief about what's happening and my fragility says, "Well, you need to tone it down, because I can only accept your [?] if it comes to me in a certain kind of package," then I'm completely disconnected. I'm disconnected from you, and I'm disconnected from myself because I'm not allowing myself to feel my own grief and rage, right, because I'm so scared of yours I'm certainly not gonna feel my own. So I think what you're speaking to, you know, there's a thing that people say about white people and navelgazing and that we just like to navel gaze, and what I like to--you know, we like to agonize, and Maurice Mitchell talks about how his liberation or the liberation of black people, of people of color, is not tied up with my anxiety as a white person about getting it right. So I think that there's this balance between [?] our personal work, because all of us have invitations extended to us by white supremacy in some form or another. So all of us doing work on our internalized self and then continuing to be in the world and relationships and figuring out what our role in this resistance movement is. So it's not an either or. It's very much to me a both and, because if we don't do our personal work, then the way that we're gonna show up is just gonna replicate all of the [BLEEP] dynamics and clinging to power [?] and not understanding who we're accountable to and posturing and, you know, just things that aren't helpful, and fear of our fear and all of those things. I think it's a both and, right?Zach: I appreciate that, and I agree, right? I think one, white fragility is just so real, and it creates so many barriers and, frankly, causes so much harm in ways that we don't even consider, like, literally every single day, and because white supremacy is such a reality, white fragility impacts behavior of black and brown folks even when white people aren't around. So to make sure that those who are in power are examining and interrogating themselves, like, that's critical. That doesn't mean it's the only thing, but it's important to do.Tema: Yes. I think that living in white skin in a white supremacy culture obviously confers power and privilege, but not to everyone, and not in the same way, right? And so I think that it's really important, for me--'cause I'm speaking for myself--to understand how many white people are caught up in the same crapola of white supremacy and the ways that racism targets people of color, are caught up in that without [?] seeing it clearly. And I'm not saying that racism targets white people, I'm saying white people who are working class and poor or white people who have had no opportunity to understand how whiteness operates are swimming around in ways that are completely not in their self-interest, and, you know, are continually encouraged, for example, to look to middle class wealthy white people as their community when in fact their community are other people in the same economic and social situation that they're in. So, you know, I'd like to make sure we understand how many white people are hoodwinked by this whole thing as well and invited to participate in ways that make no sense [?].Zach: I think that's a really good point. One piece of literature that has really gotten, frankly, over the years consistent attention, but at this time it continues to get attention, is "White Supremacy Culture." It's something that you wrote, and we'll put the link in the show notes for everybody, but we're gonna walk through this research, this document. But before we do that, can you talk to us a little bit about how you arrived at the points that you made within the work that you wrote?Tema: Sure. So I've only written one book, and it's called "The Emperor Has No Clothes: Teaching About Race and Racism to People Who Don't Want to Know," and it basically was a chance for me to sit down and write all the things I and other colleagues have learned about teaching about race and racism to people. So that's what that book is, and White Supremacy Culture was written before the book, and I wrote it in either [?] or [?], so a long time ago. Kenneth and I were doing a lot of work on the West Coast, and I had just come from a People's Institute for Survival and Beyond workshop with Ron Chisholm and Daniel Buford and probably a few other people, and The People's Institute is based in New Orleans and is sort of, in my view, the grand daddy of people doing anti-racist education and training in my lifetime and so were our mentors and, you know, people that were doing the work that we were doing, so I was full of their wisdom when I wrote the piece, and I also had--and I can't remember the meaning, but I had just come from a meeting of predominantly white people where pretty much every dynamic in that sheet of paper, in that article, showed up, and I was frustrated beyond belief, and people say this, and this is my only experience of this phenomena, which is that "it wrote itself." Like, I didn't--I sat down at the computer and it wrote itself. Just sort of "This behavior, this behavior, this behavior, this behavior." It was like I was in a fury, and then I showed it to my mentor [?] Martinez, who was running a challenging white supremacy workshop at the time in the Bay Area, and she said, "You can't just list the terrible behaviors. You have to list antidotes. You have to talk about what to do," and so that was such good advice, and so I added those into it, and I will say--so it was written a long time ago. It was written without a class lens, which it needs, and it [?] things out, and it didn't--so I'm actually, in this moment, my project is creating a website rather than another article, but rather a website based on the article so that it can be more flexible. Lots of people have used it and adapted, and all the ways that people have used it and adapted it I'm gonna add a class lens, tell some stories, give examples. So that's my current project.Zach: Can we talk about, like--because in this document you essentially have these different characteristics. I'd like to walk through the characteristics that you list and then really just have you talk about each of them, because again, there are a lot of people that I respect, and I'm gonna shout-out Dr. Oni Blackstock because she's one of the most recent people who I saw tweeting about this and talking about this, but it's all over YouTube. Like, I don't know if you know this, but I just saw a video where somebody put this document up on a video and then, like, slow-scrolled it and talked about it, but I caught myself reading it and I said, "This is exactly like every work culture I've ever been a part of." So let's do this. Let's do each characteristic, and then you just kind of explain, you know, how these attitudes and behavior, you know, reinforce or drive white supremacy at work. Can we do that?Tema: Sure.Zach: So you start off with perfectionism. That's your first one.Tema: Mm-hmm. I started with that one I think probably because that's the one I'm the most guilty of myself. So, you know, I talk about how white supremacy culture is--the purpose of white supremacy is to disconnect us from each other [?] so that a few people can exert their control, cultural control, in ways that allow them to profit at our expense, and so perfectionism is this [idea?], it's very connected to professionalism, and it's this idea that there is a perfect way to do something, which is completely nonsense, and that there's somebody or some group of people who can determine what that is and encourage you to aspire to it. And then we internalize that, and I don't think I know a single person who actually feels completely comfortable with who they are and how they show up and how they're doing things, because the culture is so [?] I feel like we're continually falling short, and if we're continually falling short, then we have to buy products to make ourselves look better and feel better, and it's just a vicious cycle. And another thing I'll say about this list is that these things aren't just used to perpetuate racism and white supremacy and to target people of color in different ways at different times. They impact everybody, and they're toxic. There's nothing good about them at all at any time unless you're the one trying to control other people, and then you're so disconnected from yourself it's not even--Trump is a very good example of someone who's completely disconnected from anything. So I think that perfectionism is used as a tool of professionalism and as a tool to keep people from positions of power and also to keep people off balance about who they are and their worth and their value.Zach: You know, it's interesting. One of the things you say in here is, "Little appreciation expressed among people for the work that others are doing, appreciation that is expressed usually directed to those who get most of the credit anyway."Tema: Mm-hmm, yeah, exactly. And then the way that we internalize that, even when we're fighting hard not to. You know, I was talking to a friend yesterday who was applying for a position at a foundation. It's completely, completely clear to me, and I think to her, that she is not only qualified for the job, she is over-qualified for the job, and my guess is they won't hire her because it's clear to them too, you know? And it's so pernicious, the way that that works, where a lot of white people here who are not called to account for our lack of understanding about how racism and white supremacy works because it's not ever part of our job qualifications. No one is evaluating us based on our ability to understand how that works, and we're about to invite somebody in who does understand, and that makes us really uncomfortable, so maybe [?] somebody who's gonna not make us feel uncomfortable all the time. That's part of how that works.Zach: And so it's interesting. So I was about to move to sense of urgency, but to your point, in the recommended antidotes for racism you have "develop a culture of appreciation where the organization takes time to make sure the people's work and efforts are appreciated. Develop a learning organization where it's expected that everyone will make mistakes and those mistakes offer an opportunity for learning." It's interesting, even in organizations where they'll say things like, "Oh, it's okay to make mistakes," I've noticed that--and this is a common experience for most black folks at work, black and brown people to be clear, we don't have the same grace to make mistakes. It's interesting because--and I've had this conversation already with a colleague, but there was a time at work I put a PowerPoint together, and one I just think PowerPoints overall have to be one of the biggest examples of, like, subjectivity to the max, because what you think is a good PowerPoint or nice design I may genuinely think is abhorrent. I may really not like the design of your PowerPoint, right? Like, I might hate it. But anyway, I did a PowerPoint. Someone didn't like it, and so then that PowerPoint and then me, in their eyes, not doing well on a PowerPoint, was then a justification for me to blocked from [a multitude] of opportunities in very public ways, right? And so it's like, what does it look like to really create objective, safe, equitable spaces for everybody?Tema: Right. And what does it look like for that particular person to admit to themselves that they may not have the corner on how something needs to be done? I mean, I remember--each one of these, there's so much that's also interconnected, and two things come to mind. I remember Kenneth--so Kenneth was my mentor and my colleague for 12 years, and he died way too early in 2004, but as we were working together I remembered saying to him... 'cause my style, we were both about the same age, and my [?] style is sometimes to say or admit I've made a mistake or to show some vulnerability, and I said to Kenneth, "You never do that, you never show any vulnerability." "Tema, I can't afford to do that. People are watching me, waiting for me to make a mistake. So even if I make one, I'm not gonna say that I did because people are ready to pounce all over me for it." You know, and again, just another example of how long it took me to learn that, he had to sort of say that out loud to me [?]. So yeah, I think there's that part of it, and I had another thought, but I'm sure it will come to me as we keep talking. So here's the other story, which was that I seemed to be the details-oriented person, and sometimes I'd get really frustrated because I felt like he wasn't paying attention to, like, air fare or flights or when we had to be somewhere, and so I started to develop a little bit of an attitude about how I was doing so much more than he was, more important [?], and we were having a discussion and he said something to me like, "I talked to So-and-so the other day," and I said, "So-and-so? They were in our training a year ago," and he went, "Yeah, yeah." I said, "You're talking to them now?" "Oh, yeah, yeah," and then he proceeded to tell me that he was fostering relationships with most people in almost all the trainings over time and that that's what he did, and it just was such a lightbulb moment for me. I'm like, "Oh, my God. This man," who was a brilliant trainer, there was no question about that, "is leading and offering things that I've never even dreamt of being able to lead or offer that makes such a difference in this work, while I'm sitting here feeling all superior because I know how to schedule a plane flight." It was just like... so many of us, and so many white people in particular, but so many of us are walking around thinking that we know how things should work when we don't know at all, [?] open to how other ways of doing might actually offer so much more. So yeah.Zach: I appreciate that, and that resonates with me too because I think about, especially if you have, like, these majority white organizations, you know, again, people attract, or they're attracted, to people that are like them, right? And that's not just in appearance, but also in, like, ways of thinking and doing, and so, like, if you're in this space, the majority are really good at tasks or really good at [?] things off a box, if there's someone who can do those things but that's just not their wiring, then that person's automatically seen as a problem or as inferior in some way. In reality it's like, "Okay, I don't need--there's eight of y'all who tick off boxes and who are very, like, transactional. Is it possible for me to be different and at the same time be just as good if not add more value than you do perhaps?" I think, for me transparently, one of the biggest mistakes I think I've made in my career is that I think I've been too transparent and vulnerable about me wanting to learn and grow, 'cause I say "Hey, I'd like to learn this. I don't know this," but I've learned, in the spirit of perfectionism, when you communicate that you don't know something or you're new to something, I've just learned that we don't know, black and marginalized people, just don't have the grace to communicate that they don't know. They don't have the grace to grow. They just don't.Tema: Yeah, and it's infuriating. It's completely infuriating, and it's a complete loss. I think the thing that I would like to get across with my audience, my commitment to working with other white people, is for those of us listening to this to understand the deep violence in that, you know? In working side-by-side with people who feel like they are not allowed to offer their vulnerability or their desire to grow and learn because--my God, it's intense.Zach: So you have a lot of terms here, and you know, we might have to do a part two, but I want to see how many of these we can get through so I'm gonna back up and let you talk more. Sense of urgency.Tema: I think that, again, the point of urgency--so every organization I've ever worked with operates with a huge sense of urgency and everything is so critically important right this minute, and it completely perpetuates racism because--the example I'll give is we were doing work with an organization of mostly lawyers that do very good work on a state-wide level, and they had just sort of unpacked all the ways in which [?] of color on the staff and in the community that they served were not feeling heard, were not included in decision making, their ideas were shut down, sort of what we were just talking about, and then an emergency came up, and I think there might have been an arrest, but something urgent happened within the community, and the white leadership, the white lawyers, felt like they had to respond right this minute and if they didn't the organization would be at stake, and right in front of our eyes all of the dynamics were playing out in front of us, and the two of us who were facilitating the workshop tried to suggest to them, "This is happening right in front of our eyes. We know that this is urgent, and we suggest that you sit down and you take a breath and you understand there are other people in the community who are handling it in this moment and that what you all need to do is really sit and take a breath and see how you can approach this differently," and so they just repeated the--you know, you could see it. The white people were circled around, making all these decisions, and the people of color were [?] them on the outside, trying to listen in and then getting disgusted and walking away, and it was just--when things are urgent, if we're not paying attention and we haven't set up the relationships and we haven't set up the procedures to say when things get literally urgent this is what we're gonna do, when things feel urgent but they aren't this is what we're gonna do. Is this really as urgent as we think it is? Because it's urgent we need to take a breath, we need to take a breath and make sure that we're all in this together rather than walking all over each other in our attempt to prove something, which is to prove that, like, we're the organization that's gonna respond like that, even if the way that we respond, you know, tramples over people. And then I think a lot of us internalize urgency. A lot of white people feel like, "If we don't act right now, if I don't fix this right now, then I'm not gonna be able to prove that I'm a good white person," so then we go in and fix something and we make it worse because we haven't stopped to take a breath to consult with other people, to see if our intuition, our impulse is actually the right one. I've seen that happen over and over and over again.Zach: Let's talk about quantity over quality.Tema: Well, you know, we live in a capitalistic society, and we love to measure things, and we love to believe that value has to do with amounts of things, usually money. And again, so I see some of the [thunder patterns?], all of the thunder patterns that I've seen in my lifetime and work, is thunders trying to get people to prove that they're effective by the numbers of things. "How many people did you impact?" Not the quality of things, not the depth of things, not the sustainability of things but, you know, the number of things, which is such a limited measure of how we're doing, and the research I've done on culture shift shows that it's actually not a numbers game. We don't need a majority of people to shift culture. We need deep relationships, we need generational change, we need clusters of people coming to new beliefs simultaneously, but they don't have to be a majority. So I just think it's good to be able to have a sense of what we think progress is, but often we aim towards--I do a lot of work in schools, and the story I often tell--so I'm sorry if anyone's heard this before--is how our schools often, if not always, have a story that what they're trying to do is prepare students for success, and what they mean by that is "We want students to stay in school, get good grades, graduate, get a job, and go shopping, and if we can measure that we've done that it doesn't matter if our students are leading meaningful lives. We're not measuring that. We're not measuring if students know how to find themselves. We're not measuring if students have gotten in touch with their spiritual side or their artistic side. We're not measuring whether students know how to be in a relationship with themselves and with each other. We're not measuring the things that matter, you know? We just don't know how to measure those things. We're obsessed with graduation rates and, you know, how much money people are making.Zach: You have another one here about worship of the written word.Tema: Mm-hmm. So I'll give an example if you'll give an example, but this is our history, sort of the theft of indigenous land, the theft of land from Mexico, the broken treaties, the enslavement of people, it's all built on worship of the written word and the whole, you know, all of our Southwest and Midwest states that became US property after the Mexican-American War and the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, all of that theft of land was made possible because Congress passed all kinds of legislation requiring people to [?], and most people lived in a culture where that's not how people [?] that they owned land. So that's just one example, and just the ways that we hide behind "If it's not written down, then it doesn't exist." "It's only wisdom if it's written down," and then only if it's written down by certain people. What comes to mind for you?Zach: So here's where I found the application interesting. So there's a way that I believe those in power and in the majority will essentially place the burden on the oppressed to have evidence, like, tangible, documented evidence, but then in the instances where that evidence is undeniable, then at best it simply just saves that oppressed person from being harmed, but it doesn't necessarily guarantee justice for that oppressed person.Tema: Yeah, or they'll say it's not written right or the form was not filled out correctly or--Zach: Right, or "We still don't have all the facts," or "What about the other person's side?" And so there's still this--it's such a jig, because you're gonna lose, but the question is "While this may have saved you from getting fired, it's not actually going to absolve your name completely after all. These other people said something." Right?Tema: I think about when Bhagat Singh Thind sued the Supreme Court for citizenship, and he was from India, and he was suing based on how science classified people from India as Caucasoids, and the year before a Japanese person who had done the same thing lost the case because people from Japan were classified as mongoloids, so they were not white, but the Supreme Court said, "Well, it's true science classifies you as Caucasoids, but you're not seen as white by the common white man, therefore you're not white." So it's the written word, but also the word is, as you said, controlled and considered by those in power, and whose written words will be paid attention to and whose won't?Zach: Yeah. I think about Breonna Taylor. We know that she was murdered by the state in her own bed, but then when you go back and you look at the report it's completely blank, right? And so, like, anybody with good sense should be able to understand that Breonna Taylor's bullet-ridden body and that piece of paper are not congruent. So one of those [?] is lying. Breonna's own blood testifies that she is not lying, so why are Breonna Taylor's murderers still free? It's the worship of the written word.Tema: Yeah. Sandra Bland, all of that, yeah.Zach: Yeah, Sandra Bland as well, right? And countless others. Tony McDade. And it's frustrating, but I think about that. I think about how manipulative and--you used the word pernicious, it's a really appropriate word in that, you know, documentation really matters until it doesn't. I always tell marginalized people to document everything, because again, while documentation might not ever hold any accountable, it at the very least can make sure that you don't get fired, or it can delay you getting fired because you have something, hard evidence, that if someone says something, you're like, "Well, what you're saying is clearly not true." Okay, so paternalism was another characteristic that you had in your research.Tema: Yeah. I'm gonna bow here to a man named Paul Kibble, who does a lot of writing on Christian hegemony. It's just the way in which--and so many of these intersect, and I'm adding one called "qualified." I don't know if that's on the list explicitly there, but it's the way in which white people assume that, because we're white, we are qualified to act and make decisions that are outside our lived experience, and I think about--when I taught it, when I wasn't on the faculty in educational leadership, when I taught undergraduate students in education, you know, most of them are young, white women who were coming into teaching because they loved to--and please know I admire teachers beyond belief because they work so hard for so little, and yet they come in, these young white women come in very idealistic and very hopeful, and they have no experience, most of them, working with people of color and very little preparation for doing that, and yet have not internalized that they're not at all qualified to do the job, and the education system hasn't internalized that either, and so just the ways in which we've got almost every [?] institution is operating out of a sense of paternalism. Like, "We know what's better for you without consulting you or asking you about your lived experience." And I think about doing work with the department of social services where it's about a woman who, in order to make it through her week, had to visit 11 different offices in the Department of Social Services to account for herself, you know? And it's the way in which--if we look at Congress. Banks are completely involved in writing policies having to do with banks. Poor people and working people have no say in policies that impact their lives, and the laws that impact their lives are written by people who think that they need to be punished for being working class and poor or who think that they need to be exploited or, you know, who have absolutely no care or concern or lived experience, for the most part, of what it means to be black, brown, working class poor, and paternalism is just this idea that "We know better than you," and it can be very deeply embedded in religious thinking, in Christian thinking, and [?]--it's just sort of the idea that "We know best. We're going to convert you to our ways," and that's white supremacy is all about. The goal here [?] is "Act like us if we can exploit you more that way." Assimilation, and if not assimilation exploitation and violence, you know? It's just all based on this idea that we know better, and one of the things that we know better is that [class?] is more important than people.Zach: I think that's true. I think it comes down to a lot of power and control. So, you know, one of my larger concerns right now, even as corporations and larger organizations are looking at Black Lives Matter and people are taking these statements and stances, and organizations are mobilizing their employee resource groups and different things to have these conversations and do real talk and all this kind of stuff, and how much of this is about really hearing and including their marginalized employees, and how much of this is about, like, really making sure that you're retooling, reshaping your organization to be equitable and inclusive, or how much of this is really about you just trying to put some gates and borders around this to maintain control, right? That's my biggest concern.Tema: So I think there's two parts to this. So I think there can be conscious paternalism and there can be unconscious paternalism, and probably lots of gray [?] in between, and so I for one completely hate the terms diversity and [?] because I don't think that they--it's about window-dressing or table-dressing or whatever term you want to use. It doesn't ask the question, "What are we including people into?" Because if we were to ask that question, we would have to admit that a lot of what we're inviting people into is toxic. So it's not about including people. It's about reshaping everything, and I think that's what I was talking about in terms of what we need to be wary of, that some of the backlash is going to be very direct and hateful. Now, a lot of it is gonna be about accommodation, and forget about justice, let's just accommodate, accommodate, accommodate. And paternalism really plays a role there, and we can see it reflected in older leaders often, people who have been around a long time, who are scared they're gonna lose power by these young people who are coming up full of fervor and demanding justice, and some of us have accommodated for so long in order to just often survive that we've forgotten what the goal is, and some of the paternalism is--I'll speak for myself--is internalized entitlement, the internalized belief that I'm qualified to do things I'm not qualified to do, and it didn't require any intent on my part. And I tell a story on the website, and it might be in the book I can't remember, of essentially pushing my black colleague aside in an environment where I knew absolutely everything. This was a different colleague, a colleague named Kamayu [sp] [?], an incredible organizer, and he was in [?], the room was packed full of African-American people living in the [?], economically poor, culturally incredibly genius and rich, and, you know, I didn't think he was doing a good job, so I walked up to the front and I pushed him aside, and I didn't know anything about [?] in the [?], right? But I had this instinct in my body that he wasn't doing it and I needed to fix it. It was--so there's that, the way I internalized this paternalism and this idea that I know how to do things. We just cause so much harm, and again, it's a complete tribute to Kamayu that we're still friends. He actually didn't say anything to me for years, and finally I started to think about it and I'm like, "Kamayu, what about that day?" And he went, "Oh, I figured you'd figure it out sooner or later." You know? So there were, like, five years in there where Kamayu was not--I was not in a genuine relationship with him because he was waiting for me to figure it out, you know?Zach: To your example, I think about it in ways that, like--so it's interesting, you have these cultures that are very racist, right? Like, you have these organizations that have harmed black people for a while, but it just so happens that there's a certain confluence of events that are forcing organizations that have been historically harmful to black and brown people, now they're having to do things differently. But what's challenging, what's interesting, is that some of the people who just six months ago were very harmful are now self-appointing themselves as leaders to have these conversations, right? And, like, there's a certain--of course that's emotionally inauthentic, but I think there's also a certain level of entitlement and paternalism in that.Tema: Yeah, totally. And again, I think--so this is my job, it's not your job, but as someone who identifies as white, who is white, who lives a white life and thinks a lot about what it means to be in relationships with other white people, part of [my job?] is to encourage myself and other white people to think about, "What are we doing here?" And what is the cost to you of this posturing, and what would it be like for you to actually authentically sit down with yourself and go, "Okay, what am I afraid of? What kind of help do I need? What are the things I really need to change?" And I think all of us need to develop a much better practice of what I would call radical honesty with ourselves about why we want to live in a world where we actually are able to have authentic relationships with other people and ourselves and live in a world where people are well-cared for and people can thrive and we don't have to be so afraid of [?] and all these other things. So yeah.Zach: So I'ma pick one last one. Fear of open conflict.Tema: Yeah, that goes back to perfectionism and some of the other things that we talked about. The story I'll tell is that--well, it's a common story, which is that some racism is happening, and rather than deal with the racism that's happening we will label or target the person who's naming it, and sometimes that happens to white people too because we're so afraid of the truth-telling that's gonna happen of how racism is happening. So it's just this--we're too afraid to talk about things that are real and are gonna have emotion attached to them and might lead us, as white people, to feel like we've done something wrong or that we may even essentially be bad in some kind of way, so let's not talk about it. Let's blame the person who's trying to make us uncomfortable. This is attached to "right to comfort." Let's blame the people who are calling us in and say that there's something wrong with them so we don't have to feel our feelings, we don't have to be uncomfortable, we don't have to look at ourselves. We can stay in what feels like control, and it's such a--again, it does such harm, to other people and also to ourselves. The ability to sort of say, "Bring it on. Okay, tell me more. Tell me more. That was so racist? Okay, tell me more. I want to know. Tell me more." It's such a different energy. It's opening. Or "You're racist." "No, I'm not." "Yes, you are." "No, I'm not." There's nowhere--it's, like, you're building conflict and you're not--it's like, "So tell me. How am I racist? Yeah, I want to know, because I think I probably am. So tell me." There's so much more fruit there, even if you end up not agreeing with what they say it's like there's more fruit, more juice, more ability to--it's like, "We can handle this. We can sit in this discomfort, and in fact, if we don't learn to do that we're not gonna get anywhere."Zach: But see, I think that in the context of, like, a business, like, the fear with that is that if I admit that I'm racist, if I admit that I've harmed you, then that gives you byway to pursue the company, right? And so there's this fear of creating risk or opening your company up, opening yourself up to risk by admitting your faults, you know?Tema: So people just need to figure out a way to deal with that.Zach: [laughs] I love how you just dismiss that.Tema: Oh, come on. I don't--you know, legalese and laws and policies [?] in service of connection and not in service of fear and abuse, right? It's like Trump saying you can only come to the thing if you're not gonna sue me if you get the coronavirus. Like, no. And I would also say, for me, one of the racial equity principles [?], you'll see this list of characteristics, and you'll also see our racial equity principles, and one of the ones I love the most is called Organizing Mind, and what we mean by that is you start with the chorus. People go, "Oh, you're preaching to the chorus," and I go yes, because our chorus is very out of tune, so let's get in tune, and then we can start preaching to people outside the chorus and bring them into the chorus. So it's, like, start with the people who want you want, and figure out what your power is, figure out the risk that you're willing to take, and from there each one reach one teach one, as Sharon Martinez would say. So in a corporate environment it's, like, figuring out what are the roadblocks that we need to get rid of so we can actually do this, or whwere are we willing to have authentic conversations regardless of the risk and can we start doing that? So figure out what's within your power to do and do it. Don't wait for permission. Don't wait for--you know, there are lots of things that we can do and build our power that way without people giving us permission to do it, as we are witnessing across the country and across the globe, right? All these beautiful people, many young people, not waiting for permission. Bringing down statues, [?], and it's a beautiful thing to see right now.Zach: It's brought me joy, frankly, to see. Dr. Okun, this has been a phenomenal conversation. I just want to thank you so much for being a guest. I want to make sure that everybody knows that the document that we were walking through and that I picked a few characteristics out of for our guest to beautifully expand upon is gonna be in the show notes, and we're going to also be promoting it--you'll see it this week on social media and things of that nature, so make sure that you check it out. This has been Living Corporate. You know, we do this every single week. We're having conversations, real talk in a corporate world, that center and amplify marginalized voices at work. We'll make sure to catch you all next time. In the meantime between now and next time, we're all over Beyonce's internet. You just type in Living Corporate, we'll pop up. Catch us on Instagram at LivingCorporate, and man, if you have anything you want to talk to us about, just contact us through the website, living-corporate.com. Please say the dash--living dash corporate dot com. 'Til next time, y'all, this has been Zach, and you've been listening to Dr. Tema Okun, activist, educator, speaker, organizer. Peace.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Zach chats with Ruchika Tulshyan, award-winning author & CEO and founder of Candour, about equity's place in the future of work. Ruchika explains to us what it is about the diversity, equity and inclusion space that had her commit so much of her life to it, and she ties her breadth of experience back to her childhood in Singapore, where she grew up with people of all different nationalities, cultures and religions. She takes us through her career journey and graciously shares her struggles and triumphs along the way.Connect with Ruchika on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.Visit her personal website. You can find out more about Candour by clicking here.Check out Ruchika's Harvard Business Review contributor page and get reading!Read the pieces mentioned in the show, If You Don't Know How to Say Someone's Name, Just Ask and Women of Color Get Asked to Do More “Office Housework.” Here’s How They Can Say No.Learn more about the books Superior and So You Want to Talk About Race.Visit our home page!TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, everybody? It's Zach with Living Corporate. That's right. I'm back. It's probably Tuesday, or maybe you're listening to this later. It's, like, a Wednesday or a Thursday. I don't know, but we're recording this, and we're recording this, of course, we're having real talk in a corporate world. We center and amplify underrepresented voices in the corporate space, and by corporate space I just mean at work, okay? So this is not, like, an elitist thing, right? So, like, if you work at Wendy's, hey, this is for you too, okay? If you work at Goldman Sachs, this is for you too. And you're probably a white man listening to this, and if so, hey, man, thank you for listening to the podcast. I hope that you learn something from this. But this is for everybody is my point, and we do this, we amplify and center underrepresented experiences, by having underrepresented folks--these are, like, influencers, journalists, activists, educators, public servants, entrepreneurs, executives, recruiters, anybody, really, who is able to really come on and just have some real talk with us. And we've had some amazing guests every single week. I mean, every single week we have some fire--I mean, fire fire fire guests, and this week is no different, okay? 'Cause you know who--I don't even know if y'all know who we have, but I'm up about to tell you. We have Ruchika Tulshyan. Ruchika is a diversity & inclusion strategist, award-winning author and journalist. She is the author of "The Diversity Advantage: Fixing Gender Inequality In The Workplace," a book on strategies for organizations to advance women. Ruchika's company, Candour advises a number of organizations on diversity, equity and inclusion strategy. Ruchika is also the 2019 inaugural distinguished professional-in-residence for Seattle University's communication department. Ruchika, hold on. I've gotta let the air horns fly. How are you doing?Ruchika: I am doing very well, Zach. I'm so excited to be here. [children cheering sfx, both laugh] I love it, I love it. I really do.Zach: We gotta get into it. We gotta get into. You're an author, a journalist, an international speaker, and a CEO of your own consulting firm. Like, what is it about this space, about this diversity, equity and inclusion space, that had you commit so much of your life to it?Ruchika: You know, it wasn't planned at all, Zach. And I grew up outside the United States. I'm from Singapore originally, so I think about food all the time. In fact, right now while I'm talking I'm thinking about "What's my next meal?" But--Zach: What's your favorite food?Ruchika: So, you know, being from Singapore, we eat everything, but probably anything Asian, anything with noodles or rice. I can eat rice for breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper, snack, midnight snack. [laughs] You get the drift.Zach: Yes. No, I do. So do you like pad thai?Ruchika: I'll never order it in the United States 'cause I've had it in Thailand quite a few times now.Zach: Oh, my gosh. What it is like in Thailand?Ruchika: It's so different. It's not sweet. It's just--it's got this beautiful... it's like umami, you know? Like, there's a different flavor altogether. So yeah, I haven't--you know, I tried it once or twice in the U.S. in different cities, and I was like, "Yeah, this is not going to be the thing for me."Zach: You know, it's interesting that you say that, because I remember--so I went to Japan. I was in Japan for a couple weeks last year--well, in 2018--and I remember just eating the food there. It's like--it's crazy that, like, most Americans don't have all of their toes cut off from diabetes with how much sugar we have in our food, right?Ruchika: Yes, yes, yes. And that's--I mean, I could talk about this all day, because, you know, I think about this all the time. And again, I think it's all related, right? And I think even talking about diversity and inclusion, like, really understanding people, finding a common language based on food I think is something that's really special and a very, very important way to connect with people.Zach: You know, I 100% agree. And just one last thing about the food, 'cause you talked about, like, when you have something in the States and then you--for me, 'cause I'm from here and, like, all my people, as far as I can go back, are from here, right? But when I went to Japan I had sushi in Japan. I said, "Wait a second." [laughing] Ruchika: Right? Isn't it completely different?Zach: I said, "What?" I just was--I mean, I had, like, a spiritual moment. It was just like, [blessings come in sfx, both laugh]. I said, "My gosh, my taste buds." Ruchika: Isn't it? And all their food, everything. I mean, if you've had chocolate in Japan, if you've had, like, cookies in Japan, if you've had a cake in Japan, it's like nothing you've ever tasted before, you know?Zach: Yes, and I'm just--and how conditioned I've been eating here, it's like--I'm used to, like, if I eat something, like, a big meal, I'm used to be a little--like, a little sleepy afterwards, right? So I'm like, "Wait, why can I still walk? I can still walk around and, like, think cognitively after eating this meal. [?]" Okay, so I'm sorry. Long segue aside about food--but it's important though. It's a connection to culture. I'm right there with you. Ruchika: So we were talking about diversity and inclusion, right? [both laugh] And how did I get into it? Well, you know, it's connected. You know, it is connected. So I think I was kind of built for this in some way, although it wasn't planned. So growing up in Singapore, I just grew up with people of all different nationalities, all different cultures, all different religions, and it was very much a way of my life, and I moved around quite a bit when I was younger. But what it really exposed me to was the fact that, you know, at the end of the day we're all the same, you know? In many ways we want the same things. We really, really just want to be happy. We want to be heard. We want to feel valued and respected. And so I really grew up with that concept, you know, as a part of my life, just the way it was. You know, my friends were from all over the world, my teachers were from all over the world, and I really grew up with sort of an idealistic, almost Kumbaya sort of belief in the world, and when I moved to the United States about eight years ago, that was a very big shock for me, you know? And I really saw what I still think in some ways is modern-day segregation. You know, I really saw it in full force. There's a stat that three out of four white Americans don't have a single friend of color, and I think that's really concerning, because I grew up in a very different sort of environment, and it really made me see the--it's awesome. I mean, just talking about food, you know? Being exposed to different cultures, different types of food. I feel so lucky, and I actually think people are missing out, and so for a vast majority of Americans, the most diversity they ever experience is actually in the workplace. So, you know, I'm sort of setting myself up to saying that, you know, that was the early part of my life where I really felt, you know--I just had a connection, but I never thought that I would work in this field. I didn't even know this field existed. And what changed for me is I began my career as a journalist and was really happy about it, loved it, then moved to Seattle and sort of transitioned into tech, because that's what everyone does here, and it was the most challenging experience of my life, you know? I really encountered sexism and racism that I just wasn't--you know, I didn't think that it could happen to me. You know, I really grew up with the mindset that you work hard, you work smart, you put your head down and you do your thing--and sure, you know, you raise your hand for opportunities, you're confident, et cetera, but I really didn't think that it would make a difference, you know? My gender, my race, sort of the way I scope, my accent, my name. I didn't think these things mattered, right? I know, so naive of me now that I reflect back on it. And it was a very rude, painful emotional awakening and really kind of created that empathy in me where I said to myself, "This cannot be the way that more than half the population is being treated in the workplace, right? And these are their experiences," and as a journalist I started collecting experiences. I started collecting stories and case studies and even data, right, and research, and it was very clear that something had to change. So I wrote in my book, five years ago, at a time where people said, like, the way that women can, you know, advance in the workplace is they need to lean in, right? That was sort of the narrative of the day, that it was something lacking in women, there was something lacking in people of color, and they had to change, and I'm really glad that we're thinking about this as a systems change that actually doesn't--you know, if you have been stereotyped against, if you have had--you know, if people have this preconceived narrative about who you are and what your potential is in the workplace, it doesn't matter how much you lean in, you know? I mean, like my friend Minda Harts says--you know, CEO of The Memo and has an awesome book out on it, on [?] of women of color at work, Zach. I know you know her. It doesn't matter how hard you lean in if you're a woman of color. You are just not going to be able to get ahead until those systemic biases have been addressed, and so that's what got me into this work, and it's a long-winded answer.Zach: It's long-winded. This is a podcast. [both laugh] But no, you're absolutely right. I'm right there with you, right? And it's interesting, when you talk about, like, systemic versus, like, individual actions--I'll say for me, it's been frustrating, like, just transparently, like, being a black man in majority-white spaces. And I'm in, like--I'm in professional services, right? So consulting, and a lot of times when there's issues that come up when you're dealing with folks or people want to frame you as being "angry" or "frustrated" or whatever the case is, like, whatever trope you want to kind of pull out, right, and then you share those frustrations with, like, other people who are not underrepresented, who are a member of the majority, their feedback or coaching is often, like, things that you need to do and change, but it's like, "Yeah, that's not really the problem." And not to be arrogant. We all have places where we can grow and mature, and emotional intelligence and social intelligence and personal awareness, all of those things are very important. At the same time, like, have the moral courage to actually talk about the systems at play and how there are a lot of things that really aren't our fault. Like, there are things that are being done to us or that we are--you know, it's asymptomatic of larger systemic challenges, and it's tough though. It's tough to have those conversations, especially for folks in the majority. Some of them literally just don't know how. Some of them it's just so uncomfortable they don't--you know, how much of that is real? How much of that is, like, you imagining it, right? But to me I'm just noticing more and more--like, I'm getting increasingly discouraged when you have these conversations, you know, and it's like, "Yo, can we just have a conversation about, like, why is it that this person constantly calls this person or these types of people too opinionated or loud or aggressive or angry or--" Whatever the case is, right? Like, you kind of see it over time. And it's funny that you bring that up about Minda Hart. Shout-out to Minda Hart. What's up, Minda? In fact, hold on. I'ma get some air horns for you and Minda. [both laugh] So what you're speaking to about leaning in, right, and how the concept of leaning in, it was promoted by a white woman with--and I recall there being major articles written and, like, championed about the fact that women of color can't lean in, exactly what you just said, and so I'm curious, when you talk about your focus on gender equity, what does that look like, and how are you introducing intersectionality within the concept of gender equity? Like, how does that practically show up for you in the work that you do?Ruchika: So Zach, let me tell you one of the biggest career mistakes I ever made in my life, and that was to write a book that overall lacks intersectionality. And my students will tell you this, because I make the poor things read my book for one of my classes. And so, you know, every class we have this discussion about, you know, the fact that my book lacks intersectionality as well as that it really treats gender as a binary, right? Which is fully my fault and also a big part of the larger system of publishing and editing, et cetera, where that, you know, concept of intersectionality is still lacking, right? And I don't know--even right now, I don't know if management theory has really caught up to the fact that you really need to have a very intersectional approach when you think about gender equality, right? Like, it is not just about the challenges that white women face. It is really about--if you really want to make change, it is about looking at the intersection between how women of color, both those intersections, experience the workplace, and then especially, from there, expanding that to include other marginalized identities in the workplace. So I will be the first to admit that my book lacks intersectionality, and my hope is, in all the work I've done since and will continue to do, I absolutely cannot--you know, I absolutely cannot take an intersectional approach. That being said, I really think, again, the key to making a difference when it comes to workplace gender equity is having a situation where the voice of the person who is the most marginalized in the room is centered so that the workplace works for all, right? So if the workplace was built by, say, a cis-hetero white man and that's who the workplace is built for, if you do not consider the experience of what, you know, a woman of color, a black woman for example, a trans black woman of color, what's the experience, you know? And who may have, you know, disabilities, cognitive, temporary, physical, whichever--or a combination. If you do not start there, then you're going to continue perpetuating systems which alienate, you know, women, and especially women of color across the board, you know what I mean? So you really need to start with the person who's the most vulnerable who is having really the most challenging experiences in the workplace and then expand from there and think about "What is it that they need to be successful," right? And how can that be incorporated into the fabric of what you do? And that's why part of what I love to do, I love speaking to large corporations. We just talked about someone who works at a large corporation who we both know, but really for me the--you know, I also really love working with smaller teams and startups, because when you can build intersectionality, when you can build inclusion and equity into the very fabric of your organization, right, when you're building it from, like, one to five to ten to twenty employees, that is where you can really make a change, and I have seen that happen personally.Zach: You know what? So first of all, you know what I'm saying, like, while you were talking I didn't want to cut you off, but in my mind when you said--when you, like, owned up and you said, "My book does not address intersectionality," I was like [record scratch sfx]. 'Cause I was like, "Wow, that's incredible, because everybody--" I want everybody to stop. Stop what you're doing. You're driving your car, you're doing whatever you're doing--especially you, diversity, equity and inclusion supposed subject matter experts--stop and see what Ruchika just did, okay? I asked her a question, a direct question about a very important concept if you want to consider yourself a diversity, equity and inclusion expert. You see what she didn't do? She didn't get all defensive and fragile. She outright owned something that she didn't do and her commitment to improve in the future. Some of y'all need to learn from that. I'm talking to you. Yes. If you think I'm talking to you, I'm talking to you, okay? Shout-out to you. That was dope. Ruchika: Thank you.Zach: You're absolutely welcome.Ruchika: And listen, I'm not--you know, I don't at all claim to be perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and I do want to double-down on this point. Like, I've said it before, and I'm gonna say it again. I think growing up both outside this country as well as sort of in some way out of, you know, sort of the Western way of living has meant that I have had to approach DEI in the United States with a tremendous amount of humility and a learning mindset, right? I mean, in the country I grew up in, gay marriage is not legalized, right? I didn't have any friends growing up who were out. The first time I actually came in contact with someone who was openly gay, for example, would have been sometime in my 20s. You know, openly, right? So what I'm trying to say is that you can have been brought up a certain way. The people you love may believe that, for example, having friends of different colors or treating people from different backgrounds equally, maybe you grew up thinking that's not the way life should be, but my point is you can grow. My point is you can learn, my point is that it takes a tremendous amount of humility and learning to get to that place, and you absolutely can get there.Zach: Amen. No, I agree, and I think we're coming into an era where people are just getting, like, less and less tolerant of, like, corporatized nonsense, right? So, like, there's going to need to be, eventually, some sort of reckoning with, like, the systems at play. In fact, we're in a unique position because it's an election year where we almost have kind of, like, a countdown. We know one way or the other there's going to be an--like, there's going to be another explosion, and there are going to be more and more people supposedly very surprised all over again, but I think--I also think that just, like, societally and generationally, like, we also have folks and younger folks who weren't able to vote who saw the nonsense last time but weren't in the same position who are in a different position this time. So I just think that the--I think that the dialogue is going to still be just as present if not more present than it was in 2016, so the imperative to really--like, to your point about humility and being willing to learn, centering the most vulnerable and continuing to seek to grow and develop yourself in this space is important, because I just don't think that some of the trends that I saw in this, like, environment over the last decade I don't think is gonna be sustainable this upcoming decade.Ruchika: It isn't. And you know, Zach, while you were talking I was thinking of this idea. You know, coming to this country as an immigrant, my experience was definitely steeped in and very much the way that I was told that I would be successful in this country was to uphold white supremacy, right? And I have to acknowledge that for us to really make a change, we need to address anti-blackness in a lot of immigrant communities, including the ones I'm part of, south Asian primarily. And I think it's very important to really drill down into that a little bit more, you know? And if we do want to see a change, even in the workplace, you know, I work with tech companies, and there's a lot of, like, "Oh, we don't have a problem with people of color. Like, there are a lot of Asians doing really well in our tech company." I've had leaders write to me--I used to write a column for a supplement of the Seattle Times, and I had people all the time from large tech companies being like, "Oh, but our CEO is a person of color." "Oh, but our," you know, whatever it is, you know, "Our top people are people of color," and I really had to stop and say, "Listen, it's not about people who are already represented in the workforce. If you really want to make a change, can you tell me how many black people are leading at this company? Can you tell me how many black [?] people [?]?"Zach: Ooooooooh, goodness gracious, Ruchika. What you talking about? [laughs]Ruchika: You know, how many indigenous women, for example, are [?] at your company? Then let's talk about equity.Zach: Well, 'cause we're not a monolith. And you're absolutely right, right? There's this idea--and there's terms that we use, and, you know, this is the thing. Living Corporate is a positive space, you know? If we make any, like, direct statement--we have real talk, but, like, we're not--you know, we're not trying to be overly mad all the time, right? [both laugh] As hard as it is, but, like, one thing that grinds my gears is, like, people using the term "people of color" when we're really talking about specific underrepresented groups. Like, let's actually name and give those groups the respect--like, because if you say black people, that's already a very complex group. So, like, let's at least say--if we're talking about black people, let's just say black people. If we're talking about south Asians, let's say south Asians. But, like, when we say people of color, it's like--you know, I don't know if you have it, but every black person who's listening to this podcast knows what I'm talking about. You have a junk drawer in your house? It has, like, nails and, like, batteries and everything in there, right? Ketchup packets. And that's really what "people of color" is, it's just a junk drawer term. We're just gonna throw--if you're not eggshell white you're a person of color, right? And it's like, how do we break out of that? And so let me ask you this then. When you ask those follow-up questions and you start asking them to be specific, you know, and you ask, like, "Well, how many of this particular group do you have?" Then what does the conversation--what does that shift look like in conversation?Ruchika: Most people are tremendously uncomfortable and don't want to engage, right? And that's also--I'm happy to get off this topic because then I can talk all day, but part of it is the terminology and the language is flawed. In the same way "people of color" is flawed, so is "Asians." [?] Indians and Indian-Americans, you know, capture some of the highest income groups in this country, but in the same category of south Asians--just if you look at the south Asian subcontinent--[Bangladeshi?] immigrants have the lowest rates of poverty, some of the lowest rates of poverty in this country. So what I'm saying is already the terminology that we use to describe, you know, race is extremely flawed. And by the way, I'd like to shout-out to a book that I'm reading that I love already. It's called Superior by Angela Saini. She's a British science journalist. I'm actually part of the team bringing her out to Seattle to speak at our university here. And I just love this book, because it really dives into how race science came about and the very flawed logic that is being used to show that there are differences biologically between the races--which, by the way, she argues very, very well, using tons and tons of data and research to show that that's absolutely not true, [that?] race is a social categorization and we absolutely must acknowledge the experience of different people socially because of, you know, these categorizations. Biologically, there really aren't that many differences. And so I think my point--you know, I'm gonna go off on a tangent here, but people don't want to engage because we are so comfortable with this idea, "Oh, no. Let's not talk about race." That's a very interesting thing that I've really noticed here in the United States. In fact, I did some of my tertiary education in the United Kingdom, and then I, as I mentioned, grew up in Singapore and moved around quite a bit. What I found is that really in the United States, people don't want to talk about race, and as a result of not talking about race, they uphold racism, you know? It's just--it's baffling to me, it really is, and I think if you can't address it--and, you know, I've now moved to Seattle, which is really--you know, another shout-out, my friend Ijeoma Oluo's book So You Want to Talk About Race. Excellent book. I highly recommend it to every single person out there. Amazing. I make my class read it every year, and they're so grateful. After my boring book they go to her book and they're so grateful. You should see the evaluation papers. They're like, "[?] boring." [laughs] But my point is without us really naming and owning some of the huge systemic barriers we've had in the workplace, I think we're just gonna let the status quo run, and I think you have to be brave enough to get super uncomfortable and address those challenges.Zach: You know, and it's interesting you say that, right? And of course I agree. It leads me to the next question I have, which is recently Goldman Sachs announced that they won't be taking companies public without at least one diverse board member, and then they went on to emphasize gender diversity. My first question is do you think that this is substantive, and then two, or Part B to that, do you believe black and brown men are largely excluded from DEI initiatives, and if so, why?Ruchika: Okay, so firstly do I think that it's substantive? I don't think so, not at all. I think actually the word diverse--like, I think "diverse board member" already is just problematic. And here's another shout-out. You know, Aubrey Blanche talks about how you cannot--the word "diverse person" is actually problematic. Like, there's no such thing as a diverse person, right? [?] a white person is diverse, right? So diverse itself, you know, like, back to language, like, name what you mean, and what you mean here is "underrepresented," right? Like, that's what Goldman Sachs meant by one diverse board member. What they meant was underrepresented or underestimated. [?], but underestimated board member is what they were talking about, right? So already that training is problematic. And I think if you emphasize gender diversity, I really think you're missing the boat, right? Are female founders underrepresented and underestimated? Absolutely, right? But here's real talk. In the Fortune 500, 19% of the C-Suite is made up of white women. Only 4% is made up of women of color, right? So if you're really talking about systemic change, if you're talking about not trying to go through the same systems that are already in place, then you really have to look at race. Without that intersectionality, without actually naming that not only do we mean one board member from a underrepresented background in terms of gender but also race, you're just really perpetuating the problem, right? So I think that--I just think they didn't go far enough. I like the idea. I like what they're trying to say. And we also know that in many, many cases, white women do perpetuate similar systems of patriarchy, right? If you talk to any woman of color in the world, she has a story for you about that.Zach: It's so interesting that you say that, right? Because I really want to talk about the role that white women play in upholding--not only upholding white supremacy, but also ironically--or unironically--patriarchy as well, right? And so it's like, what--I think there's more research and work to be done, and/or I'd love to just bring on more folks to just really deep dive into that subject, because I think it's worth discussing. I think that it's--as a black, straight man, I benefit from patriarchy, and I have my own privileges. I do believe that white women sit in a very unique position in America, or just in the world in general, in that they are an oppressed group but also heavily benefit from white supremacy, and so it's just curious. And you're absolutely right, I've talked to plenty of women, black and brown women, who have their own experiences and frustrations, and I've seen them as well. I've seen oppression in action at work. But I do find it to be an underdiscussed topic. I know that there are articles and things out there. I still just think there's many more conversations we could have around it. I'm curious as to what's gonna need to happen for us to, like, just more unabashedly address the topic head on though.Ruchika: Absolutely, and I think it's, again, that being comfortable with getting really uncomfortable, because I think so much of, again, sort of the leftover of workplaces that were designed for and have been sort of continued on by white men, I think it's very much like you don't talk politics at work, you don't--you don't bring your sort of real, authentic self to work, and we know that that's changing with the next generation. I did want to answer your question about black and brown men largely being excluded from DEI initiatives. I do think so. I think black and brown men are--I think they do face some very specific and very, very difficult challenges. From a research standpoint, they--you know, we know research can always be flawed, but McKinsey's Women in the Workplace study, their report--I in fact have it in front of me--shows that, at entry-level, men of color represent 16% of entry-level jobs in corporations, and when it comes to the C-Suite, that's down to 9%, where with women of color it's 17% at entry-level and 4% in the C-Suite. So we know that, you know, while there's a huge underrepresentation of men of color, the percentage of underrepresentation of women of color relative to how many actually enter the workforce is really stark, right? Like, a quarter versus closer to half. So my point here is I think when you look at the data, you know, I can see why perhaps the experiences of men of color are sometimes left out and excluded from DEI initiatives. I do think it's a very, very important part of--again, if you really want to make substantial change, you do have to include them. The only other way, again academically, I've looked at this is what I've found is that when you address the two historically most underestimated identities in the workplace, right, or historically lower-status identities--and that's gender and race, so women of color--that's where you can really make a big difference, because if you look at white women, they benefit from, you know, one high status, the [?] of being white, but one low status, and for men of color it's patriarchy. You benefit from it. So I think there's this--I think it's a very delicate dance, but do I think we should build corporate diversity initiatives without including the experience of men of color? Absolutely not. I think again you will miss out, and again you're gonna leave things out that really are crucial to making sustainable change.Zach: So you speak about change and you talk about, like, the future. You know, it's curious, 'cause as millennials--as we've entered the workforce, you know, there was this collective anticipation from thought leaders around "Okay, yo, watch out, 'cause millennials about to shake it up. We about to cause a ruckus, you know? It's about to be crazy over here," and there was a lot of that talk. I'm curious, you know, how have you seen that in the work that you do practically, the infusion of the millennial generation, and then what, if any, shifts do you anticipate as Generation Z comes into the workforce in the next decade?Ruchika: You know, I don't really 100% know how to answer this honestly. I mean, I teach students who are at the sort of cusp of millennial, Gen Z, and it's really amazing to see, you know? They're very, very different, at least in the sense of being at least aware of some of the huge problems we see in the world today. I mean, they're the people most impacted by climate change, for example. And I do see that there is a very early understanding of social justice and why this is important, and that really gives me a lot of hope, right? You know, when I taught five years ago, my students weren't that socially justice-minded in the way that they are right now. So already in five years I'm starting to see a huge change. At the same time, I think, again, they're inheriting systems that were built with patriarchy and white supremacy at the core of them. So what's interesting and exciting to see is many reject that, and they're starting their own businesses, they're doing their own thing, they're in their own side hustles and their side gigs, and that's really interesting, and that's a very important part of the change of the future of work. At the same time, I think without addressing those systems of oppression, you are still gonna find many millennials who will continue to co-opt into them for many reasons, right? I mean, this is the generation that's the most financially insecure in close to a century, and they're really, really struggling with a lot of the mistakes that the generations before them made, and so I think that there's no perfect answer for this. I think what I will say is that it's exciting to see at least the data showing that millennials and Gen Z really care deeply about, you know, working in a place where they can live out their values, and they would actually--a significant portion of them would actually rather take lower pay than work for a place where their values don't align, and that's really exciting. That is a very different way of looking in the workplace. And again, maybe sometimes--I mean, I'm a millennial. Maybe I wouldn't be doing the work I'm doing if I was not a millennial, right? Like, maybe I would have had that terrible experience in tech and I would have been like, "Well, you know, this is just the way that it is, and life's like that, and I need to continue." And I just want to admit that there's tremendous privilege in me being able to do that. I mean, I talk to immigrant women whose ability to live in this country is tied to working for a job no matter how toxic it is, right? I talk to many, many, many people who have had to continue working in workplaces that were terrible for their mental health, terrible for their health in general, and they just had to, right? For a variety of financial reasons, health insurance, et cetera. So I do want to acknowledge that.Zach: So let's do this. Let's talk a little bit about you, right? You have so much going on, and so I just want to make sure that we really give you space for you to share what you're excited about this year and just what you're focused on.Ruchika: Thank you. Indeed, I do a lot. I don't like to talk about myself, but I will say my goal for myself this year is to do a lot more speaking based on some of the topics that I care about, and, you know, it's really inspirational when I'm able to address a room of people, and I've had people come up to me and say, "Thank you so much. This is the first time our leader has heard about unconscious bias and the experience of women of color," or "This is the first time we've actually had language around what diversity, equity and inclusion means, and thank you for saying the things that you've said." So I think part of my goal for this year is just to continue being a very vocal advocate for women of color, for people of color in the workplace, keeping an intersectional lens when it comes to, you know, diversity efforts. So that's something I definitely want to do. I do write for Harvard Business Review, and my hope is to do a lot more work for them as the year comes along. I would like to share one article with you, Zach. Actually there are two. One that I'm really, really proud of is one I wrote very recently about why it's important to pronounce people's name correctly. I know I have a challenging name and an unfamiliar name in this country, and it really makes all the difference if you think about inclusion, and as time goes on this absolutely includes people's pronouns and other sort of very subtle ways of making sure that you include people, and one of the easiest ways is to make an effort to get their name right. And so it sounds so simple, and it makes all the difference, because my name, 9 out of 10 times, is mispronounced. Like, even when I pronounce it correctly for people, they don't want to listen, and I think that is something that really needs to change. So there's that. The other is I really hope to continue writing about and speaking about topics that, like, generally we don't easily talk about, and for me one of those is talking about office housework. So a couple of years ago I wrote an article about how women of color are asked to do more office housework, right? So this means all the non-glamorous work. It can be actually, you know, correlated to housework, like, you know, ordering lunch, doing the dishes, whatever it is, tidying up after meetings, but it also relates to the non-glamorous work at work, you know, like taking meeting notes or sitting on committees that don't lead to promotion or mentoring the interns, for example. Like, i t's not gonna impact your performance review, and so I really want to continue shedding light on these topics that people generally don't talk about, but they do actually make a huge difference when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion. Zach: Man, shout-out to you, Ruchika. This has been super dope. I'm so excited. I love your work, I love your writing. We're gonna make sure we have all of your information in the show notes, including the books that you referenced, and then, like, let's just make sure--you know, you're a friend of the show. Like, you're welcome back at any time. So if you have anything you want to plug or you want to promote, you come here. We got you, okay? I'm serious, we got you. Let's see here. Before we let you go, any parting words you have for us, for the folks listening in, for the--so we call... so did you watch The Avengers?Ruchika: You know, I did not.Zach: Okay. All right, so--Ruchika: In my defense, I have a 3-year-old, and life is very full. [laughs]Zach: No, super respect. I definitely get it. My wife and I are welcoming our first kid.Ruchika: Oh, congratulations.Zach: Thank you very much. I was gonna make a reference. So, like, on Living Corporate, we call aspiring allies Buckys, because in The Avengers movie, Ruchika, Captain America had a friend, and his name was Bucky Barnes. But, see, Bucky Barnes got hurt, and he had to get some medical help, but his medical problems were so complex they had to actually send him to Wakanda, which is this fictionalized African nation--Ruchika: I know Wakanda. [laughs]Zach: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so--[laughs] and so then he goes to Wakanda, and they end up calling Bucky "The White Wolf," you see what I'm saying? Because he's, like, a friend of the Wakandans. So, you know, it's a long way of saying we have a lot of Buckys listening in, aspiring allies, and I'm just curious if you have any words for them, for the Wakandans listening in, and for everybody in-between.Ruchika: Ooh, wow. Okay, that is such a big sort of closing. [Zach laughs] So listen, I'll start first with the Buckys. I think here's the deal. You know, I think it's always--it's easy to, like, talk and believe that your frame of reference and your narrative is the most important or the most significant, and I think what we need to really start doing is to step back and listen. Like, literally listen and open up your networks and open up sort of your privilege and open up your world for people who haven't had that experience, right? And what I mean is, like, for example, I'm a small business owner. Buy from me. Don't come to me and say, "Oh, you're doing great things. I'm so proud of you." Buy from me. Refer me, you know? [cha-ching sfx] Yeah, literally. Like, it's literally that, you know? And if someone's doing great work at your company and, you know, you're a white man with a lot of influence, recommend the woman of color. "Hey, you know who should run this meeting? This person who never gets to do that," you know what I mean? So for me it's about moving away from being a passive ally into an active accomplice, and I've heard this framing from a few different people. And so it's really about being very active. So that's my thoughts about, you know, Buckys. When it comes to people of color, when it comes to people who have been underestimatd, I had an experience last week where I was underrepresented. It was really hard. It really, really hurt. I think in those moments you really need to find your people. Like, you need to find your people. And they can be Buckys or they can be fellow Wakandans, but you need to find your people that you can really come clean with, that you can sit down and be like, "Hey, this horrible thing happened to me. Tell me I'm not crazy," because for a long time, especially everything that actually led me to this moment, has been me pretending like, "No, everything's great. I'm fine. Yeah, some moments are tough, but otherwise I'm doing great. I'm working super hard." And I think we forget, like, we need those mental health checks. We need people who we can rely on, who can navigate some of the really, really hard stuff you have to navigate when you are underestimated at work. Does that work? Does that help? [laughs]Zach: Does that work? Let me tell you something, you're dropping mad bombs. [Flex bomb sfx] That's incredible. Man, no, absolutely it works. Thank you so much, Ruchika. Now, look, you were talking about the importance of pronouncing someone's name, and let me just say as an example, it is very important, y'all, and my country self--and I know some of y'all may think I come from Connecticut, but no, I'm actually from Georgia. Like, I'm very country, and--Ruchika: I love Georgia. I lived there for a while.Zach: I appreciate that, and yes, Georgia is a dope place. I'm from Rome, Georgia. Shout-out Rome, Georgia, and then shout-out to Mississippi 'cause that's where I'm from by way of 'cause that's where all my people are from. But look, you want to take the time, y'all, and really slow down and make sure you can--and ask. Like, people will always respect and appreciate you trying to ask and seek as opposed to being like, "What's your name? I'ma just call you Bob." Like, "No, don't call me Bob. That's not my name," right? Like, "My parents gave me this name. This name carries weight and meaning and history and culture, and it's part of who I am as a human being that exists on this plane of existence with you, so please take the time to understand how to pronounce my name." So with that said, Ruchika Tulshyan...Ruchika: Thank you very much.Zach: Thank you very much. No, you were a beast. This has been great. Very thankful to have you on the Living Corporate podcast. That does it for us, y'all. You know where to check us out. We're on Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod, Instagram @LivingCorporate. We're on all the different DSPs, so we got Spotify, Apple... I don't think we're on TIDAL. Maybe. I don't know. Holla at me, Hov. "It's ya boy!" I don't know. But we're on all the other DSPs, okay? So if you Google Living Corporate we will pop up, okay? You know, if you want to make sure--if you're a browser person, you're not really trying to take any risks, you know, type in www.livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.tv, livingcorporate.us, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.net, living-corporate--please say the dash--dot com, but we don't have livingcorporate.com, okay? Australia has livingcorporate.com. The day that we're able to wrest livingcorporate.com from Australia is the day that we have arrived, okay? Ruchika: Wow. So you went out there and you got all of those domains?Zach: We've got all the domains.Ruchika: Wow. That is really--look, that takes a lot of work. I mean, obviously, you know, I'm, like, totally in awe, but this is, like, double the awe. That means you're really serious about this.Zach: Oh, we're not playing. So if you type in Living Corporate dot anything else we will come up, it's just that livingcorporate.com--so Australia, it's, like, this corporate housing website thing. It's really strange. And I've been, like, doing my work. I've been doing my Googles, my research, trying to figure out "How can I get this domain?" But you know, Australia's a big place. Living Corporate, we're only--you know, we're just one little company, but we're gonna get it though one day. Anyway, the point is we're all over. If you want to send us a listener letter, look, DMs are wide open. We are not elitists. You don't have to follow us, and we don't have to follow you, for you to DM us. Just hit us up, baby. We'll respond. Ruchika: But you should follow Living Corporate because their podcasts are so incredible, and really, if you care about, you know, making real change and you want to hear from people who are out there who are really making change, between all of you and your guests, I mean, I learn something every single episode.Zach: [straight up sfx] You hear that? Did you hear what Ruchika Tulshyan said? Come on, now. Goodness, gracious, the love is real. All right, y'all. Ruchika: I mean it.Zach: And I feel it, so thank you. Y'all, this has been Zach. You've been talking to Ruchika Tulshyan, speaker, innovator, educator...Ruchika: All the things. [laughs]Zach: All the things, you know what I'm saying? Give her all the things. Don't play, okay? And make sure, Harvard Business Review, if y'all listen to this, you know... don't play. She's dropping that heat.Ruchika: Hey, this is a very important part of this whole thing, okay? It's really important to spread the love and to, what I say, you know--you know, this is not a case of, like, sending the elevator back down, which is super important, especially, like--I say this a lot when I talk to a room full of women, but it's really important to be able to share the love and, like, be real, and be real in the sense like, "I need this. Can you help me get there?" And I think that's one thing that, if you've been underestimated at work, you've been told for so long that, you know, you don't matter or what you're doing isn't important enough, then it becomes hard to ask for help, right? I mean, all of the lean in narrative is about "Oh, you need to ask," but you have always been shot down or you have been shot down 9 out of 10 times, then of course you're gonna have bloody imposter syndrome, you know? Zach: Oh, my gosh. Yo, we gotta--okay, so do we need to have you back, like, for a variety of reasons, but certainly to talk about, like, how to ask for help and just, like, managing the emotional labor of asking for help over and over and over again, 'cause you're absolutely right. I mean, now, look, my dad, he's a salesman. Like, that's really who he is, and so I get it from him. Like, I'll shoot. Like, I'll shoot over and over and over again, but it doesn't change the fact that at the end I'm exhausted, and it's defeating to hear "no" all the time or to be undermined or for you to be told no, and then someone else comes along and asks for help and basically they end up doing a watered-down version of what you wanted help to do, you know what I mean? Like, that is... ugh, anyway. Goodness, y'all. Look, Ruchika got us over here about to have a whole new podcast in the wrap-up section of the show, but that's okay, y'all. Look, you've been listening to Living Corporate. Make sure you check us out. Check out the show notes. 'Til next time, y'all. Peace.Ruchika: And I'll be back. [laughs]Zach: And she'll be back. [laughs]

Zach has the honor of speaking with Howard Bryant, an award-winning author and senior writer at ESPN, about what prompted him to write his latest book, Full Dissidence, and how he landed on the title, and Howard also talks a bit about some of the differences between power and money. Howard also touches on his coverage of Colin Kaepernick's workout, and he graciously shares his concerns about the direction of this country, particularly in the area of journalism.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.Visit our website!TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and you know what we do. Every single week we're having real talk in a corporate world. We do that by what? Having authentic conversations with black and brown thought leaders, activists, educators, executives, recruiters, entrepreneurs, anybody really who's willing to center underrepresented experiences in the workplace. And man, I'm just really excited, because this week we have Howard Bryant on the podcast. Howard Bryant is the author of nine books, the most recent being Full Dissidence: Notes From an Uneven Playing Field, and he's contributed essays to 14 others. He is a two-time Casey Award winner for best baseball book of the year, and a 2003 finalist for the Society for American Baseball Research Seymour Medal. The Heritage was the recipient of the 2019 Nonfiction Award from the American Library Association’s Black Caucus and the Harry Shaw and Katrina Hazard Donald Award for Outstanding Work in African American Studies awarded by the Popular Culture Association. He has been a senior writer for ESPN since 2007 and has served as the sports correspondent for NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday since 2006. In 2017, he served as the guest editor for the Best American Sports Writing anthology. He has won numerous awards, as y'all should've heard by now, [laughs] and he was a finalist for the National Magazine Award in 2016 and 2018, both for commentary, and earned the 2016 Salute to Excellence Award from the National Association of Black Journalists. In addition, Mr. Bryant has appeared in several documentaries, including Baseball: The Tenth Inning and Jackie Robinson, both directed by Ken Burns, and Major League Legends: Hank Aaron, produced by the Smithsonian and Major League Baseball. Mr. Bryant, welcome to the show, man. How are you doing?Howard: I'm good. Thank you for having me.Zach: Man, thank you for being here. Let me start off by saying I was familiar with your work because, you know, I'm an ESPN consumer, but it was over the past few months in your--and really, like, frankly the past over a year or so of your coverage of Kaepernick, but particularly the workout that had me really investigate your work and pre-order Full Dissidence. Can we talk a little bit about what prompted you to write this book and how you got to the title for the book?Howard: Well, I think that the first question is... I think time, you know, got me--when you work on projects and when you write, it's an organic process in so many different ways. You don't really even know what you're gonna be working on, but the environment around you begins to dictate an urgency, and things start telling you that, "Okay, these are subjects--" As I always say, if an idea comes and goes, it's really not that important. If it keeps staying with you and keeps staying with you, then you have to pay attention to it. And what was happening I think in this country, if you start to look at the accumulation of the election of Barack Obama followed by Trayvon Martin followed by Jordan Davis and Ferguson and Eric Garner and all of these different things that were happening, also then followed by Kaepernick and then followed by the election of Donald Trump. You've got so many issues here that you have to pay attention to, and especially as African-Americans, you feel certainly that--the racial component of all of these ideas hit you close to home. They're not just topics. It's not just a subject for you. And I think for me what was really becoming more and more clear was that they were all connected and that the connectedness of it told you that there was something else happening that you need to explore, especially--to be more specific, I would think certainly the 2016 election made me think--it made me re-examine the relationship that I had with my white friends and my white colleagues and the people that I grew up with and all of these folks that you associate with who, in so many different ways, would want you to believe and that you would want to believe were your friends for life or that you had great relationships with and that you had great professional relationships with, and then you get to a place like this, you know, election-wise, and you start to see the gap, or when you start talking to your white colleagues about policing and you start hearing how wide the gap is between you, and then you start looking at the gap as well between what was being said about--you know, about America and its post-racial potential during the Obama administration, and then you go from that to this presidency. It just made me look at all of these different components as a black man, and you had to start reassessing the relationships and what they meant and what it meant for me personally.Zach: Man, that's just a really--well, thank you for that and the context. You're absolutely right. I recall--it's interesting because I've had long-standing relationships with white folks, and I recall during the election, leading up to it and then of course after the results, having certain conversations that I just made a presumption that we agreed about or that I would just think that--Howard: "We're on the same side."Zach: [laughs] Right? And then you have a conversation or you say something and you say--you know, you have a point of view on something that's pretty pointed or matter-of-fact, and then not to get that same level of acknowledgement back almost like--you know, you might say something like, "You know, this is clearly wrong," and then, you know, you get back a "Well, is it? I don't know." Howard: They're like, "Oh, is it really clearly wrong?" Yeah. I mean, for me the first moment of it was October 1st, 2008, and I remember this specifically because I was driving to Logan Airport in Boston. I was going down to Atlanta to go to Hank Aaron's house. I was interviewing him for my Hank Aaron biography, so I remember the date clearly. And I was on the phone with a friend of mine who I had known since we were in middle school, and she was--you know, she's a white woman, and I'm driving to the airport, and we were talking, and at some point she sort of said out loud that Sarah Palin was far more qualified to be president than Barack Obama, and that stopped me--I almost drove off the road.Zach: That would've stopped me dead. [laughs]Howard: Right? So that was the first moment where it was like, "You know what? You can't assume anything," and it really started to begin this reassessment. And it wasn't simply that we had differences of opinion. You can vote for whoever you want to vote for and I can vote for whoever I want to vote for, but the issue was more about values, and it was more about what's being said and how white people are able to balance these viewpoints and the values of these people that they're supporting and still be able to consider themselves great, great, close friends with black people, and it struck me that the reason why they're able to do this is because for them race and politics and these things, they're just topics. It's just a subject, and--Zach: They're like thought exercises, right?Howard: Well, exactly. And it may be more to them on some level, that it's not just a topic because you care about the dolphins or you care about the environment or you care about whatever, but what it is is that they're able to co-exist. They're not line-in-the-sand "I can't hang out with you" issues. It's like, "Okay." The thing that had struck me was the number of times that you've had people talk about, during the impeachment, the end of democracy, and they would use these apocalyptic terms. You know, January 21st, 2020, the day democracy died, and then in the very next sentence talk about, you know, "I can't believe how my Trump-loving friends are--" You know? I'm like, "Well, wait a minute. If you're able to break bread with these folks, and you're able to just flip the switch that it's a difference of opinion, then it's not apocalyptic." Apocalyptic means I need to make life and death choices here. I need to make survival or non-survival choices. That's what apocalyptic means to me. It means the apocalypse is coming, right? And so for me I was realizing that as a black man and as a writer and somebody who thinks about these issues as more than just topics, I wanted to re-assess the people in my life, and I wanted to re-assess these issues, and I wanted--and I think one of the things in the book that was so important to me was in that re-assessment I couldn't help but keep coming back to the importance of where Colin Kaepernick fit in this in the first chapter. I remember right when the election hit I said to a bunch of friends, "A lot of relationships are gonna change after this day," and I was really in some ways talking about myself. But what I meant about Kaepernick is here was a guy who hadn't played football since 2016 and yet he still finds himself completely at the center of the culture. He still creates or elicits such an enormous physical response from people, and my question in that first essay, what Colin Kaepernick taught us, was really to ask one major question. I mean, there's a bunch of different ideas in that essay, but one of the overarching questions for me was why is it so important for this culture to destroy this man? It's bad enough that he's not playing football, the fact that when Nike rehabilitated him with just a commercial, one 90-second commercial, you had people trying to boycott Nike. Zach: Burning it. Burning clothes.Howard: Exactly. You had people--and they weren't just people, they were law enforcement, retailers, people in the mainstream. People in positions of authority.Zach: Institutions, yeah.Howard: Exactly, going out of their way to make sure that this man didn't have anything. So you didn't want him--so it's bad enough that he's not gonna play, right? Okay, so he lost his livelihood there. You don't even want him to have a source of income.Zach: "We gotta destroy his character."Howard: Yeah. Well, I wanted to ask this question - "Why is this so important?" I mean, supposedly this is America where everybody is able to have their opinions and that's what makes us different from these other countries, you know? They don't lock you up and kill your family and do all of these different things for disagreeing with government or disagreeing with institutions, and yet you're trying to destroy him. You're not trying to take his life, but you're trying to take his livelihood, and that struck me as important.Zach: Howard, it's interesting, you know--the line you just said, "Why is it so important that we destroy this man?" That was something that you actually said--you said it on air, [laughs] and so--Howard: Yeah, on Stephen A.'s show. Zach: Yeah. [laughs] It seemed like you were, like, the--it was, like, you and I'ma say Bomani Jones were, like, for me, the only black men I saw in media initially, right? So people came back. Like, other folks--Shannon Sharpe came back and he said, "I was wrong," but initially you and Bomani Jones were the only black male voices that I heard in the sports space, like, either defend or objectively discuss Kaepernick when the whole workout situation came up. Was there tension there because of that? It just seemed--and maybe because of me, I'm on the outside looking in as a consumer, 'cause I really--I was watching, and it was your tweet thread that I was sharing with all of my friends and my colleagues and my network and everything about "Hey, this is what's going on. Look at what Howard Bryant is saying. He was there at the workout," but it seemed as if you were, like, one of, again, two voices really not kind of following the same cadence of questioning Kaepernick's content, questioning his motivations, questioning his ability. Am I off-base by saying that?Howard: No, you're not, and I was concerned--and let's be honest, you know? I'm concerned about the direction of this country, and if you are concerned about the direction of the country, you have to be triply concerned about the position of black people. Because if things are going bad, you know we're gonna get it worse. And so to me, one of the areas where I had the most concern is in our journalism. It's very basic stuff, and I was concerned, and disappointed in so many ways, during, you know, my time down there in Atlanta and the coverage that followed, because I didn't do anything remarkable. I did what we're trained to do. It's simply journalism. But it shows you where we are in the culture. It shows you where we are as a country. If people treated that like there was some--like I went above and beyond the call of my job. I just did my job. That was it. The job was to go down there and find out what was happening and talk to people and find out what the deal was. That's it. It wasn't like it took any great deal of courage to go do that. You went down there, you talked to both sides, you found out what both sides' positions were, and you recognize--because we're not, you know, stenographers, you don't [write?] them both equally. You also put your brain in the middle of it, and you filter out what is accurate, what is inaccurate, and sort of how this deal and how this workout fell apart. The problem was, and the problem is of course, that Colin Kaepernick is a lightning rod in so many ways, but you also have a media that is so tilted towards the powerful. You've got rights holders. You've got relationships. You've got business relationships that, you know, are going to overwhelm, in some ways, the journalism. I had an interview the other day and somebody said to me, "Well, I think on balance, when you look at everything, Colin Kaepernick has really been lauded and appreciated and celebrated by media," and I was like, "Are you out of your mind?"Zach: That's not true at all.Howard: I said, "I find Colin Kaepernick's position to have been distorted from Day One."Zach: Absolutely. Yes.Howard: Because every person that goes out there and talks about the military when Colin is talking about policing is inherently distorting his message. If you're talking about, you know, being American or un-American, you're distorting his message. I never felt like he was being treated fairly in any of this because the message kept getting distorted, and we're supposedly very, very smart people, so it's not that complicated a message. Zach: You know, and it's interesting because--so to your point around distorting the message, even from the jump when he said, "Look, I'm protesting police brutality and white supremacy in this country," I don't recall anyone ever zooming in on the white supremacy part, like, in the punditry or the media talking heads, right? Like, we would zoom on--Howard: Well, why would they? They're the bulls-eye. He's indicting them. He wasn't indicting police only, he was indicting them as well, and I think that one of the big issues that struck me in this entire sort of story, and also one of the reasons for writing the book, was the fact that the idea--over the course of my lifetime, all 51 years of it, the American flag was always a symbol of aspiration, just like the Statue of Liberty is a symbol of aspiration. "Come here and you can do better. Come here and you can improve. Come here and you can go as far as your ability and talent takes you," and it was always aspirational when it came to race. Even, you know, your white friends would look at you and go, "Yeah, I know it's not fair, but we're better than we were," and "I know it's not--you know, this isn't right, and we've got a long way to go, but we're better than we were," right? That was always the message that was sent to me. Today the flag is no longer aspirational. The flag is a symbol to be obeyed, and if you don't obey it, you're un-American, you're a traitor, you don't deserve anything, and that is a fundamental shift. And that is a fundamental shift that I would point back to 9/11. And so when you start looking at what this country is, if the attitude is "If you do not obey, then you are a traitor," then what does that mean for black people, where the rules and the laws have needed to be changed just to give you a shot at what we call the American Dream? It puts us in an incredibly difficult position and, in a lot of ways, a position where--you hear what the president has done along the Kaepernick story, which is to essentially say "Well, maybe he doesn't belong here." It's to say that you aren't American. It's a very dangerous place.Zach: Well, you're absolutely right, and going back a second, I know one thing--one thing that trips me out is when folks say, you know, "We're not what we were. We've come a long way." It's like, "Look, if where you started was y'all can't sit at a lunch table with us, y'all can't use the bathroom with us, and now we can... that's not a long way," and, you know, it's almost like if your team was--I feel like Bomani Jones said this example, like, years ago. Like, if your team was, like, 0-16 last year and now y'all are, like, 2-14, it's like... there's been progress, but is that really something that we want to celebrate? Like, we still have--we have so much further to go that why are we even talking about this? Let's just continue--Howard: And also do I consider it progress because you're willing to treat me like a human being? What did I actually earn?Zach: That part.Howard: What have I done? I mean, what has been earned here? What has been gained? So this conversation isn't between you and me. This conversation is between you and you, you know? This conversation is between you not giving me rights and you creating a culture that denied my rights and you relenting a tiny bit so now I get a little bit of rights, but my situation hasn't really changed. This is between you and the mirror. Zach: So in your book you talk about the role that fear played in NFL players not supporting Kaepernick in his protest, right? And this was interesting to me in real-time, because I am--I'm a younger professional. I can't say I'm young, Howard, 'cause I'm 30. So I'm not, like, young, but you know what I mean. Like, I'm younger.Howard: Yeah, you're pretty young.Zach: I'm pretty young, right? So I'm moving around, and this was a few years ago, so I'm in my mid-20s, and I'm looking at all this in real-time and I'm like, "Dog, these guys got--these are millionaires, right? Why are they not--you know, they have acc--" In my mind, 'cause I'm--again, I'm in my mid-20s. I'm making, like, I don't know, like, 60, $70,000, so I'm a quote-unquote "average guy," and I'm confused because I'm trying to figure out why it is that they're not speaking up, but in your essay you highlight some of the differences between, like, power and money. Can we talk about that a little bit more? Because I think it's easy for folks to presume that if you have money you naturally have some amount of power.Howard: Yeah, absolutely, and I think that what we've got here--there's a couple of things that take place, right? And you can think about this as aspirational and think about it as progress, or you can assess it in any way that you'd like, but the question that I've been asking myself is--sports is the only industry that I can think of, and that includes music and entertainment, where there is famous men and famous women who are labor but still make millions of dollars. Tom Hanks makes $20 million per picture. Samuel L. Jackson, you know, $20 million per picture, and so--you know, Scarlett Johansson it's $15 million per picture, however much she makes per movie. So these are enormous, ball player-level sums of wealth, but sports is the only occupation that I can think of where we have this assumption or this instinct that management and the front office is supposed to resemble the workforce. It really is curious in that way, because if you look at farming, and you go fly out to California, there's a whole bunch of brown, Mexican strawberry pickers out there, and nobody is looking at them and saying, "Well, damn, the workforce is 70% or 80% Latino. How come the management isn't 70 or 80% Latino?" If you go to a strip club, there's a whole bunch of women out there making a whole bunch of money for the building, but nobody is saying, "Well, how come the women don't run the business?" But we do in sports. You know, 80% black men in the NBA, 70% black men in the NFL, and we say, "Well, why aren't they running the show too?" And the reason to me is the enormous over-estimation of money. It's because they make so much money we think they have power, but they're still just labor. They're incredibly well-compensated labor, but they're still labor, and sports is the one place, you know, where we over-estimate money, and we recognize, when we get to situations like Kaepernick's or you get to situations like hiring and you recognize, "Oh, there's a limitation to the money," that they're still paying you to provide a service to them. You're still a worker. You're still labor. There isn't, in their mind, the expectation that that's gonna translate into a pathway to management or ownership. It doesn't work that way, and I think people are finding out the hard way. Like, for example, you had asked me earlier the reason for the title "Full Dissidence," and the title, you know, simply comes from this feeling of recognizing that, you know what, it's not gonna necessarily happen for me the way they've told me if I do all these right things, and I think the NFL coaches are sort of having that full dissidence moment in their occupation. They're realizing that no matter, you know, how many Rooney Rules you have or how many assistant coaching jobs and how much experience I have that "that pathway may not exist for me," and I think from a working labor, occupational standpoint, it's a cold bucket of water in the face.Zach: I agree, of course. I think it's interesting because we have been--I know that I was, by my teachers, by black, brown, and white folks alike, that, you know, if you're good enough you can out-perform racism. You can out-perform--Howard: Yeah, exactly. Bomani brought up that point as well, that nobody has ever out-performed racism.Zach: And that, you know, if you get enough dollars, that financial capital will eventually translate into some form of white capital that you can, you know, leverage to get--Howard: To get a seat at the table. I remember when I was working on The Heritage I had a fantastically honest and frank conversation with Al Sharpton about this. So we're in his office in New York, and we're talking about this, and, you know, it's a despairing conversation in some ways because you're realizing, "Okay, well, where is the pathway?" And I finally said to him--I said, "Well, you know, Rev, maybe Michael Jordan had it right. Maybe, you know, for all the criticism that Michael Jordan gets, maybe Michael Jordan realized, even though he is an owner, you know, he recognizes that there's not an open pathway to ownership and you're not necessarily gonna get a seat at the table, so maybe the goal is to simply get as much money as you possibly can, that money is the one thing that they're willing to give you. They're not gonna share the power, but they will give you the cash. So maybe you should work on getting as much of that as you can, and that's gonna buy you at least the individual and the family freedom to live a better life." And Sharpton said, "Well, you're right, you're right... but you're still a coward. Even though you may be right, that still makes you a coward." [Zach laughs] Zach: I'ma keep it a bean with you, 'cause I was talking to my people, right? And I just said--I said, "Dog, Howard Bryant is a real one, dog. Like, he's out--" And you're right, you're right. You were saying that you were just doing your job. You were just doing your job by going out there and reporting the facts, but doggone it, man, you was looking like Fred Hampton in these streets, man. Like, you were the only--Howard: Well, and that shows you where we're at though. It says less about me and more about us.Zach: Yeah, the system. No, you're absolutely right. I do feel like we're able to see the capitalistic jig really clear in sports, but do you believe that it's exclusive to sports, or do you think that, like, the patterns that we see in terms of how these systems are all--how they work together in certain ways transcends just, like, the sporting arena?Howard: No. I think that--one of the reasons why I did Full Dissidence was because there's so much overlap that you needed to pull outside of sports, that what was happening in sports is the exact same thing that's happening in the culture, and the difference is--the reason why it was important to pull some of these ideas out of sports is because people treat sports like it's the toy department. They don't treat it seriously, but yet if you took some of these exact same ideas and brought them into the workplace, into the corporate, into the white collar, then people might look at them differently, and people might view it as, "Oh, now this is serious." You know, the reason why you don't look at it very seriously in sports is because 1. sports is entertainment for a bunch of people, and 2. we dismiss sports because the players make so much money. So it's almost as if "Well, because they make money, they can't have any grievance, any gripes, any concerns, any thoughts, any contributions." So absolutely I think that things are overlapping each other, and one of the most important ways that they're overlapping is the way that the corporate side and the military side know how important sports is because you've got so many bazillion channels on TV now. You've got so many different ways that the culture is separated. Sports is the one place where everybody's watching the same thing. You watch the Super Bowl, you still got 100 million eyeballs on one event, and you don't--it's not The Tonight Show anymore, you know? Or it's not the old days where everybody's watching MASH or Happy Days or All in the Family, but when it comes to sports people are still watching, so they know that's where the eyeballs are. So sports becomes actually more important. There's a reason why, when you're watching the NFL, you see all of the flags and the fly-overs and the military and all that, because the military is actively using sports as a recruiting tool because there are so many people looking at it.Zach: So you talked about 2008. That was certainly a pivotal year. I think about 2008, and I also think about 2016, right? You had the end of an era with Obama, of this [sarcastically] post-racial utopia, and this--Howard: Which it wasn't.Zach: [laughs] Thank you for--I appreciate that, because there will be folks, Howard, who won't pick up on the sarcasm, so thank you.Howard: Mm-hmm.Zach: And then we had the formal election of Trump, right? And Kaepernick was in the forefront in the concept of his protest, the ongoing discussions about policing--a lot of those discussions came more in the center. Ta-Nehisi Coates and his writing also became more, like, actual talking points. Like, it was an interesting year for black folks, and as someone who is in professional services as a consultant, I can say that you could really see the tone of the workplace shifting too because, again, we don't live compartmentalized lives, right? Like, you know, you just talked about sports permeating and everyone looking at it, and even if you're not a sports fan, those topics are becoming more and more mainstream, and I believe that all of these things came together, and even just the tone--just the way that black and brown folks were working and showing up and even, like, topics around diversity and inclusion, they changed, right? Like, those conversations became more on the forefront. You talked about a conversation you had with Reverend Al Sharpton. Can we talk about any other shifts that you've been seeing--you know, again, we talked about even your appearance on different shows and things of that nature. Do you feel as if you've felt shifts as a black journalist dealing with either white journalists or other black journalists as it comes to concepts around dissidence?Howard: Oh, absolutely, absolutely, and I think that the problem that you have in sports is that sports has been telling you one of the biggest lies for pretty much all of our lives, that sports is the place of the meritocracy, sports is the antidote to racism, that it doesn't make a difference if you're black or white, it doesn't make a difference if you're Latino or Asian. If my score beats your score, I win, and that's the American Dream right there, right? That's why sports was at the center of integration, you know? If black people can fight in a war, how come they can't hit a baseball? Right? And whoever's got the fastest 40 time or the fastest 100 time, they win. There's your meritocracy, and yet you find out in sports, when you look at what's been taking place in this business, that it's really no different from anywhere else, and I think that the hard part that people of color, you know, especially black people find in the workforce is they're finding that that shift is hitting them directly, and it's hitting them in places where they may not have anticipated. I'm very nervous for your generation. I'm very concerned about young, black professionals in the business today, for some of them whose first election was Obama, you know? That was the first year they were eligible to vote, and the expectations that they have, and even the elites, you know? The black students who are going to the Ivy League schools and to the Harvards and also to the Dukes and the Stanfords and the rest of these--you know, Vanderbilt and these other elite schools, and then they get into the workforce, and then they find out that things haven't changed, that they thought they were different. They thought that these old ideas didn't apply to them because we had treated the Obama election as such a demarcating line, and in retrospect it turns out to have not been such a demarc--in fact, what it did was it was a retrenchment. It was a reminder historically that whenever black people receive some form of victory, the backlash is harsh and swift and very severe and very clear, and in discovering that, I wonder what your generation and what that generation of black professionals, how they're gonna deal with it, this expectation of equality, this expectation that they are going to be that first black generation where merit actually does count. And then you find out in the corporate world, you walk in, and whether we're talking about sports with the Selig Rule or the Rooney Rule or the lack of black college coaches, or then you walk into the white collar world and you realize who's getting promoted and who's not and the diversity and inclusion initiatives and all of that, and you do have to ask yourself the same question over and over again, and that is if you need a policy to tell your bosses to even--not even hire, but just to interview people, you've got major, major, major problems, and you're not anywhere near as ahead as you think you are. Zach: Howard, and that's why--and, you know, I'm not a sports journalist, right? So I would say I am a casual consumer of sports, but that's--the Rooney Rule, just from, like, a human capital, change management--'cause that's my space, right? So just from, like, a business perspective, I found the Rooney Rule to be disingenuous at its heart, because it's like, "Okay, you're just saying that we have to interview people." I don't believe that correlates to you actually hiring more people, and we have tons of evidence--and, like, it's like the Rooney Rule continues to come up every handful of years about, you know, how effective is it really, and yet we haven't changed it. But it's like, "You creating some formal rules to interview typically black men for these coaching roles doesn't actually address the heart of the matter, which is that you don't inherently see these individuals as leaders of people."Howard: The question is, for the corporate world, and I've asked this question numerous times when I do these types of stories, are you grooming me to replace you? Because if you're not grooming me to replace you, then all of this is performative. Do you look at me and are you willing to have me be the face of your institution? You know, that is not a hard question to answer, but it's a very hard question to acknowledge, because the answer is generally no. I have made this argument to people, and people don't like it because, you know, they think it's too political because they don't want to confront their own history, but you can just look it up. It's not hard. I've always told people that if you are anti-big government you are anti-black, and people say, "No, no. I'm just a libertarian." And I'd say, "No," which is also my way of being direct, because anti-big government is a clear Republican platform. Whether you're black or white, if you are a Republican who supports the shrinking of government, chances are you're a racist. And why would I say that? I say that because historically, if you look at hiring patterns since the end of World War II, the federal government built the middle class, the black middle class. The federal government, you know, in terms of hiring, in terms of civil service jobs, the federal government built the black middle class, and as you start to shrink those positions, you shrink the black middle class. Whether you're doing it by design or whether indirectly, the end result is the same, and what I'm getting at here, for your space, is that the private, corporate sector still does not routinely and prominently hire and promote black people. It still doesn't, and so if you're going to cut the number of government jobs, whether it's state, whether it's federal, post office, whatever you want to call it, you are actively crushing the black middle class. This is the reason why these diversity and inclusion initiatives are so important, because this corporate world is not making those hires, and because they're not making those hires and because they can't be compelled to make those hires, you are at the mercy of what you may what you want to call progress or what we know to be lack of progress. So at some point--like, for example, you know, I went--and I think there's an anecdote... yes, there's an anecdote in the book about this, that I was at a diversity and inclusion event in Boston, and all of these CEOs sat down, and it was amazing. The first panel had a group of really well-prepared women making their pitches about, you know, some of their initiatives they're working on, and they were all so prepared, and it was crazy because they were incredibly polite. So they were incredibly well-dressed. They knew this was a shot to be on a major stage talking to major players in their industry at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. And they didn't interrupt each other, and they all did their presentations, and it was--you know, I understood it. It made sense. And then the next panel were the CEOs, and it looked like a country club. They were all wearing their suits, but they weren't necessarily--I don't even know if they were ironed. I mean, they just showed up because they're the bosses. They were in charge. Some of them wore ties and some of them didn't. They did not look at this like they were showing to this audience of black and brown women, you know? They weren't. It was very chummy. And they sat down, and they yucked it up with each other, and they cracked jokes and interrupted each other, because they were the bosses. They were in charge. And one of the most remarkable things that came across this entire event was when one of them talked about diversity and inclusion and promotions and talked about how it was easier for them to promote white men, because if white men in their offices didn't get jobs they were gonna make the biggest noise. They were gonna complain the most. They were gonna be the most disruptive. And the black women and the white women in the business were less likely to complain, which made it easier to pass them over for jobs. And it was a stunning, absolutely stunning, admission at a diversity and inclusion seminar.Zach: At an actual--targeted for this particular space.Howard: Exactly. Here was the beauty of this, which was obviously heartbreaking and painful, but it was the beauty of it. It was said so matter of factly that they didn't even know what they were admitting. They were essentially admitting that "No, we're not--" You know, "We'd like to hire you, but we know--" Because they were taking the path of least resistance. If I promote this guy or this woman, then this guy's gonna complain and be disruptive, so I might as well give him the promotion so at least I can have harmony. I can have the appearance at least of order. It's essentially almost like the corporate indictment of Martin Luther King, Jr. [?] white moderate, "order over justice." As long as nobody's mad and nobody says anything, everything's cool. And it's like, "No, wait a minute. You're contributing to this by having no courage. And by the way, if you're the boss and you've got a disruptive employee, he's insubordinate. You've got the power to do something about that." And that's the reason why that chapter in the book is called The Mediocre White Boy, because these guys are protecting each other at the expense of your advancement.Zach: Man. You know, your book collects a series of pieces, all of them powerful. The bylines of many of them I read was this concept of, like, self-erasure, right? So there were multiple instances where athletes would say, you know, "I'm not black, I'm this," or "I'm not anything, I'm just me," and, you know, I see a similar pattern for well-to-do black professionals, like, executives. I've literally met folks who will say, "Well, I'm not just black. I'm also a tennis player." [laughs] Or "I'm just me," you know? "That's part of who I am, but I'm a complex person," or--Howard: One of the biggest problems that we have in business and when we talk about ourselves is the idea of what blackness is, and we do this to ourselves, and when we do it to ourselves, then that gives white people license to do it ten times worse to us. And when you watch, you know, film, and you watch Hollywood and you watch everything, they essentially assume there's one black experience, because we attack each other so often on authenticity. And, you know, one of the reasons why I did this book was because I felt like there was an opportunity to talk about certain elements of the black experience that never get discussed. I mean, one of the beauties of Ta-Nahesi Coates' writing is that he writes very specifically about a very specific black experience, his experience, you know, in Baltimore and as a professional, and he writes about being black in black communities. The same is true for a bunch of other writers, but one of the areas that we never really talk about is that post-1960s, post-1950s aspirational, you know, black families who made that decision--the same decision that white people made, whether it was white flight or black flight--that "I'm going to take my kids out of the black community and move them into the white spaces." And what happened to those black kids who grew up immediately and always as the only black kid in class? You're the only black kid in the first grade. You're the only black kid in the twelfth grade. You essentially live in a world of whiteness, and why are we asking you to live in this world of whiteness? For education. Your parents are doing this for you. They're doing this because--like, in my case, when we left Boston, we were trading the physical violence of a tough, tough neighborhood for the emotional violence of being the only black kid in a room full of white people. So eventually as that toll begins to mount on you, you enter these white corporate spaces, and you recognize very quickly the price of being black and the anti-blackness that you're surrounded by. And sometimes you hear, or a lot of times this becomes the price for you to advance - not to be black, not to talk about being black, not to be proud of being black. You hear black people say this all of the time. "Well, I don't want to be a black writer. I just want to be a writer who happens to be black." What on earth does that mean? "I'm not a black doctor. I'm a doctor that happens to be black." And what you're really saying is that "I can't carry this anymore. I don't want to carry this, because if I carry this with me I may not advance and I gotta answer questions I don't feel like answering." And you see it in sports especially where sort of this deal is they're going to trade your blackness for money, okay? "We're gonna pay you millions of dollars, but we don't want you talking about issues that are important to black people." So I began to think about this in two of the chapters. One is called "The Worst Thing in the World" and the other one is called "The Lost Tribe of Integration," which is that when I started thinking about the arc of my own life, that the arc is that your life will improve the faster and quicker you get away from black people. If you get away from the black community, your schools get better. If you get away from talking about black issues, then you're not a troublemaker at work anymore, you know? If you don't advocate for black people, then people will look at you and tell you that you've transcended race, as if looking in the mirror is something that you should not want. Zach: You know, what's really interesting about that is even in the diversity and inclusion, like, corporatized space--and I've noticed this as me as a black man, like, the more that I'm able to say things like, "It's not just about race and ethnicity, it's also about diversity of thought--" If even in the space that was supposedly built so that we can have equity for black and brown people and historically marginalized and oppressed groups--even in this space, if I, in my rhetoric, in my general language, if I eschew ethnicity, that is also [?]--Howard: If you advocate directly for black people, you are putting your entire career in danger. And I say this now, and people look at me, and they don't like to hear it, but I'll say it now, I'll say tomorrow, and I said it yesterday - diversity is anti-blackness, because what we're really talking about here when you look at the statistics and when you look at the reasons for the Rooney Rule--you're not looking at the Rooney Rule because Asians are underrepresented, but when you're having your diversity and inclusion initiatives, especially if you're talking about technology--if we're going to Silicon Valley, you're not looking at the Middle-Eastern or the Indian or the Asian and say, "Gee, they're not advancing." What you're looking at is a white space that has no black people, and so many of these D&I initiatives began with black people. It was about black people. It was for black people. But when you do something directly for black people, people get offended. They get mad. They don't want to hear it. They feel like, "Well, what are you giving them special treatment for?" Because you gave us the special treatment of not letting us play. You've been giving us special treatment since we got here. It's just not the special treatment that is a positive special treatment. It's negative, but it's still special. So what has happened in these spaces now is to minimize the idea that you're giving black people special treatment, now you just talk about non-white male treatment. But non-white male treatment does not necessarily address the inequities for black people specifically. So D&I suddenly becomes hiring white women, and so white women--who are often part of the patriarchy, who are always second on the food chain, who can marry into wealth faster than everybody, and if you look at your statistics, marrying into wealth is still the fastest way to become wealthy. The most reliable way to become wealthy isn't going to college, it's to marry into it. So now when you start to look and your demographics change, now all of a sudden--we had 89% white men in a given position, now it's 69% white men in a given position, but it's 29% white women. What does that actually do for black people? So you've got your diversity, but you haven't helped black people. You haven't helped the people on the bottom who were supposedly the target of this initiative. But you've got your diversity, you know? You've got seven white men, two white women, and one--you know, one Asian man, but what does that do for the person on the bottom? It didn't help them at all, yet your numbers are different and you can say, "We've improved diversity by 30%," but what happens to me? You haven't helped me at all. Zach: So we typically have sound effects, Howard, but you've been so fire that I'm not even trying to, like, dilute what you've been saying. So do you ever imagine a world where marginalized communities collectively go full dissidence in their places of work? And, like, if so, what in your mind would that look like?Howard: Well, the answer's no because you've got to eat. I mean, the answer's no because eventually, you know, when you start looking at the actual numbers, the numbers tell you that--they're so overwhelming, that there's only a few of us that are gonna be able to succeed, and so very few people are going to be willing to risk that. I mean, I look at myself and I look at the numbers and I say to myself, "There's nothing special about me," and then you look at the actual number of black people who have my job and you go, "Oh. On second thought, there is something special," because you're one of the few people who actually has a platform, who actually has a chance to say something.Zach: Howard, man. I'm serious. I'm telling you, man. I'm not joking. When you got up on there and you started talking like that, me and all of my friends were like, "Yo... this is gonna be the last time we see this dude up here." [laughs]Howard: Exactly, right? But see, I look at it this way. ESPN hired me to do this. They didn't hire me to act like Bill Simmons or to act like Rick Reilly or to act like Stephen A. They said, "You go out and do what you do best." Now, obviously when you're gonna do this, when you're going to say these different things, it goes back to what you were saying earlier about "Do you want diversity of color or diversity of thought?" Normally, what a lot of corporations want is they want diversity of color, but they don't want diversity of thought because diversity of thought challenges them way too much. So what they would really like is they would like a gigantic, pretty rainbow of different colors who are all represented who all think the same way so the company's not challenged. I understand that part. I don't always subscribe to that part, because as a journalist, you're asking me to represent people who don't have the opportunity to speak, and so I try to do that. That's part of the job, or at least it was part of the job and it should always be part of the job. So the issue is, to answer your question, what needs to happen and how do I envision that? What does that look like? Well, how it looks to me is I think it's more of a mental liberation than a physical one. I think to me, when I think about full dissidence as an idea--and I think I end the book with it--is it's the recognition that you can find your own living space and not let people lie to you or not feel like you have to buy in. You've got to be willing to see through what's happening right now. Look at what's happening to your situation, and then you need to discover your own strategies to find your own peace within it. But the problem that I see is the number of black people in the business who were so [?] and so happy that they get in that they buy into it and they think they're different and they're like, "Okay, everything's changed," and then they get punched in the face. And then they get punched in the face and they had their hands down, and what I'm trying to say is if you're gonna navigate this environment, navigate the environment, but make sure your hands are up and know that punch is coming, because that punch always comes. Ask your parents. Ask your grandparents. That punch always comes. So what you're really asking me in some ways, whether you're doing it directly or not or intentionally or not, is do I see white people changing so there's no need for this, and the answer is no, I don't see that. What I see--and that's one of the reasons why in the book I say it's not a survival guide, it's simply what I see--what I see is the necessity for black people to hold on to their blackness, to keep it and to not trade it and not sacrifice it under this idea that "If I do the right things and if I say the right things I'm gonna get accepted as an American," because it hasn't happened yet, you know? That's the big thing for me, that you look at the--you know, you go watch a movie like Gloria or go read the history of, you know, black participation in warfare, that if you fight for your country or if you win the medals or if you build the charter school or if you, you know, give the money to whatever foundation, that you are finally gonna get accepted, and it goes back to what you were saying. It's that whole idea of outperforming racism. I guess the best way to say it is--what is full dissidence? Full dissidence is the recognition that you cannot outperform racism. That's what it feels like to me.Zach: Man, thank you so much for being on the podcast. This has been incredible. Y'all, make sure y'all check out his--everything's in the show notes. The author, his name is Howard Bryant. The book is called Full Dissidence: Notes from an Uneven Playing Field. Make sure y'all check it out. This has been Zach with the Living Corporate podcast. Make sure you check us out on Instagram @LivingCorporate, Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod, and we're on Google, man. Look, we're all on Al Gore's Internet, man. Livingcorporate.co, .us, .net. Howard, listen, man, we understand how theses SEOs work. We've got all the domains, Howard, except for LivingCorporate.com. Australia has that domain somehow. I don't know what's going on. We're gonna try to get it, but look, [Howard and Zach laugh] y'all make sure y'all hit us up. I can't thank you enough, Howard. Until next time, we'll catch y'all, man. Peace.

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.

Zach has the pleasure of sitting down to chat with Dr. Janice Gassam, Ph.D. in an episode themed around discussing emotional labor. She and Zach touch on the concept of self-care, and Dr. Gassam shares a few ways she believes that organizations, aspirational allies, and leaders can help ease the emotional labor lift for black and brown folks in majority-white spaces.Connect with Janice on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.Check out her articles on Forbes!Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and yes, we're here. We're back. We're having conversations, you know, that amplify the voices of black and brown people at work, and we do that through what? Now, I'm talking to y'all like this is a live podcast, but this is the part where you would say "by having authentic available transparent conversations with black and brown educators, executives, entrepreneurs, influencers, creatives, activists, and non-melanated or lower-melanted allies," right? People who are advocates of inclusive, diverse, and equitable spaces, and so we do that, right? Like, we have these conversations--honestly, I feel like every time we come on here we have a great guest, and today, today is no different. Today we have Dr. Janice Gassam. Now, listen, Dr. Gassam is a diversity and inclusion consultant and founder of BWG Business Solutions LLC, a company focused on creating strategies to foster an equitable workplace. Gassam is a professor at the Sacred Heart University, teaching courses in diversity and inclusion, performance management, data analytics, and employee engagement. Now, look, let me just go ahead and give y'all some stats, okay? Just real quick so y'all know, 'cause, you know, this is the thing. You know, we're gonna talk about this in the interviewer, but sometimes, you know, folks kind of look at these platforms--and Living Corporate is fairly unique, but they look at this stuff like, "Oh, this is just, you know, passionate stuff," quote-unquote, and it gets dismissed. No, no, no. Dr. Gassam has bonafides, okay? So she has a Ph.D. in organizational psychology, a TedX speaker, and she's authored over 100--listen, yo, 100. 100. Hold on, they're not hearing me. ONE HUNDRED articles. Now, you might say, "Articles on what? Articles on Lipstick Alley?" No. "Articles on Shade Room?" No. Articles on Forbes, what you talking about? [Flex bomb sfx] Okay? She's out here. She's making moves, okay? And listen, she has a competent communicator certificate from Toastmasters International. So not the local spot, okay? Catalyst certification in unconscious bias awareness, has spoken for Yale, H&M, and various other conferences and universities, and she's taught undergraduate and graduate courses in employee engagement, performance management, diversity and inclusion, amongst others. Dr. Gassam, how are you doing? Like, I just gotta--hold on, I gotta at least give you a cheer or something. [applause sfx]Janice: [laughs] Thank you so much, Zach. That was a really nice intro. You made me sound so important, but thank you so much for having me, and it's a pleasure to be here, and I'm really excited to get into this conversation. How are you today?Zach: You know what? I'm doing really, really well. I'm in New Orleans. My cousin-in-law is getting married.Janice: Congraulations. That's fun.Zach: Absolutely.Janice: Are you gonna go to Cafe Du Monde?Zach: Ooh, I might. I may.Janice: Yeah, you gotta have--you gotta. I think it's 24 hours, but the lines are usually pretty long. But if you have a chance, if you're there for a little bit of a time, that would be fun. Wow, that sounds really nice.Zach: It should be great, you know? And this is the challenge, right? So when you get older--so I'm just now hitting 30, right? So you get older and, you know, you can't just kind of eat and do some of the things that, you know... your body, your body sends you a memo later like, "Ayo, I know you tried to be cute earlier, but it ain't happening now. You've got an appointment now, so what's up? And now your knee hurting and you don't know why," right? But no, I'm doing great. How are you doing? What do you got going on these days?Janice: I'm doing good. I aim for seven hours of sleep, seven to eight hours, so I got my seven hours. Today I have to do--I'm writing some articles. I did some Forbes interviews, so I have to just transcribe them, and then I have grading of course. So that should be--should keep me pretty busy.Zach: Okay. Okay, all right. Now, look, it can't just slay by itself. You gotta put in the work, and you're doing it, so we appreciate you. So thank you.Janice: Thank you so much.Zach: No, no doubt. So look, let's get into it. You've established a deep brand in diversity, equity, and inclusion. Your profile--at what point in your life did you realize that this was the work that you wanted to do and why? Like, what led you to come to this point and create this brand for yourself?Janice: Well, I guess sometimes people ask me this question, and I think it's a combination of the fact that I come from a--my parents come from Cameroon, which is a West African country, so I--throughout growing up I kind of grappled with not being Cameroonian enough, you know? Because I don't speak the language, I don't cook Cameroonian food, and I didn't really know a lot about the culture growing up because I was born and raised here in America. So I think that that combination of the different culture, as well as, you know, growing up in predominantly white neighborhoods and going to predominantly white schools and also just recognizing my blackness, it's almost like--DuBois talked about, in "The Souls of Black Folks," a double consciousness that black people in America experience where it's kind of like they have to grapple with their own blackness as well as being a black person in a white America, and I think it was, like, a triple consciousness. So trying to figure out where--you know, where I fit in the black sort of scope as well as, you know, trying to assimilate to white America, and I did a lot of that in school, you know, so that I would be accepted and then also embracing my culture and being true to my culture and that aspect of my background. So I think that that combination always made me really interested in diversity and inclusion. In 2011 I started a YouTube channel where I talked primarily on race and quote-unquote black issues and things that I felt were relevant to the black community, and I've kind of scaled back, and I haven't made a video probably in six or seven months, but I still, you know, post videos on there here and there, and I was able to cultivate a pretty loyal and strong audience. I had about 20,000 subscribers on that channel, but-- [ow sfx] I actually moved my focus to corporate diversity and inclusion because I saw that there were holes in the system when I would work in different companies. I noticed certain things. So I guess my focus moved from sort of these issues that are relevant to black America to "How do I fix these issues in corporate America?" Zach: And it's just such critical work. First of all, let me take a step back. So I think it's interesting when you think about, like, just black identity, underrepresented identity, and just all of the nuance of that, just of your own identity period. Like, let's just--not talking about within the context of any other social framework, but you have yourself, your own lived experience, which is complex, and then you're placing that within a context of being, like, in a white majority, and then--I don't know. It's just a lot, and I wonder--and it kind of leads me to my next question. When you talk about, like--when we talk about this space in diversity and inclusion and we talk about really kind of taking these conversations that black America is having--and I'm not trying to exclude other non-white spaces, but I'ma speak to black America because that's the experience that I live in. So historically over the past, I don't know, what, 100 and something odd years, like, we've had thought leaders talk about and have these internal conversations or in-house conversations about what it means to be black, and then of course we've had--you know, we're knocking on the door today, but there have been people who knocked on the door before us having these conversations and bringing these discussions to light. I guess my question is, as I look at your profile, do you ever see or feel a sense of being in, like, two worlds at once? And these two worlds that I'm talking about is one I'm seeing, like, a bit of--I'm seeing, like, one camp when it comes to this corporate D&I space, this corporatized D&I space that is very heady. It's very academic, and it's largely white and institutionalized a bit. And then there's this other group that's continuing to grow and build that is more activist in its function and more driven and founded by themes of justice, and also driven by themes of lived experience. When I look at your profile, and even what you just shared about you being a first-generation American and you being a first-generation professional, like, a first-generation in a variety of ways, but also having this academic background, do you see yourself straddling both of these worlds? Do you see--I mean, I'm kind of making an assumption that you even agree with my analysis of, like, corporate D&I. I'm just curious about, like, how do you see yourself as you operate in this space?Janice: No, absolutely. I have a close friend who, you know, I've been doing these diversity dinner dialogues in New York City, which is just, like, a free workshop where anyone who has an interest in diversity and inclusion can come. You know, we talk about a specific topic. Papa John's sponsors it, and in doing that I actually got to know a girl who has become one of my close friends. Her name is Donna. She's getting her Ph.D. in psychology, but her dissertation focuses on corporate diversity training, and she's looking specifically at how receptive people are when the trainer is not a diverse person, so is a white person or seemingly a white person. And going back to your point, I do agree. I think that unfortunately, any time you're talking about diversity, equity and inclusion, I think people are more receptive to the message when it comes from a white person. That's just unfortunately, you know, what it is. If I'm talking about, or you're talking about your lived experience, I think that people put more stock in when a white person says those things or finally realizes that there are inequities that are taking place. I do commend--not to take anything away from white people who are in this space who are using their privilege to amplify the voices of people of color, but I just think it's something that's important to note, that in this space I do think that there is sort of, like, a hierarchy, and I think that, you know, unfortunately black people are at the bottom of that hierarchy, and I think that when it comes to issues that are relevant, specifically to black people and people of color, those get prioritized last, and I think that that's unfortunate. People don't understand that you can be a marginalized group but still be racist. So I think that it's important to understand those sorts of things. I don't know, I guess, what the solution is, but it's just something that I've noticed.Zach: No, straight up. And it's interesting too. So your point around, like, hierarchy, 'cause even as I talk to other diversity, equity and inclusion professionals, right? Like, something that people will jump out [?] any time we have these conversations. It's almost like a point of pride or, like, particular insight when people say something like, you know, "Diversity and inclusion just isn't about ethnicity and race," and I'm like, "Well, wait... okay, it's not, you're right. Can we also acknowledge that ethnicity and race have played a critical part in, like, America's formation and policy structure and even today. I'm not saying that the other diversity [?] don't exist, but it's like people are so excited to, like, get away from that and then talk about "It's about diversity of education, and geography, and hair color," and--Janice: [laughing] "Diversity of thought."Zach: My gosh, diversity of thought. You know, I keep--you know, look, the government, they made--I'm serious, they made crack and diversity of thought in the same lab. They did. It's crazy. It's nuts.Janice: Right? That's a great way to put it, yeah. I think it's really easy to, like, divert the conversation, and that's why I think I like to do these diversity dinners and focus specifically on an issue, because I think when you're talking about, for example, allyship, allyship, that conversation--people think of allies more so as allies in that LGBTQIA+ community, but any marginalized group needs allies, and I think that when you don't focus specifically on race or ethnicity and you bring up the diversity conversation, I think people like to divert it and say, "Well, you know, you also have to be inclusive to this group and that group and that group," and I totally agree and I understand that, but I think that there are very unique challenges that people of color, and particularly black people, in this country face in that the main way that people are able to see that we are black is our skin color, you know? If you're part of a marginalized group where your identity is invisible, I do think that your experiences are vastly different from an individual like me or like you who our skin color is apparent to anyone that looks at us, and I don't think that it's--you know, I guess I'm not the type of person that likes to say who is struggling the most or likes to play the oppression politics, but I do think that that is an important point that needs to be acknowledged. Just because you're part of a marginalized group doesn't mean that our experiences are the same, you know? And I think that sometimes people like to say, "Well, look, I'm oppressed too. I have this particular invisible identity," and it's like--we might have similar experiences, but we also have vastly different experiences, and I think that sometimes that's overlooked. Even when I come in and do these corporate workshops related to diversity, I am always encouraged to not focus on race. And I recently had a consultation--so when people reach out to me to do a workshop, they'll schedule a call and then kind of figure out what I'm about, what topics I can speak to for their corporate audience, and I was specifically told recently to not victimize people in the workshop. So, you know, people don't want to be victimized. People don't want to feel like the finger is pointed at them. And sometimes people don't really want to directly address race, and I recognize and understand that. Before I was kind of, like--I didn't really quite understand that, but I know that, you know, when you come into a room and say to somebody, "Because you're part of this race, you have privilege, and your people have systematically and systemically oppressed," you know, based on the history. People shut down, and there's resistance, so it's almost like you kind of have to--I don't have any kids, but I know that sometimes when you have kids and you don't want to eat the food or take the medicine, you can kind of put sugar around it with the medicine and give that to them. So it's almost [?] diversity and inclusion. You have to give the sugar with the hard, I guess, lessons and the hard realities, because people get very defensive.Zach: And so then--so let's talk about that a little bit more. You shared the idea that folks will tell you, "Hey, just don't talk about it." Like, how do those requests come about? How do they frame it?Janice: Sometimes they're very great, [laughs] and other times it's more subtle, where I give them a list of topics--and of course, you know, I've been on YouTube since 2011 just talking in front of my camera about quote-unquote black issues and how--you know, racial dynamics, so it's a topic I feel very passionately about, but when I give them my list of topics that range from, you know, micro-aggressions to how to have conversations about race in the workplace to how to get the ROI of your diversity programs to emotional intelligence, what I've noticed is typically people like me to talk about emotional intelligence versus--and I think emotional intelligence is definitely an important topic, but it's not something that's difficult to digest, you know? It's not something that's gonna make people feel uncomfortable. So it's kind of like, "These are my lists of topics," and just in choosing the topics, you know, they'll reach out to me and say, "Could you do a talk on this?" or "Could you do a workshop on this?" And it's never been some of those more difficult-to-swallow concepts like race, because--and I understand, you know, you want your audience to be receptive to it, and unfortunately people really aren't receptive to conversations about race unless it's a white person giving it. A good example of that is--I showed my students the Chelsea Handler documentary that just came out on white privilege. I think that's what it's called, "Me and My White Privilege" or something like that. [Editor's note: it's "Hello Privilege. It's Me, Chelsea"] So I showed it to them. There was a particular clip where Chelsea interviewed some conservative women from Orange County, California, and they were saying people of color get privileges like school admissions, like jobs. They were referring to this myth that affirmative action is reverse racism. And so, you know, I showed them that clip, and then I spoke to how all of the things that were said in that clip were just factually incorrect, and affirmative action wasn't created to give unfair advantages to people of color and women who are not qualified, and also white women benefit the most from affirmative action. So I think that just watching that whole documentary, the reception has been interesting, because I think if someone like Kevin Hart or Dave Chappelle or, you know, any other comedian did a documentary on race, I don't think it would have gotten the same reception as Chelsea Handler's documentary, and I think that that's unfortunate.Zach: It's interesting too, because I was having a conversation with some majority folks, right? And they were talking about the documentary, and they said, "Well, you know, I don't know. Part of me is like, you know, 'Is this just another schtick?' Like, 'Is she even really being serious and authentic,' right? Like, how honest is this really?'" But then also there were people who watched it and really, you know, thought it was just groundbreaking and courageous and innovative and all of these other words. [laughing]Janice: It's interesting. I thought it was--it was just interesting. I think that when she was speaking with the women in that particular scene who were saying these things, she didn't really dispel what they were saying. They were like, "Well, you know, everyone has privilege, and it's not just white people," and Chelsea wasn't--I think she could have been more direct with dispelling their myths, and it's just incorrect to say that black people are getting--people of color are being treated, you know, better than white people in this country, 'cause that's just not true.Zach: That's just factually false.Janice: [?] You look at the rate of arrests. You look at who gets jailed, the amount of time that's given. If you just look at our criminal justice system, it's so apparent. You know, and what is her name? I'm forgetting the author's name, but she specifically talks about looking at the demographics of people who were pulled over and arrested driving on the New Jersey turnpike where they did this extensive study, and they found that, of course, the majority of those people were black and brown men. So just, like, it's obvious that those women are living in, like, their own delusion, and I think that maybe if I was sort of encapsulated in my own white America and I didn't interact--'cause obviously I don't interact really with anyone of color--I would probably have those same falsehoods as well, and one thing that I try to remind myself is that I can't really fault white people for not caring about certain issues because, in their minds, they think that it's not relevant to them. So we're--you know, humans are self-motivated, and we focus on things that we think will impact us. I think the fallacy is thinking that it doesn't affect them, because if Trump is spewing this rhetoric, or if our politicians are doing something that negatively impacts [one group?] people, ultimately that's gonna impact you in other ways. So I think that, like, there's this false idea that diversity and inclusion doesn't impact you or you're not--you don't have to be involved in the conversation, but I think that--you know, that famous quote that somebody said where it's like, "If one group is oppressed, we're all oppressed." You know, "If one group is not free, none of us are free." So I think that it's that. It's just that these women in that clip didn't understand how, like, we're all interconnected.Zach: No, you're absolutely right, and there's multiple points of evidence that we can look at to talk about just, like, disparity and inequity and disparate treatment for black and brown people juxtaposed to white folks, right? So you have--of course you have prison, just the criminal justice system. You also have, like, health care and treatment. You have access to public transportation. You have just general public school education. You have access to food. So just, like, neighborhoods that are--you know, you have food deserts. Like, those are real things, and they're impacted by race. So 100%. So, Janice, diversity, equity and inclusion is broad, and you talked about earlier that you cover a variety of things. You speak on a variety of things. Can we zoom in on a topic really quick? Let's talk about the emotional labor of black and brown DEI professionals, particularly women, in this, like, diversity, equity, and inclusion space, right? Like, I'd really like to talk about that. Are you down?Janice: Yeah, sure.Zach: Cool. So in the history of the show, you know, I've brought up the concept of emotional labor, but I've just said it. Like, I'll be like, "You know, people don't really consider the emotional labor." And I've talked about it with colleagues at my job. I've talked about it with friends. But, like, can we--but I don't think I've ever taken the time to really explain what emotional labor is, like, as a concept. Would you mind talking a little bit about what you believe--like, what is your definition of emotional labor?Janice: Absolutely. So it's funny you ask this, because at the recent diversity dinner dialogue I had this week there was a diversity professional. He works at a large consulting firm, and he asked what we--he posed the question to everyone who was there, and he said "What do you do for self-care?" Because D&I work is very exhausting, so what do you do as self-care? And, you know, one thing that I realized is that I never really escape it, because I feel, like you said, it's our lived experience, so any time I--and I don't watch TV, but when I open my phone to go onto Instagram, you know, the people that I follow are a lot of these--like, Shaun King, and, like, a lot of these, the [?] show. So people who report on news that's related to black people. So sometimes I just find myself scrolling past stuff, because--especially Shaun King stuff--I don't always have the bandwidth for it, and if I've had a long day and I'm just not in the mood for my day to be ruined, I have to scroll past stuff. But also, like, for me, I think fellowship is a really important part of just dealing with the emotional labor of it. I think fellowship with my fellow black and brown people, it just helps me, 'cause it's almost like when you're around people--when you're around the majority, it's almost like--I saw a picture where someone had, like, a mask on--a black person, it's like when they go into corporate America you put your mask on, and then when you get home you take your mask off. So I feel like when you're around your friends you're free to take the mask off and just, you know, explain what you're going through at work, and my friends and I, we talk a lot about our work experiences, and I--you know, my experience is a little different since I'm not necessarily in corporate America. I'm in academia and then I do consulting. And academia has its same politics, but it's a little bit different, but listening to--you know, I have a close friend who works at Uber, and just listening to all of my different friends' experiences, I'm just like, "Wow. This is really, really interesting," and, I mean, in a weird way, the fellowship helps me to sort of cope with some of these--the work that I do. So that really helps me. And also--it sounds weird, but I'm really big with sleep. [laughs] I always try to get my 7-8 hours, 'cause I think that--and there's research that indicates that when we're under stress, when we're not getting enough rest, we're sick, we're more likely to--our thinking isn't as sharp and as crisp, and interestingly people are more likely to fall into discriminatory behaviors when they're sleep-deprived. So I always try to make sure that I'm in--or, you know, as much as I can that I'm getting enough sleep, I'm getting enough rest, I'm going to the gym, even when I don't feel like going, to make sure that I'm treating my body as well, because there is this idea that, you know, in our society, you're not productive unless you're busy, and I really try to emphasize the importance of sleep and rest, especially when you're doing something as taxing as diversity and inclusion work or just being a person of color in a workplace that--you know, even if your work doesn't relate to diversity and inclusion, that's exhausting in itself. So I think that those are really important for me, sometimes just scrolling past those pages and those things that will bring me more stress, getting rest, and then just the fellowship.Zach: And so then do you think--do you think that the concept of emotional labor is explored enough, like, within, like, diversity and inclusion, and then also, like, as a concept when we talk to companies and clients and other organizations?Janice: I don't. I don't think that it's--and it doesn't really happen as much to me. Sometimes when I'm on a plane and I'm reading a certain book, someone might see something and comment, but I've seen sometimes where D&I professionals are wearing a shirt that makes a really bold statement and someone makes a comment about the shirt, and it's like--it's exhausting because sometimes you're out and you don't want to have a conversation about diversity and inclusion, but somehow it gets to that conversation. So I think that people just assume that because this is something you do for a living or you enjoy doing that you want to talk about it 24/7, and that's not always the case. So I think that it's not something that's explored enough and in enough detail.Zach: And so then, like, you know, what does fatigue look like? Like, you've been in this space for a while. Like, at what points do you realize, like, "Hey, I really need to," you know, engage in what is restorative for you. So you taking a break, you getting off social media, you sleeping a little bit more. Like, what are the signs of fatigue for you personally?Janice: I think when I have an opportunity that's presented to me, and instead of being excited I just--I'm already anticipating how tired I will be after the opportunity, that's a good indication that maybe I need to sort of slow down. And yeah, I think that would be the main thing for me. Sometimes people will reach out and say, "Oh, can you do this?" And it's an amazing opportunity, but I'm just like, "Oh, I have so much on my plate," so I can't--in my mind I'm like, "I can [?] do it," you know? And it's just--for me it's just sometimes I need to learn, one thing I need to learn is--Shonda Rhimes has a book called The Year of Yes. I need a Year of No, and I need to just--sometimes it's really powerful to just say no to things that you know will leave you drained and overwhelmed, even if you feel like it's for a good cause or it's for the greater good or it will benefit the person or the group that is getting the service. I think sometimes just saying no or just saying "No, not right now," is really helpful for me. So that's an indicator to me of when I've kind of, like, reached my point of exhaustion.Zach: That's just a really good point. I think, especially when you talk about these types of spaces, right, you know, people will reach out to you for a variety of things, and 99.9% of them are gonna be good, but--and so because they're genuinely good things, it's hard to say no, but it's like, "Man, I'm only one person." Right? Like, I don't have an inexhaustible amount of energy. I have to create some space for myself. Let's talk about this, and I really want to get back to something that you said earlier in the conversation. So you said sometimes people reach out to you asking you to talk about specific things. Are there ever any moments where you consider your profile, right? When you consider, like, the work that you've done in academia as well as your personal life and your journey and your lived experience? Do you ever battle feelings or insecurities around being tokenized?Janice: I don't. It's interesting. That's not something I--I think that even if you're choosing me for this particular role or you're asking me to do this because you want to check some boxes, I'm still gonna achieve the ultimate goal. So I think that I don't really look at the vehicle. I just look at, you know, "Am I able to accomplish or achieve this goal?" I recognize and understand that there is a possibility that maybe the powers that be saw what I look like and said, "Okay, we need this person so we look like we're being diverse and inclusive," but ultimately getting the opportunity to sort of try to push the needle and move the needle forward when it comes to building a more inclusive culture is fine with me. So it doesn't matter to me if the goal was to check some boxes, because I'm still gonna go in there and do what I really need to do and what I want to do. So I try not to think about that, because I think for me, if I started thinking about that, it would be, like, a never-ending rabbit hole of, like, "Are they really choosing me for my credentials, or did they see that I'm a black female and they want to check some boxes?" So I try not to think like that, because ultimately I'm like, "I'm gonna come in here and do what I'm supposed to do," and I try to just come in and do an amazing job so that even if they were trying to--even if the purpose was just to check the boxes, they'll see, like, what a strong, you know, worker I am, or what a strong consultant I am, and they'll understand that they made the right decision.Zach: I hear that, and what I'm taking away from that also is just, like, you know, people can choose you for whatever motivations they have. It's about how you decide to show up in that moment, right? Janice: Exactly.Zach: Yeah. It's interesting, you know? Like, transparently, I have those--it's something I struggle with, right? I struggle with the idea of "Man, like, why would you choose me?" But then, to your point, I know for me, like, I have a fairly specific brand, so when I show up, like, there's a story that I'm gonna tell. There's a way that I'm going to move. There's a way that I'm going to work. And, you know, we'll see how comfortable you are with that, and if you're not comfortable with that and you decide you want something else then, you know, that's fine too, but I have to show up and deliver on who I am and then, you know, let the chips fall where they may after that. Okay, so we're talking about emotional labor. We're talking about self-care and kind of getting those energies back. I think something that's, like, really understated as well at work for diversity and inclusion professionals, and just black and brown people in general, right? So even if you're not explicitly in diversity and inclusion, like, a space, but just at work, is the emotional labor of just being other in majority-white spaces, right? So, like, I'm curious, what are ways that you believe that organizations and that aspirational allies as well as just leaders can help ease the emotional labor lift for black and brown folks in these spaces?Janice: I think it goes back to organizations really trying to make us feel included. In my university--and I teach in a business department [where] there's no other black females. There's other women of color, a few who are of Indian--one who's of Indian descent and one who is Chinese, but they're--we're, like, one of few, and then at the university, I don't know how many tenured black professors there are, but there are very, very few. So I think that one thing that organizations can do is just try to take additional steps to make people who are the only feel included. So I'll give you an example. I was working at a university in New York City that when I started they said that they needed more diversity and inclusion. They needed the faculty to look like the student body. And this is a public school in New York City. It's part of a large university system. So most of the students come from different backgrounds, you know? There's lots of black and brown students, and the professors just didn't reflect that. One student told me that I was the first--a black student told me that I was the first black professor he's ever had. So, you know, I got there and they said, "Oh, we really want diversity," and then they didn't do anything to make me feel included. It was like they [tired?] me and dropped me off. My office was in--and little micro-aggressive behaviors. I'm no longer there, but I was in the Psychology department at that university, but my office was in the English department. There was no name on my office. And even though I was visiting faculty--so it's kind of, like, not guaranteed that they'll renew your contract--I was teaching more than any other professor in that department. I was also teaching during the winter intersession. So normally you get, like, a month off. I was literally--like, I had a week and a half off, and then January 2nd or 3rd I had to--Zach: You were back at it. Wow.Janice: So, like, I think that the inclusion piece is so important, because companies just look at the diversity on the surface and say, "We don't need a diversity program. We have lots of black people. We have lots of people from Asia. We have lots of this and that," and it's like, "But do they feel included?" That's really the important part. So I think that where companies miss the mark is that inclusion piece. So the university that I'm at now, Sacred Heart University, I think that they've done an amazing job with making me feel included. Even though I'm one of the only, I'm frequently invited--you know, they always have, like, off-campus events for faculty members, and if someone's retiring they have these parties and all of that, and it's just like--the department chair will reach out and say, you know, "Janice, are you gonna come to this?" Or "Would you like to join this committee?" And I just feel like--last year was my first year working there full-time, and they were just so--all of the faculty members, on their own, would come by my office. I'm sure they're like, "Who is this?" I look younger than I am, so people think I'm in my 20s, and I'm 32. So people are like, "Who is this young black girl with these [fauxlocks?] sitting in the office? Like, what?" So they'll come up to me and just say, "Hey, how are you? What's your name?" They'll give me their card, they'll connect with me on LinkedIn, and that's not something that I experienced at this other university that I worked at. So I think that they really made me feel a sense of inclusion, even though I was the only. Literally it was, like, a line of professors [?] where my office used to be. I know I was the only black woman on that floor. I didn't see any other black women. So, you know, just making me feel--including me, inviting me to things, trying to just, you know, check on me. And just really quick, Ernst & Young did a study where they tried to measure belonging that people feel in the workplace. So they developed something called the Belonging Barometer, and what their research found--this was last year that it came out--so what their research found is that the #1 way to make employees feel a sense of belonging is frequent check-ups. So if you are a manager or you're another employee and you come to the office of someone and say, "Hey, how are you? How was your weekend?" And you do this frequently, that is the best way to make employees feel a sense of belonging. So I think that at my university, my colleagues do that a lot, and that's what really makes me feel like--even though I'm the only, they're really making me feel like I'm part of a family.Zach: So first of all, you know, thank you for sharing that. You know, I'm curious. When you were going through the experience at the previous institution, did any of it feel like you were being gaslit a little bit? Like, did you raise any of these concerns? Like, "Hey, you got me all the way over here in this other group," and "Hey, I don't have a name on my door." Like, did you raise any of those things?Janice: No, I didn't, unfortunately, and a part of me felt just so--and I'm sure many of us as people of color feel like this--I honestly was, like, grateful that I had a job, 'cause I hadn't finished my Ph.D. yet. I was grateful I had a job. I was earning more money than I had ever earned in my entire life. I graduated with my Ph.D. when I was 30, so I was literally--most of my life I was in school, so I was used to, you know, not having health insurance. You know, when I moved to New York, I didn't have health insurance. So, you know, all of these things. I was grateful to have benefits, grateful to have a job, grateful to have my own office. That was a new experience for me. So I guess I didn't say anything. Not I guess, I didn't say anything, just because I was so grateful for the opportunity that I was afraid if I pointed these inequities out that that opportunity would be taken away from me. So I know that many times people of color, black people in particular, are in positions where maybe you didn't think you would get this far, and you have opportunities to sort of speak up, but you're worried that, by speaking up, it could jeopardize your job or jeopardize your opportunity, and that's how I felt, so I didn't say anything. I knew that in my mind I wasn't gonna be at that university for a long period of time, so I think that's what kept me going. I was just like, "This is a stepping stone," and ultimately it was, and I left that--I was only there for a year, and they didn't renew my contract, probably because I didn't finish--I hadn't finished my Ph.D., but I knew that it was temporary. Zach: So it's such a real point, right? Because I know there's--I mean, it's for good reason, right? So, like, black and brown folks, we'll get into these positions and we're like--and it's more than we've ever had before. So, like, not comparing--not relative to anyone else, just our own journey. Like, this is a peak, right? Relative to what we've experienced. And so then we're like, "Okay, well, you know, I don't want to say anything because this almost seems too good to be true already, so I don't want to mess this up."Janice: Right, exactly. Imagine if you had a job at, like, Google. Google is--like, you know, who wouldn't want to work at Google? And you're being treated unfairly by your manager or by co-workers and you felt like, "I never imagined being at this company. Let me just keep my mouth [shut]." Which a lot of us do. We're just like, "Let me keep my mouth shut," but Google is a company that I want to be at for a while, so it's like, what do you do? Especially--the easy thing, and, you know, when I hear people giving advice as far as, like, how to advocate for yourself, sometimes I hear people saying, "Just quit," and I think that that's ultimately what's gonna have to happen, but for some people that's not an option. If you're the sole bread-winner in your family and many people are relying on you and you're feeding many mouths, I think quitting sounds nice, but it's not practical, especially if you don't have anything else lined up. You just have to figure out--and then it goes back to the self-care. Because you're experiencing so much stress at work, what are you doing outside of work to sort of mitigate the stress that you're experiencing? And for me, that was one of the hardest years of my life because I had just moved to Connecticut. I was teaching in New York City, so I was commuting--it's only an hour commute on the train, but I was commuting to New York City every single day, and I was also teaching in Long Island, because they were--you know, ultimately they were underpaying me, they were overworking me, and then to supplement that I was so--there was a point in time where I was teaching seven courses, which, you know, anyone who teaches at the university level knows, like, three courses per semester is, like--three or four is, like, a very full courseload. Seven is, like, next level. I was teaching on Saturdays. It was, like, insane, the amount of classes that I was teaching, but my form of self-care was, you know, I was going to the gym a lot, and I was just--you know, a lot of fellowship, meeting up with friends, because, you know, the reality of it was that they were severely--you know, moving from universities, Zach, I was able to increase my salary by $30,000. They were underpaying me, like, a ridiculous amount, you know? And when I brought it up--that's something I did bring up when I was hired. I was like, "Why does my contract say this amount?" And the department chair was like, "Oh, well, you're paid based on a scale." It was a public university. So they base it off your teaching experience, your credentials, and because I didn't have a Ph.D. blah blah blah blah blah. So, you know, I did try to advocate for myself in that sense, but it was just kind of like, "Sorry, this is what you're gonna get paid," and I was just like, "Okay. Well, to supplement this, I'm gonna work at these other universities to get what I think that I deserve." So it was--it was really difficult. I think it's easy to say quit, but for many people quitting is not an option. So I think really going into what you're doing for self-care when you're experiencing this stress is important, and then I think planning your exit strategy. So if it's Google, maybe you want to have a year or two years or three years on your resume, but you know the environment is toxic. I wouldn't say just leave. I would say get that on your resume and build as many connections there as you can, but plan your exit strategy and save up money. If you really think that you have to leave at some point in the near future and you don't know if you'll have a backup job, then just plan, save up money. Make sure you do what you can so that, you know, when that day comes you're ready and it's not just like you made the decision off of a whim.Zach: It's just so true, right? 'Cause I know--I've seen it, and honestly I've done it, right? Like, where I've been in, like, really toxic environments, and I just left, but I left on--I didn't leave on the terms I wanted to leave on, right? So I wasn't prepared, right? I didn't have the financial backing that I wanted to have. You know, I just wasn't in the place that I wanted to be, but I finally just left. And that happens a lot, especially with our generation, right? Like, millennials, you know? 'Cause we'll just kind of bottle--especially what I've seen from black and brown folks is we'll just kind of bottle it up until we can't take it anymore, and then we'll just--you know, we'll leave. We'll just blow up and just quit, right? And you're right, like, that's not a sustainable way to function. I think the other point that you called out is super true, and I think it just really speaks to the different lived experiences of different folks, right, is that you said "Just quit." Like, for me, I'm a big advocate--I'll tell people to quit, right? But it's easy for me to tell people to quit when I'm a black American, my mom--I'm not sending money to my mom, right? Like, I don't have--it's just me and my wife, and my wife works. So it's like, if I quit my job, #1: I know that I could get another job very quickly, and so I'm projecting that on other people. Like, "You're only responsible for yourself," but that's not true. Right? Like, that's just not true. You have people--like, I have a really good friend who she's paying her mom's mortgage, her mom's health care. She's sending money back to her family in Nigeria. Like, she's doing all of these things on her very modest salary, and it's a toxic work environment, but she can't just leave. Janice: Mm-hmm, yeah. You know, sometimes people comment on my social media and they're like, "Why are we trying to change these white institutions? They don't want us there. Why don't we just build our own institutions?" And I'm all for that, but I think the reality of it is every single black and brown person is not going to be working in a black and brown-led institution, so what are we doing for those, you know, people of color who are not in those black-owned businesses? How are we creating an environment for them where that is sustainable? So I think that that's also an important point to look at, just really how are we overcoming, because the reality of it is that's just not what it is right now. You know, every single person is not at a black-owned company.Zach: No, you're absolutely right. I know, like, even when Living Corporate started, right, like, a couple of critiques that we got early was "Why are you trying to teach people how to navigate these white spaces as opposed to trying to help people to build their own?" I'm like, "Okay, look. First of all, we can look at the history of America and we can see that there's been historical pushes that black and brown people--" Black folks, we've been creating our own things since antebellum, okay? So we've been building our own churches, our own fraternities, sororities, our own businesses, our own communities, and there's been a consistent whitelash against that. Now, that doesn't mean that we're gonna stop. We don't stop, and black businesses and entrepreneurship continues to grow. However, we also know because of historical inequity--it's just the way that white supremacy and patriarchy are set up--that those institutions will never be as big as Amazon. I won't say never, but it will be a long time before they're as big as an Amazon or a Google or even a Facebook, right? Like, that's just not the way it works, and so--I believe that underrepresented folks helped build this country. It is 100% reasonable and fair to have discussions about what does it look like for us to thrive here. None of these things would exist without us, so it is reasonable--I don't think it's one or the other. I think it's both and, but it's a fine and right discussion and pursuit on what does it look like to thrive in these spaces. Like you said earlier, like, everyone's not gonna be working at a black and brown place. Every black and brown person is not gonna be an entrepreneur, just like every white person isn't an entrepreneur. So, you know, most of us are gonna work for somebody, so waht does it look like when you work for somebody and likely--because again, we're in America--it's likely going to be a majority-owned space. What does it look like for you to be successful there?Janice: Absolutely, yeah. I think that that's--it falls on both, because I think that--and that's probably a whole 'nother conversation, because even marginalized groups hold negative views about their own identities, for example. Like, there's many negative stereotypes that black people ourselves perpetuate, and even if we're leading a company, we may have colorism issues, or we may be [?]. So there's, like--even if you're in a black-owned institution, white supremacy can still be rampant, and I think us understanding that is important too. 'Cause I get those comments sometimes where, you know, people are like, "Why are you trying to do this and do that?" And even with companies--you know, some people have asked me why I allowed or accepted a partnership with Papa John's when the CEO is obviously--the former CEO, I'm sorry, is probably racist, and I said, you know, "If this company is going to try to make amends and is going to try--" And, you know, they've done other initiatives where they're trying to really show that now they're focused on diversity and inclusion. I'm not gonna say no, and I'm not gonna say, "I'll never take your money." They've hired a black woman as their chief diversity officer. They've hired a Ghandian man as their chief branding officer. Shaq is now on their board of directors. The CEO is no longer on the board. So they've been doing things. You know, they donate to HBCUs. So different things that I'm like, "Okay, I can accept that they're trying to fix what it is." But I think that it's tough, because it's like, do we forgive companies where they have many egregious actions that the CEO has committed? Do we forgive them, or do we just move on and just cancel them? I think that that's an important question to think about.Zach: It is, right? But I guess here's my challenge with that. So first of all, like, when you're talking about getting that money from Papa John's, the only thing I was thinking about was [cha-ching sfx]. Like, listen. [laughs] This is my whole thing, right? So I don't think that, like, we really talk about, like, how capitalist America is, right? Like, you need money to survive. Like, you need money to do anything, and so, you know, if you want to say, "Okay, well, I'm not gonna take this money from Papa John's," okay, so are you gonna take this money from Johnson & Johnson? Are you gonna take this money from--[laughs] like, all of America was built on slavery and oppression and exploitation of black and brown people, and people of color as well. So, like, including Asian-Americans too. So, like, we wouldn't have any of this. So, like, if you wanted to, like, again--I don't like saying the term "slippery slope," but my whole thing is, for me, if you're going to give me the bag--if you give me the bag, as long as you know that I'm not gonna adjust my message and you're not asking me to adjust my message or expecting me to adjust my message, I'ma take the bag, right? Now, there are certain groups, you know, that I'm not taking the bag from. Like, I've had people--you know what? This is, like, breaking news. I haven't told anybody on Living Corporate this. So, you know, someone actually hit me up and wanted to get Candace Owens on here, and I said--Janice: Really?Zach: Yeah, and I said no.Janice: Wow. That's interesting.Zach: I said no. I said, "You big buggin'."Janice: [?] Living Corporate. Interesting. What are your thoughts on--I have my own thoughts [both laughing] on her. I watched her--did you watch the Revolt summit that she was [in?]Zach: I did. I did see her up there being loud and wrong.Janice: Yes, yeah. But one thing that I didn't like was I think when you bring people with opposing views, you have to allow them the opportunity to at least speak, even, like--and my husband disagrees with me. He's like, "She's lying. She's full of lies. Why even give her the opportunity or the platform?" And I'm like, "Well, that's why they brought her up there."Zach: They brought her up there though. So if you're gonna bring 'em up there, then you gotta let 'em talk.Janice: Yeah, and that's why--and my husband's like, "No, but she's just blatantly lying," and I'm just like, "Yeah, but they brought her up there to speak," and I think that--that's interesting. Did you tell the person no? Or did you say you'll think about it?Zach: Oh, no, no. I said "Hell nah." Like, off the top. [laughs] All the Southern in me came out, 'cause it was like, "No," right? Like, I'm not doing that.Janice: Yeah. That's interesting. I wonder what she would speak to, because as far as I know she's not in corporate America. She just, you know, does these talks, or she has her YouTube channel and she--but, you know, that's interesting. [laughs]Zach: So then the same person was like, "Well, I'm also friends with Ben Carson. Would you like to have him on?" I was like, "No." I said, "No," and I said, "No," because I was like, "Look, one, that association is not making any sense." Like, "We're not--it's not gonna be a conversation. It's gonna be me tearing down some old black man. That's not cool." Because I literally don't agree with anything he's doing. So I was like--but this is my thing. So, like, at that level, I'm like, "No. I'm not taking a bag from them." But, like, a Papa John's? Yes, I'll take a bag from Papa John's. Facebook? Yes, I'll take a bag from Facebook.Janice: Yeah. Yeah, because I think the difference between Ben Carson and Candace Owens and Papa John's is that--and even Kanye West if you want to think about it--I haven't really seen any of them be apologetic. They're just like, "This is who I am," and they're gonna go on as many platforms as we'll let them speak. So it seems like your audience I don't think would be receptive to that and would just be like, you know, "Zach, you're just trying to get them on to get more clicks."Zach: For the clout, exactly. Janice: Exactly, so I think that with Papa John's and some of these other companies, they realize they've made a mistake and they're, like, trying to fix it, and I think that that's what would make me--I don't know. It's tough. I don't think we should just cancel companies where the CEO says or does something that is, you know--Zach: You need the bag. I think that goes back to what I was saying at the top. Like, look, we live in a capitalistic society. Like, if someone goes, "Hey, I messed up, and this is what I'm trying to do, and I really want to get around--" Like, "I'm trying to make moves," and whatever whatever, and there's a bag out there for you to--like, if the former CEO of Papa John's wanted to come on here and let me talk to him and grill him about why he said what he said, his background, what he's doing now to actually create an impact, like, today, if we could have that conversation, like, an accountable, frank conversation, and what advice he would give to other white senior leaders and executives on how to drive and be more inclusive and be more aware of their own biases, anti-blackness, et cetera, if we could have that type of conversation, he's more than welcome to come on the show.Janice: Absolutely.Zach: You see what I'm saying? The current inclusion and diversity leader for Papa John's? Of course they're welcome to come on the show, but like you said, like, someone coming on just to be like, "Nah, I'm just gonna be loud, proud and wrong," it's like... no. That's not gonna work.Janice: Yeah, exactly. So I think that sometimes we feel like--you know, I don't ever feel like "Am I selling out?" But sometimes, you know, I'll get comments like that, where people are like, "Why are you focused on what people of color should do?" You know, I did an interview and I wrote an article about some mistakes that women of color make in tech, and somebody wrote me and said, "Why would the onus fall on the women of color in tech and not on the company?" And I said, "I've written many articles on what companies can do to be more inclusive, but I think it's also important to best position yourself to be successful." I've made mistakes in my career, and I've done things where I could have--you know, even as far as, like, branding myself. I've had a LinkedIn for years, and within the last two and a half years I've started to really get into LinkedIn, but I could've really been more active and gotten more opportunities from it. And there's been times when at work I've been antisocial and I didn't want to hang out with anyone that wasn't like me, and I think that that is problematic when you're trying to advance in your organization. Sometimes you have to go to those events, you know, mingle a little bit, smile and do whatever. And Minda Harts talked about this in her book "The Memo," about, like, the importance of sort of fraternizing with your colleagues and how that can help you when you're trying to advance. So I think that even as a woman of color in the workplace, I've made mistakes, so I think that's important to recognize and not just be like, "It's all the company's fault."Zach: No, you're absolutely right. And it's interesting, we've gotten the same type of feedback, right? But it's like--my whole thought is look, we're all grown. There's a certain level of agency that we have as professionals in our career, and yes, we're gonna talk about the systemic structural challenges. I think we would be doing--like, it's intellectually dishonest and insulting to not pair that--like, it's not either or, it's both and. And not equally on either side, right? Like, there are larger responsibilities that these organizations have to create inclusive and equitable and diverse spaces, and--and--and there's also responsibilities and just things that we can be aware of as underrepresented people in how to navigate these spaces, right? And it's not about respectability politics. It's not about anything that's asking you to sacrifice your dignity or your self-worth. It's about just you being knowledgeable, because there are things that people in the majority understand and they know in navigating work that we just literally don't know, and so it's about--that type of knowledge is incredible, and I know the article you're referencing that you wrote. But again, I think they go hand-in-hand. Look, this has been an incredible conversation, Janice. Before we let you go, any parting words or shout-outs?Janice: Well, I just hope that anyone listening to this can just look at what each of us can do in our lives to really deconstruct oppressive systems. So even if that's something as, like, retweeting or reposting something that--like, the stories of someone from a marginalized group. I think that's still moving the needle and amplifying their voice. So I try to do that as much as I can and just highlight people that deserve the shine and may not get the shine, because even in the D&I space there's a quote-unquote hierarchy, and I think certain people--you and I have discussed this--get a lot of shine while there's other people doing a lot of the ground work who aren't recognized as much. Not that you should do things for recognition, but I think that amplifying other people's voices is important. So yeah, that's pretty much it. Anyone who wants to discuss things more with me can just find me on Instagram. I'm @janicejnice, or add me on LinkedIn. I'm Janice Gassam on LinkedIn. We can chat more.Zach: Oh, my goodness. Well, first of all, you know we're gonna have all of your links as well as your Forbes profile so that people can check out all of your super dope articles, so we got you on that. Y'all, this has been Living Corporate, okay? So good conversation as always. We have the best guests. That's right, I'ma say it. We have the best guests. And, you know, we typically do a thing--we typically drop air horns, and if I remember we drop 'em at the top, but, you know, I forgot this time 'cause I got too excited 'cause we were just having this super dope conversation, so I'ma drop 'em right here--[air horns sfx]--just thank you very much. This has been a super cool conversation.Janice: Thank you so much, Zach. It's been a pleasure.Zach: No doubt. Listen, y'all. Living Corporate. Google us, right? You get on Google or--what's another, Yahoo? I don't know. I really just be on Google. This is not even an ad. [both laugh] But you get on Google or whatever your little search thing is and you type in Living Corporate, and you'll see us, man. We're out here. We're on Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod, Instagram @LivingCorporate, and we have all the domains, right? So www.living-corporate.com, please say the dash. Livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.net, livingcorporate.tv, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.us. We've got all the livingcorporates, Janice, except for livingcorporate--like, all the way with no dash--dot com, 'cause Australia has that domain, but we got the rest of 'em.Janice: Oh!Zach: I know, right? They own this corporate housing thing, but if you go on the SEO, like, we hopping over them though. If you Google Living Corporate, like, we're hopping over them now, so we--I'm just saying, the brand is getting stronger. Let's see here. I think that's it, y'all. You've been listening to Zach, and I've been having a dope conversation with Dr. Janice Gassam, speaker, educator, mover, shaker, name taker, edge snatcher, writer. What else, Janice?Janice: System deconstructor.Zach: Yes! System deconstructor. Disruptor. Come on, bars. Let's go. All right, all right.Janice: An intentional inclusionist. [laughs]Zach: Ooh! Wait a second, intentional inclusionist? [Flex bomb sfx] Okay, okay, okay. 'Til next time, y'all. Peace.

Zach chats with Michelle Kim, co-founder and CEO of Awaken, in this episode centered around effectively creating inclusive leadership cultures. Michelle shares her journey into social justice work with us, including what led to the creation of Awaken, and she explains why she and her organization prioritize the needs of the most marginalized people in the room.Connect with Michelle - she's on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn!Check out Awaken's website and social media pages! Twitter, IG, FB, LinkedInYou can read Awaken's Medium blog by clicking here.Want to learn more about Build Tech We Trust? Here's their website and Twitter!Click here to read the Salon piece mentioned in the show.Visit our website!TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, everybody? It's Zach. Yes, again, it's me. Your boy, your host, your friend, your co-worker--maybe your co-worker, I don't know. If you work with me you know that I have this podcast, and, I mean, hopefully if you're checking it out, you know, hopefully you're having a good time. Shout-out to you. I'm not gonna say your name, but you know I'm talking to you. What's up? Look, you know what we do. We serve to amplify the voices of black and brown people at work, and we do that by talking to black and brown people in a variety of spaces, right? So these could be executives, public servants, activists, creatives, entrepreneurs, anybody, and we try to have these conversations in approachable and authentic ways, centering black and brown and otherwise underrepresented experiences and perspectives at work, and today we have with us a very special guest, Michelle Kim. Michelle is the founder and CEO of Awaken, a firm that empowers leaders and teams to lead inclusively and authentically through modern interactive and action-oriented workshops. Prior to Awaken, she had a successful consulting career working with C-suite and VP-level executives at high-performing companies around the world, helping them set ambitious business goals and align their teams to achieve them. While working in management consulting and technology start-ups, she experienced and validated first-hand the urgent need for modern, up-to-date education that empowers leaders to be more empathetic, agile, and culturally aware. Come on, now. Culturally aware. Pay attention. Michelle's experience in organizational change management, strategic goal setting and social justice activism set the groundwork for Awaken's multi-disciplinary and action-oriented learning programs. As an immigrant queer woman of color, Michelle has been a life-long social justice activist and community organizer. Michelle, what's going on? Welcome to the show.Michelle: Hey, thank you for having me. I'm so honored.[yay sfx]Zach: No doubt. It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. Michelle: Those are the sound effects that you told me about. [laughing]Zach: Yes, yes. So for those who are newer to the show, I have a soundboard. I have all types of sounds on here, you know what I'm saying? You know, we add a few things from time to time, and, you know, just enjoy yourself. If you're new to this space, sit back, grab something to drink--it doesn't have to be alcoholic, you know? I respect your choices, your boundaries. But enjoy the soundscapes that are gonna be coming to you in this episode and many more to come.Michelle: I love the production.Zach: You know what? We gotta add a little bit of razzmatazz, just from time to time. So let's do this. You know, I gave a little bit of an intro, but for those of us who don't know you, would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself?Michelle: Sure. Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me. Thanks, Zach, for the intro. I think you covered a lot in my intro, but I think something that some people might be familiar with is actually my writing. I am an [?] writer. That's how I communicate my thoughts and perspectives to the world, in addition to facilitating workshops and doing speaking like this one or on stages all over the country. My passion is in really closing the gap between how we talk about social justice in our society today and how, you know, quote-unquote diversity and inclusion gets done, and quickly. So I think that there's a lot of work that we can do to help bridge the gap in understanding and awareness of how we communicate with each other. And also a fun fact about me is I'm a Virgo.Zach: Shout-out to Virgos. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. You said you're a Virgo?Michelle: I'm a Virgo.Zach: Man, shout-out to the Virgos one time. I'm also a Virgo. [air horns sfx] You know what I'm saying? They don't know about us like that. But please, tell us about your Virgoness.Michelle: You know, a lot of my friends who know me closely know my tendencies to be highly critical, but I also think that's what--I think being critical gets a bad rep, but I actually think that being critical is what makes me decent at my job. I also think that I have perfectionist tendencies, which I don't think is healthy, so I'm working on that. I like being organized. I am a huge fan of to-do lists. And I love--my love language is acts of service, so I think that also aligns with me being a Virgo. So I tend to, you know, go overboard when it comes to supporting other people, sometimes to a fault, 'cause I need to prioritize self-care and boundaries and all of that, but I'm not. I'm not perfect at that stuff.Zach: I just feel so--I feel so seen in you talking about yourself.Michelle: [laughing] Good. I'm glad, I'm glad. Virgos unite.Zach: They do. And honestly, like, you know, here we are, two people who over-extend for others sitting down, having a conversation that really helps to amplify one another. Isn't that something? [look at us sfx] Not me, you know what I'm saying?Michelle: That's right.Zach: [laughs] You were about to say something.Michelle: I said "Do you know who else is a Virgo?"Zach: Beyonce.Michelle: Beyonce's a Virgo. So whenever I feel like I need to be [?] about being a Virgo, I look to Beyonce for inspiration.[ow sfx]Zach: I'm right there with you. I mean, if she can do it, certainly I can do it. And, you know, my dad's a Virgo, so shout-out to my dad. He was born on the 6th, I was born on the 4th, and, you know, we're a lot alike. Okay, so yeah. Let's talk a little bit about your inspiration for social justice, and I really want to--'cause social justice is such a broad term. It's often even, like, used as a pejorative these days. So, like, when you say social justice in, like, your history, what does that look like for you?Michelle: That's a great question. My journey into social justice work really began with the lens of being a queer person. You know, I think my journey really started with my coming out. So I came out as queer and bisexual when I was 16. So I was in high school, and I was really confused. I didn't know about, you know, any social justice issues beyond--I think what people were talking about then were women's rights, and, you know, now I understand that to be white women's rights, but we'll get into that more. But when I came out as queer I didn't have a lot of resources, so I was really actively searching for community and support to make sense of who I was [and what I could do about my identity.] I was really fortunate to have found a great support group within my high school that was kind of an underground support group, and through that I found out about this program happening out of UC Santa Barbara where they were doing youth activism summer camp kind of stuff for LGBTQ young people. So that was my entryway into social justice work, and that's where I learned how to organize, how to, you know, stage protests and knowing my rights as a student activist, and that's where I learned about social justice activism and writers who wrote about social justice, like Audre Lorde. So that was my entryway into understanding social justice, is through the frame of my being queer and learning from queer trans activists, also young people, and that's also where I learned about the intersections of being queer and also being a person of color and all of the nuances of the different identities and the intersections of different types of marginalization and oppression and how often times they all come from the same root and source of, you know, patriarchy or white supremacy. So, you know, I'm throwing a lot of [?] here, but really at the end of it, for me social justice is about, you know, understanding that we're all in this struggle together, and in order for us to achieve equity and equality and justice that we need to have solidarity in this frame of social justice.Zach: And so I'm really curious, right? Let me talk to you a little bit about my perspective, it being singular and limited, right? So I don't believe this is the way it is. This has been, like, my perception as I look--a cishet black man, Christian black man, looking across this, like, D&I space, right? Like, I'm seeing, like, different camps and groups, right? So I see this group that is largely white and who--like, they're invited to a lot of the fancy things, but they're not necessarily credentialed other than being in a certain social strata, but they're not really credentialed in any type of lived experience, nor are they credentialed in any specific level of education, but they're credentialed in, like, certain experiences from, like, again, just being in certain spaces, right, that are afforded to them because of their class and race. I then see another group of people that are very much so, like, activists. Like, they're on the street. If they're using social media, it's to mobilize something tangible. It's to affect a change in some type of grassroots community level. And then I see, like, another group that is kind of--like, they're in the corporate space and they're doing a few things, but they're not necessarily really, like, enacting anything beyond whatever the company needs them to do to kind of mitigate litigious risk, but I think--I'm kind of seeing, like, tensions against each of these groups. I'm curious about, like, your perspective, considering your social activist background and the work you do today. Do you see similar camps in the space, and, like, if not, what are you seeing? Do you think I'm oversimplifying kind of, like, the various camps and groups, or, like, what's your perspective on that?Michelle: I don't think you're oversimplifying per se, 'cause I do see what you're saying. I hear you in terms of there being different--because identities [are?] also a different approach to doing diversity and inclusion work inside the workplace. I think--a couple things that I want to clarify in terms of my beliefs is that I don't think anyone can truly call themselves a D&I expert. I certainly don't call myself a D&I expert, because I believe fundamentally diversity and inclusion is about lived experiences, so it's all about how we make sense of our lived experiences in relation to the systems that we inhabit, so I think everybody's an expert in their own lived experience, and I can't ever claim that I'm an expert in your life, right? So I think that's one belief that I have, that we all are experts in our owned lived experiences. And then another belief that I have is that, you know, social justice activism isn't just about being out in the street and marching and protesting. You know, there's a lot of activism happening inside of workplaces today as well through corporate activism, but also just daily acts of survival for a lot of folks, especially black and brown people, underrepresented people of color and trans and queer people inside workplaces. I think what they're doing, just by mere survival and speaking up when they can, is an act of activism. I think there is a greater sense of responsibility that I'd love for D&I professionals to have, whether they're inside or outside of the workplaces, in really making sense of how change happens and pushing the boundaries to serve the most marginalized people in the room. I think that's where my criticality comes in, when you start to talk about mostly white--I think I've seen a lot of white women take up the role of head of D&I. That's where I start to question whether, you know, are they understanding the positionality of being a white person, doing this work inside workplaces, holding a position of power? And, you know, I start to question sort of how change is being [assisted?] inside companies while prioritizing the needs of the most marginalized people. So I do think that people without the social justice frame, as in--you know, I think the root of my education and the foundation of my social justice education that I've gotten from, you know, activists who were organizers at the community level, what they've taught me is that in order for us to enact change, we need community, we need solidarity, and we need to approach everything through the lens of centering the most marginalized people and their needs, 'cause then everybody in-between and all of us will rise together. So that is sort of my approach when it comes to education or policies, whatever organizational design we're talking about. If we can center the most marginalized people, then everybody else will benefit. So that's the social justice framing that I use to approach all of my work, but I think I see some D&I people in the corporate space doing D&I work as if this is a new discipline that's not tied to social justice at all, right? That this is--in a vacuum, this is just about recruiting the most, you know, diverse set of candidates, that it's about retaining those people once they get there, but it's sort of in a vacuum without the understanding of systemic issues and history that has fueled D&I to exist in the first place. I think that's my biggest sort of criticism about how D&I gets done in the corporate space today.Zach: And I get that, right? It resonates with me, which is why I was so excited, because I really enjoyed--like, I've read some of your written work, and of course I follow you on social media. I love what Awaken is doing, right? And really, based on what you're sharing, I'm curious, how does that translate into the work that Awaken does? Because everything you're saying, I'm hearing it, right? But I guess I'm trying to understand--how does that effectively translate in majority-white spaces in the work that--and I'm making an assumption that the spaces that you engage are largely white. If they're not correct me, but from what I'm looking at it seems like the spaces are largely white, and it seems to be that when I talk to other D&I professionals, the subtext of a lot of the work, and even some of the, like, backhanded critique that I've received--because I'm often times received as "Well, you're passionate, but you're not really credentialed, right?" Like, "You're a person of color and you have a certain lived experience, but, you know, you don't have the same foundation that I may have as a quote-unquote D&I expert, so your point of view only goes so far," or it's only limited to the black experience. There seems to be, like, a subtext of "Let's not make people too uncomfortable," but the work that you're talking about in centering underrepresented or the most marginalized, that--I feel as if the argument could be made that you're automatically making other people uncomfortable. So again, just what does all of that look like as it translates into your work with Awaken?Michelle: Yeah, that's a great question. And I'm also so curious about these credentials, right? [both laughing] 'Cause I see these credential programs or certification programs. Like, what are you certifying people for? I'm so curious. I think there are absolutely some skills that we can learn, whether that's facilitation or curriculum development or policy design, that we can get better at, but in terms of understanding other people's lived experiences and the identities that folks hold and the complexities that come with that, I don't know if we can truly ever be credentialed enough to be, you know, discounting other people's experiences and opinions. So that's my perspective on it. And in terms of how our approach translates into our work, you know, I think we can talk about sort of the founding story, why we were created in the first place. So, you know, after having done organizing work when I was in high school and college, I decided to pursue a career in, you know, the for-profit space because I needed to make money, let's be real, and I was told actually by my activist mentors, who have gone onto pursuing social justice careers as career organizers and non-profit folks, that they were also experiencing very sort of similar harm, because even non-profits are predominantly led by white people, right? So I think the issues that we think are non-existent in progressive--quote-unquote "more progressive" spaces, they continue to exist, while folks are not making enough money to make ends meet. So--[straight up sfx]Michelle: [laughs] I love the sound effects. Knowing that and knowing my situation as a--you know, I grew up low-income, and I needed money to support my family. The advice I got from my mentors was "Hey, you can create change in certain spaces." They warned me about the toxic culture, but I went in sort of ignorant about what I was getting myself into. So I also really am grateful for my journey, having started my career in management consulting and in tech. I think I have experienced a lot of different things that I wasn't ready for but I'm grateful for nonetheless. But when I entered in those spaces, I was exposed to and I searched for D&I spaces, right? Because I thought that that was what I knew to be social justice work. So when I joined an employee resource group, I was, you know, disappointed at the level of conversations that were being had around what it means to be inclusive, what it means to be a diverse place, and I was surprised and disappointed and disillusioned by what companies were talking about as D&I was quite surface-level and marketing-oriented rather than real actionable behavioral change or cultural change that were being modeled by leaders of the company. So, you know, I was going through different workshops and trainings and just kept feeling like I was not seeing the level of conversations that actually needed to take place in these spaces, and it felt really safe. It felt safe. It felt white-washed. It felt diluted. As, you know, somebody who was just sitting in the room and constantly challenging the facilitator, I felt like I was doing all of the work. [Zach laughs] And after the [?] is over, you know, unfortunately the burden of re-educating other people who went through the workshop who now thinks that they are quote-unquote "woke" or who say that they checked the box, right? "Okay, we went through this unconscious bias training, so now we're good. Now I'm back to being a progressive person who cares about this issue." [Zach laughs] You know, [it was?] a challenge to really think differently, but the burden of their action, their unchanging behavior, their unawareness, and they're now feeling like they know what they're talking about, falls on the most marginalized people in the room, and I think that was a frustration that kept coming up for me as I was going through different types of trainings, whether that was done by external vendors or internal people, that people weren't pushing people enough, and I genuinely felt the need for a compassionate space for uncomfortable conversations, and that's our mission statement, to create a compassionate space for uncomfortable conversations to developing inclusive leaders and teams, and the way that we do that is by centering the needs of the most marginalized people, meaning we don't pat on ourselves on the back when a workshop goes well from the perspective of a bunch of white men saying that that workshop was great, you know? That may be true, but if, you know, the one black person in the room says that that workshop wasn't good while a bunch of white people say that the workshop was great, we don't pat ourselves on the back for that, right? But if we can support the most marginalized people in the room, you know, in tech and also in many other spaces as predominantly black and brown folks, trans, queer, people of color, if they give us the stamp of approval, if they feel like they were seen and heard and lifted and that they didn't have to do all the work, that's success for us, right? So by designing our curriculum to speak truth to them and to, you know, have that frame of "Can we lessen the burden on people who are the most marginalized in these spaces by saying the things that they can't say because there are too many risks and repercussions that they fear?" That's our job, and I don't think enough D&I practitioners out there are taking that approach, because, you know, if they're internal, their job is at risk. I get that. So I think as a third-party, we coming in--we have a different level of risk that we get to take because we don't have that kind of repercussion that we need to worry about, besides not being able to come back to that place again.Zach: Right. And, I mean, at that point that, you know, they don't let you back, I mean, you already got the bag anyway, so... [cha-ching sfx] You know? Michelle: [laughs] Well, and usually we can come back, because we don't often take on one-off workshops. I think that approach is pretty harmful, and, you know, companies come to us and say, "Hey, we just want to do a one-day, like, [?]." We tend to say no to those engagements because we really believe in delivering impact and working with people who are genuinely interested in real change. So, you know, I think the mistake people make is thinking that meeting people where they're at needs to be done by diluting the message. I don't think that's true. You can meet people where they're at with compassion and criticality. So you don't have to coddle people, but I think you can be compacted and make your content accessible for folks that they understand and they can move along the journey while feeling and embracing some tension and discomfort that comes with challenging their beliefs.Zach: So it's funny, because you see, like, even in, like, our current political tone and tambor today from, like, mainstream media, it's still around, like, the idea of respectability and quote-unquote kindness, kind of pushing against this idea of, like, call-out culture or just, like, keeping it real, like, just saying how things are, and it's interesting, and I hear what you're saying about, like, coddling versus accessibility. Do you have an example of what it looks like to effectively call something for what it is while at the same time making it accessible for folks to actually grasp and understand. Like, I don't think there's enough work that you could do to cater to or mitigate against fragility, but I would love to hear, like, kind of what Awaken does and, like, what that looks like for you.Michelle: Mm-hmm. Hm, let me think of an example. I think that's a great question, and I'd love to be able to contextualize it just a little though with an example. I think--I don't know why this example keeps coming up in my head. I think it's because we're designing a curriculum right now around inclusive interviewing practices, and one of the common questions that comes up is this idea of not lowering the bar and hiring in this sort of notion of meritocracy, and I think, you know, one way to approach that is really sort of making the person who said that feel like they don't know what they're talking about and, you know, calling them racist and all of that... I think is one way. [both laugh] I think another way could be really helping unpack why meritocracy doesn't currently exist, even though that is an ideal that we can strive for together, and how people who are currently in companies today may not have been hired purely based on merit. Zach: And how do you prove that though?Michelle: How do you prove that?Zach: Yeah.Michelle: I think there's a lot of data that actually backs up the claim around how meritocracy doesn't exist. I mean, what we often talk about is that, you know, meritocracy is a concept that was created as a vision that we can all work toward, but we falsely believe that right now there is sort of meritocracy in a sense, but there's lots of data that shows that actually there's a lot of biases in the hiring process, whether it's from the referral stage or, you know, the interview stage or the deliberation stage. I think there's a lot of data that actually shows discrepancies in the ways that we make decisions, and I think, you know, calling that out specifically I think is really helpful. I think the harmful alternative of sort of diluting that fact of, you know, not having meritocracy is that I have sometimes heard, you know, folks explain that to people in a way that actually equates hiring people of color or women as lowering the bar and that being sort of the, you know, unfortunate short-term solution. Like, yeah, but we need to hire more people of color and women, so, you know, we want to make sure that we are getting that quota filled. So I think there's, like, a lot of weird ways of people explaining difficult concepts to make people feel comfortable, because the discomfort in this conversation is the fact that you may not have been hired based on your merit, right? I think that's the tension, is that if we debunk meritocracy, people who have these jobs in higher-paying positions, they are feeling attacked because they feel like they warrant--they didn't get to where they are purely based on merit, and recognizing that they've had privileges that weren't afforded to another demographic groups, I think that in and of itself is the discomfort, and I think a lot of folks have a hard time calling that out, because we're then directly sort of highlighting the fact this may be an awful position that they're in. And I think talking about privilege in general is something that's really difficult for people. It's not an easy topic for any of us to really grapple with, but I think if we can't have those tougher conversations where we are directly highlighting and shining light on the fact that, you know, there are--"Yes, we worked hard, and there are struggles that we didn't have to go through to get to where they are." I think if that conversation doesn't happen, it would be a huge miss.Zach: You know, Michelle, when you and I first spoke, you know--we do our thing, we try to get to know each other first, and then we do the episode. A little bit of background behind the scenes for y'all, but anyway, when you and I first spoke we talked about people of color and that term, right? And we had conversations about Living Corporate and how, you know, we don't really use the term "people of color," we say black and brown. And then you and I had a conversation about how you don't really consider, or you don't count, Asian-American or, like, that space, East Asian, in the "people of color" category. Can you talk to me a little bit more about that?Michelle: Yeah. I think that's a great question. So I think, just to clarify, I do count Asians as a part of the people of color community, but I think there's context that we need to put into place whenever we're using the term. So I think the term people of color is a useful term when we're talking specifically about non-white people in the context of talking about white supremacy and how that impacts all people who are not white who experience racism and other forms of oppression because of their race. Where I don't feel comfortable using the term people of color is when we're discussing specific issues that impact black and brown communities. For example, when we're talking about police brutality or the murders of black trans women, I think it's really important for us to be specific about who we're talking about, because as an East Asian person, I don't have the same type of fear or risk when I'm around police. I think that is really important for us to specify, and I think that understanding around how there are very specific forms of racism, like anti-black racism. I think that clarity is so needed in having this conversation in a more effective way, and also for, you know, Asian-American folks to be able to show up in solidarity with folks who are experiencing very specific forms of marginalization. Zach: I just... you know, one sound we don't have on the soundboard is, like, finger snaps. [snapping fingers] But I'ma put these in there. Yeah, I love it. And it's interesting because, you know, we're moving at the speed of the Internet when it comes to a lot of this stuff, right? And certain things become trendy or become--I don't know. They kind of just catch fire, and I think the term people of color, it has a place, and I've seen it be used interchangably when people are just talking about black folk, right? It's like, "Why are we using that term right now when--" If we're really talking about something targeted for black Americans, if we're talking about something that's targeted for Latinx trans Americans--these groups, as niche or as just unique or small as they may seem to you, these represent actual human beings. So I think it's great that we're using them, but sometimes for me--it sometimes almost gets used as, like, a catch-all, and you end up erasing a lot of identities and experiences and points of view.Michelle: Totally, and I think if we can't be specific about the actual issue, then how can we solution around it, right? If we can't name what the actual issue is? It's not police brutality against all people of color, right? It's [?] against black and brown people specifically, you know? People who are seen as a quote-unquote "threat" to cops. I think it's really important for us to get specific around that so that we can solution around it, because it wouldn't make sense for us to do--you know, to solve for all people of color experiencing police brutality because that's not true. I think, you know, when we talk about black maternal [debts?], that's not happening to Asian-Americans that it's happening to black folks who are giving birth. So, you know, I think specificity is important for solutioning the right outcomes, and also, like you said, it doesn't erase people's experiences. I think tech is starting to incorporate more of the term around underrepresented POC, because, you know, Asian-Americans are overrepresented in many tech companies, but, you know, Asian-American also, similar to POC, is a very broad terminology, so I'd love to be able to see some dis-aggregated terms that we can use to also talk about underrepresented Asian-Americans. But yeah, I think specific language is always helpful in most cases, and I think there's also purpose to the term people of color when we can really mobilize and build a coalition across all people of color.Zach: I think it's just so interesting. I do think a function of white supremacy is, like, keeping things as surface as possible so that--because the more surface you can be, like, to your point, the less specific and targeted you can be in your solutioning, and if you're not targeting your solutioning, then you're not really gonna be able to affect true change. 'Cause, you know, and the last thing about this in terms of, like, just keeping things general and grouping people all together is, like--I know that in Europe there's a term that's called... it's black--it's like people of color to the max, right? So it's called "BAM," black, Asian, and Middle-Eastern. Like, what is that? Michelle, like, that's--that is nuts. You can't--huh? Like, when someone told me that--like, I just learned about this maybe, I don't know, like, a couple months ago. Like, a colleague told me, and I said, "How is that possible?" Like, those are thousands of identities and experiences and cultures and languages and histories. Like, how are you just going to just lump--so you're just gonna take all the non-white people and put 'em in one big cluster? Huh? Considering the history of, like, colonialism and, like--oh, my gosh. Like, that's nuts. You can't do that. And so, anyway... okay, okay, so from this conversation, what I'm hearing, I don't think that we always give, like, members of the majority enough credit in their ability to have an honest conversation when it's framed effectively, right? I think a lot of times it's kind of like, "Well, we don't want to bring that up because then that makes people uncomfortable," or "We don't want to bring that up because then they shut off," and it's like... eh. I mean, yes, people are fragile, but, like, come on. We've got to be able to have some type of--some level of authentic conversation around something. So that's--Michelle: Yeah. I wouldn't go as far as giving them credit. [both laughing] You know? I think there is a reason why--you know, why people are hesitant to have that conversation. I think it's because of the backlash. It's because of the fragility and it's because of [?] and also frankly the repercussions that people face. So I think while we sort of finesse the way that we deliver certain messages without losing the criticality but also having compassion and being accessible, what we also need to be doing is building the resiliency on the part of the dominant or the privileged group so that we can receive that information and check their fragility or check their defensiveness, and I think that education needs to be more prioritized than the other stuff.Zach: I agree, and thank you. Thank you for pushing back. [laughing] I do think there's a low level of fluency and stamina, right, when it comes to these conversations, and it's interesting because I just read an article, and it was published on Salon, and it was called "Diversity is for white people: the big lie behind a well-intended word." Have you read that yet?Michelle: I have not.Zach: Yo, I'ma send this to you. But it's just interesting because it's really this conversation in a really tactful rant form just around, like, how D&I is often phrased today, and it's, like, phrased with, like, white comfort in mind as opposed to the perspective and experiences of the marginalized in mind, and so I just find that very interesting. Okay, so look, you're the first East Asian-American person that we've had on the show, and so first of all, you know what I'm saying, shout-out to you. [air horns sfx] You know, shout-out to you for that and just being here, you know? [coin sfx] Michelle: Thank you for having me. I'm honored.Zach: Nah, I'm honored. I mean, I'm excited. I think there's this--like, despite civil rights history and all of the work especially done, like, within California, L.A., Oakland, in the '60s, and of course, like, during the era of the Black Panthers, there's this stereotype that Asian-Americans don't really care about social justice. Like, have you heard this before, and, like, why do you think that that is?Michelle: Yeah. Yes, I have heard that before, and I continue to hear it quite often. I think something that I hear when I meet people for the first time and I talk about what I do and we get to know each other a bit better, a weird sort of form of compliment or they think it's a compliment that they pay me is this fact that, you know, I'm one of the unique ones, right? Like, "Oh, wow. I've never met another Asian person who is like you," or "I'm so glad you're doing this work, because we need more Asian people doing this," and I have mixed emotions about that, because while I appreciate the acknowledgement of the work, I think that there's also this continuing erasure of the historical work that different Asian-American activists have done, whether that's the labor movement that was led by Filipino activists or folks marching [?] or even current activists working as prison abolistionists who are Asian-American racial justice organizer or disability justice organizers like [?], queer trans [?] activists. I think there's a lot of folks who are doing really radical work who continually get erased, so it leaves sort of a bitter taste in my mouth when I hear that because I think that with that simple sentiment we're erasing so much of history and current work that's being done. I also think that some of that comment is valid in that, you know, I do see a lot more work that can be done on the part of Asian-Americans specifically. You know, East Asians in tech is sort of the reputation that I hear about where people can be more active in doing D&I work or social justice work, and I think there's a real sort of lack of awareness or even the sense of solidarity amongst Asian-Americans in what their place is, like, what our place is in this conversation around social justice activism. So I think it's a complex topic. I do think that we can do more. I think all groups can do more, and I think there's a serious lack of education around Asian-American history and sort of--even the current facts around, you know, the struggles that Asian-Americans are going through, that if more Asians knew about that and if more Asian folks found commonality between our oppression and other marginalized communities' depression that we may be able to build a coalition to do more amazing work.Zach: One, thank you for--that's a really thoughtful answer. All of your answers have been very thoughtful. It's almost like you're very... awake. [haha sfx] What's really interesting, to your point around just, like, history, is as much as the Black Panthers--I really think that the way that we think about--and when I say we, I mean just, like, Americans, right? Like, the way that Americans categorize and think about the Black Panthers has to be, like, some of the most effective example of American government propaganda, right? Like, we think of Black Panthers as the equivalent of the KKK, like, the black equivalent, like they're these terrorists and that it's just full of these angry black people, and we don't think about the fact that Richard Aoki was--he was a founding member of the Black Panthers, right? Asian-American. And he's not, like, this ancient figure. Like, he passed away in 2009, but we don't really talk about that, and I'm really curious as to--'cause, like, the Black Panther Party, and, like--not the new Black Panther Party, but the initial, original Black Panther Party was not, like, hundreds of years ago, and so it's just so interesting how we are uneducated, right? We're uneducated just on civil rights history, and we're certainly--I don't remember in high school or in college hearing anything about Asian-American participation or engagement in the civil rights movement. That was not anything that I remember being taught, nor do I remember that being something that was, like, readily available for me to learn, you know?Michelle: Right. And I think that lack of education is within the Asian-American community itself, right? I think I feel like sometimes I know more about, you know, black history than my own sort of Asian-American history here in the U.S., and I'm an immigrant, so I think I grew up with a different set of history lessons. So there's a lot of catching up for me to do as well, and I think that the--I mean, even in the school system, I'm sure you've been talking to your guests around the lack of real education around what really happened in history too, right? Not just for Asian-Americans, but for, you know, black Americans and, you know, Latinx Americans. I think there's a lot of, you know, untrue history that's being taught to our youth, which is problem #1, and I also think there's a lot of internalized racism and oppression that exists in the Asian-American community, and there's a lot of complex topics that I don't know if we have time to get into, but things like the--Zach: Well, pick one. Let's go. I have time.Michelle: You know, the myth of Asians being closer to white people and the sort of model minority myth, and that's a very prevalent stereotype, and I think there's a lot of interrogating that we need to do when we talk about those things around, "Well, who were the initial group of Asian-Americans that were allowed to come to the country? What were the ramifications of that? What are some of the current statistics that we can talk about, even in the workplace, around Asian-Americans being the least likely group to advance to senior leadership positions even though they are overrepresented in industries like tech and, you know, [?] in an analyst position?" "How does that impact the continuing stereotypes and narratives around Asian-Americans?" Being good at math, and, you know, I think there's a lot of complex, intertwined stories that we tell about our people, Asian-Americans, and also we're combining an entire continent when talking about Asian-Americans as this monolith of a people when if we were to dis-aggregate that data, there's actually a ton of lessons to be learned around who's actually marginalized within the Asian-American community, right? I recently learned that 1 in 7--I think that's the stat--1 in 7 Asian-Americans are undocumented, and they're the fastest-growing population that's undocumented in the United States currently, but we don't hear about that, right? We don't hear about that narrative, and I think the way that white supremacy works is this sort of untrue and erasing of different stories that make the people of color the collective question and also not able to work alongside each other, and I think that's the--the most difficult thing that I see in the sort of solidarity that we need to be able to move the needle on this work is that there's so much of a lack of education on everyone's part, including myself, that we need to do a lot of work to be able to, you know, truly practice that solidarity with each other.Zach: Man. You know, and, like, Michelle, you've been just casually dropping just bombs, like, this whole conversation, right? So I just gotta give you at least one. [Flex bomb sfx] 'Cause it's been ridiculous. But one thing you said--and it brought something back to my memory. So I'm not gonna say the consulting firm. If y'all want to look on my LinkedIn, y'all can make a guess as to where this was. It's not the one that I'm at right now, but I'll never forget, Michelle, I was at a team dinner--this was some years ago--and we were talking about... so, you know, I'm at the table, and then there's senior leaders, and then there's, like, super senior leaders, and there's me, and I was, like, a junior-level person at this point in time, right? This was, like, five or six years ago. And so I'm a pretty junior person, and there's somebody in there talking about this one particular employee, and they said, "Oh, Insert Name Here is the perfect little Asian. He just does exactly what I tell him to do. He does his work and then he goes home." And I remember I was just eating my dinner--I literally stopped, I looked at the person who said it and was like, "Oh, my God. I can't believe you just said that." And she looked at me, and then you could tell that she, like, quickly averted her eyes and was kind of, like, "Oop--" You know, like, she got caught, but just that idea of this subservient just worker bee that just does whatever I tell them to do... that just stuck with me forever. I was like, "Oh, my gosh." Like, that's not--I'm still flabbergasted by that, as you can tell, and I told my coach. I said, "Hey, this is not okay," right? I said, "This is what happened." And they were like, "Oh, well, you shouldn't have heard that." I was like, "No, no, no. It's not about me shouldn't have hearing it. Like, they shouldn't have said that, but beyond them saying it, they shouldn't believe that." So yeah, I just wanted to share that. Like, I'll never forget me hearing that. And, like, they were talking about the person like they were a--you know, like a resource, and, you know, they call talent that in consulting, resources, but in a genuine, like, piece of property [way], right? And it makes you just question, like, "Well, damn, okay. You felt comfortable enough to say this at a team dinner." And it was a white woman, by the way. But, like, you felt comfortable enough saying this in, like, a mixed group at a team dinner. Like, God forbid, what are you saying about me, what are you saying about other people, what are you saying about this person in, like, more private settings, you know what I mean?Michelle: Right. Well, the scary thing though is that sometimes that kind of trope or narrative is almost seen as a compliment, as if we should be celebrating that. "Well, you know, why is it so bad for us to say Asians are good workers or Asians are good at following orders?" And what have you. I think sometimes that trope gets weaponized to divide the people of color community even further, which is--you know, I think we saw that divide also in the recent affirmative action case, right, where Asian-Americans--there were arguments on both sides around how Asians are being discriminated against for getting good grades and all of that kind of unfortunate, annoying [?], but that's a conversation for another time.Zach: No, you're absolutely right. And to be specific for our listeners who may not be abreast, recently that was the affirmative action case that went before Harvard, correct?Michelle: Correct.Zach: Yeah, and so it was interesting--so, like my perspective, as I was kind of, like, reading and understanding it was, like, some people were saying--so I'm on this app called Fishbowl... this is not an ad, but Fishbowl is, like, this anonymous posting app for consultants and other, like, different industry professionals, and people on there were talking about the case, and so basically the commentary was, "Yeah, you're excluding us and you're letting in these black and brown people who aren't smart enough to get in, but you're trying to fill in these racial quotas." And I was like, "Wow." I don't think that that's the point, and I think the data showed that the people who are the most advantaged by this current system of applications and acceptances were legacy students, right? It was people that--but again, like, to your point, then you'd see people arguing, then you'd see black and brown people arguing with Asian-Americans about, you know, "Well, we deserve to be here--" Again, I think that's--white supremacy is winning again when we start having those types of... when it starts devolving in that way, you know what I mean?Michelle: Right, exactly. And I think it also comes from the fact that a lot of people don't understand the point of affirmative action and why it got started in the first place. It's almost like people think that we're just trying to fill quotas or, you know, have diversity for the sake of diversity, but I think this is where the concept of D&I falls short 'cause we're not actually ever talking about justice and correcting past mistakes or historical oppression. So I think there's a lot of conversations that we need to have that we're not having right now around this concept of justice and sort of historical wrong-doings being corrected with some type of mechanism, and I think similar conversations, you know, are being had in tech and other industries where they're focused on quote-unquote "diversity recruiting" where folks are talking about that concept of, you know, lowering the bar for the sake of diversity and, like, all of that stuff I feel like are interconnected and they're just happening in different spheres, and I think for me it's always coming back to the lack of basic communication around history and social justice concepts and people not understanding how all of these struggles are connected. I think there's just a lot of room for improvement in how we're talking about these issues.Zach: You know, we gotta have you back to talk about the connection--like, to really talk about justice in diversity, equity and inclusion work, because, like, I have all these questions, but I want to respect your time. [both laugh] So let's do this. First of all, let's make sure we have you back. We definitely consider you a friend of the pod.Michelle: Thank you.Zach: Yeah, no, straight up. So thank you for being here with us today. Now, look, y'all--now, I don't know what else y'all want from me. I'm talking to the audience now. You know, look, we come at y'all, we bring y'all some amazing guests, you know, we're having these really dope conversations. I mean, [what more do you want from me? sfx] what more do you want? Like, I'm not even trying to martyr myself. I'm just saying, like, "What do you want?" And when I say me, I mean Living Corporate. Like, you see this guest. Michelle Kim is a beast. Like, thank you so much. This has been a great conversation. Now, look, before we get out of here though, Michelle, I have just a couple more questions. First of all, where can people learn more about Awaken?Michelle: You can learn more about Awaken at our website, www.visionawaken.com. You can also follow on Twitter @AwakenCo and our blog. Please check out our blog on Medium, www.medium.com/Awaken-blog. I'm all on Twitter, I'm on LinkedIn. You can follow me. I also have an Instagram. So all of the social media platforms there's gonna be me or Awaken, so please follow us and subscribe to our newsletter.Zach: All right, y'all. Now, look, she said all the stuff. Mm-mm, hold on, 'cause you're probably driving or you're doing something, you know? You're in your car or maybe you're typing something up on your phone, but what I really need y'all to do is I need you to stop... [record scratch sfx] and check out the links in the show notes, okay? Make sure y'all hit up all those things. I want y'all clicking on them links like [blatblatblatblat sfx]. You know, check them out, okay? We'll make sure we have everything right there for you. Now, Michelle, any shout-outs or parting words before you get out of here?Michelle: Well, I think we're living in a really interesting time right now. There's a lot going on in so many different communities and our society, so my shout-out is to everyone who is doing their best to survive and to thrive to take care of themselves, to stay vigiliant, to educate themselves, and to be in community with people that care about you. I think that's so important in this climate. One last shout-out I want to give is to this new initiative that I'm a part of called Build Tech We Trust. It's a coalition of different CEOs and tech leaders who have come together to say enough is enough around white supremacy spreading online on social media platforms and other tech platforms. It was founded by Y-Vonne Hutchinson and Karla Monterroso of Code2040, and check out our work. We're doing some really important work to build coalition around this issue of radicalization happening on tech platforms. So Build Tech We Trust, and I can send you the URL so you can link it.Zach: Please do. Y'all, this has been--first of all, Michelle, again, thank you. Great conversation. We look forward to having you back, because we will be having you back. If you would like to come back--it's not a directive, you have agency. Michelle: [laughing] Of course. I'd love to. I'd be honored.Zach: Okay, super cool. Listen, y'all. This has been the Living Corporate podcast. You know, make sure you check us on Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod, Instagram @LivingCorporate, and then--now, the websites. Now, look, y'all hear me rattle off all these websites every time - livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.tv, livingcorporate.net, right? Livingcorporate.us I think we even have. We have every livingcorporate, Michelle, except livingcorporate.com, but we do have living-corporate--please say the dash--dot com. Now, if you have any questions or any feedback for the show, just hit us up. We're at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com. Hit us up on DM. All of our DMs are wide open for your convenience. That's right. We take on the emotional labor of keeping our DMs open so that you can reach out to us, okay? So you hit us up and you let us know if you need anything. If there's anything else, just Google us, right? Type in Living Corporate on your browser. We're gonna pop up. We're on all the different streaming mediums. Make sure to tell your momma about Living Corporate, your cousin, or your weird uncle, or your racist uncle at Thanksgiving. So you make sure you--come on, shoot the link over. We got all kinds of stuff on there, so we out here, okay? What else? I think that's it. Shout-out to Aaron [thank you], shout-out to all the listeners, and God bless y'all. Or, you know what I'm saying, bless y'all, 'cause I'm not trying to offend anybody, but bless y'all, okay? And what else? I think that's it. This has been Zach. You've been listening to Michelle Kim, founder, educator, activist, public speaker, and of course CEO of Awaken. Catch y'all next time. 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 discusses building learning communities with ChangeNerd CEO and founder Brian Hampton. Brian talks a bit about ChangeNerd, a digital learning community that supports change management practitioners and inspires innovation, and he also offers some advice for black and brown folks who are looking to build a learning community of their own.Connect with Brian on LinkedIn!Check out ChangeNerd's home page and follow them on LinkedIn! Want to become a member of the community? Click here!Visit our website!TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate. Now look, you know what we do. We have authentic conversations about being black and brown in the corporate space. Now, corporate space makes it sound really fancy, right? Like you're wearing a suit and a tie, you know, maybe sometimes you have to actually put some lotion on your ankles. That's not what I mean, right? I just mean the place that you actually have to work, right? Living Corporate is a place that amplifies the voices of black and brown people at work, okay? And how do we do that? We do that with authentic conversations with black and brown executives, entrepreneurs, influencers, educators, public servants, creatives, activists, right? And we do that in just, like, one-on-one conversations, sometimes we'll do a two-on-one, sometimes we'll do a three-on-one, sometimes we have, like, a--you know, we mix it up, but the point is we're having real talk, and that's why our tag line is what? Real talk in a corporate world. All of that being said, y'all know we're having dope conversations every time y'all hear this podcast, and today is no different. Today we're talking to Brian Hampton. Brian is the CEO and founder of ChangeNerd, a company that supports change management practitioners and inspires innovation. Brian, welcome to the show. How are you doing, man?Brian: I'm doing well. Thanks for having me, Zach. I really appreciate it.Zach: For those of us who don't know you, why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself?Brian: Yeah. So, you know, I started ChangeNerd. It's primarily a digital learning community. I started it to really bring professionals together, because for us who do change management and help organizations adopt new ways of working, we really just tend to be heads-down, working on our projects, and I wanted to create a way for us to just connect and share best practices. Prior to launching ChangeNerd, I consulted at Deloitte. I also led change management teams at different companies, both private and non-profit. So I love the field. I'm super passionate about it, and I'm glad to talk about it today.Zach: Yeah, man. You know, and coming from a change background myself, you know, I don't see a lot of black men in this space, right? I don't really see a lot of black folks period, but I definitely don't see a lot of black men specifically and just black and brown men in general in the space. Can we talk a little bit about, of all the professions you could have chosen, like, what about change management got you?Brian: Yeah. This is real cool, this is real cool. Nice question, and--great question, actually. So I went to college in undergrad for criminal justice and then soon realized there was no real money behind it, and so I jumped into HR, jumped into the federal government, and at around 2008, 2010, I felt like HR was kind of flat, and then I was introduced to change management because the agency I was at at the time, we were implementing PeopleSoft, and so I was formally introduced to change management, and I really couldn't believe this was a full-time job, right? 'Cause it's really around just working with people and helping them, you know, really adopt new ways of working. And I'm like, "Wow, people get paid doing this?" So I did some research and saw that the pay was decent, and so I jumped into the field. So yeah, I thought--at the time I thought HR was boring, and change management seemed to be the new thing, and there's some really strong transferable skill sets from HR to change management, and so I took the leap.Zach: Man, you know, that's 100%, and it's interesting because my career was a little bit the same. I think we talked about this off the mic, but, like, I started as an HR manager at Target and then transitioned into org design and just being, like, a specialist, right? And then eventually formed all the way into change management. And you're absolutely right, a lot of it's transferable, but you know what's interesting? I think a lot of it isn't, because--I do agree that often times HR gets a tough rep as just being, like, the benefits folks, right? And kind of helping with ER issues, but really they're just kind of--they're almost like the security guards of the company, but they don't have a gun. They've got, like, a roll of quarters to call the peace when it gets really scary, you know? They might have a flashlight so that they can look at you while you're doing something wrong, but they don't really have any actual, you know... come on, man. Yeah, so anyway. Okay, cool. So look, we're talking today about building learning communities, right? ChangeNerd is a learning community, like you said at the top, but to start, like, how would you define a learning community, and what are the benefits of being in a learning community?Brian: Well, you know, quite honestly--and, you know, the whole theme of this podcast is corporate--you know, corporate living, and if you're in corporate, your organization is more than likely changing. It's using and bringing on new technology, new processes, you know, organizations are trying to be competitive, so all of that activity is happening, and what that means for the individual person is that you have to take ownership of your own journey, your own learning journey. And so the best way to do that is really tap into some type of social learning community, and that's part of the reason why I created ChangeNerd. There was nothing out there specifically for, you know, professionals who spend a lot of their time in project management, change management, and so I wanted to create a community for us folks. And, you know, what I'm noticing after doing this just for 12 months is that it's extremely beneficial. We got thousands of people in the community, both at the executive level and, you know, practitioner level, and the people love the community because they can take charge and, you know, tap in whenever they want to tap in. It's LinkedIn on a much smaller scale, you know? And there's beauty in having access to like-minded people. So if you're on a project and you're struggling, you know you're only a button away or an email away from getting help, and that's what it's all about, and for us, we tend not to have those strong networks when it comes to corporate, and so--you know, I'll be honest with you. I'll share this story. Deloitte was--working at Deloitte was the hardest--and it was fun, but it was extremely difficult, primarily because I didn't have that network. Even tapping into, you know, the African-American BRG, it's still tough for us to connect with the right people, people that we can trust in the corporate atmosphere. And so, you know, yeah, you go to work every day and you build a network there, but there's nothing like building an even broader network outside of your organization to give you the confidence you need to be successful.Zach: Man, you know, you're 100% right. And it's interesting. Like, as organizations, or just as technology continues to grow... like, at first the draw of technology and, like, social networking was size, right, and scope. Like, "You can reach anybody anywhere!" Like, you know, big numbers were attractive, right? So if you could say--you know, you say LinkedIn, like, millions of people use LinkedIn every day, right? But then, like, the disconnect is "Okay, what does it look like for me to actually touch somebody?" 'Cause I don't really need to touch a million people. I [may only?] really need to touch, like, 15. So what do I need to do to make sure that I can actually touch those, you know, less than 20 people that I actually need? And so it's just interesting as you see, like, communities change or digital communities change and evolve that, you know, we're noticing that size isn't everything, you know what I mean?Brian: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, building a community around, you know, your role or your aspirations professionally, it's an ongoing journey, and what I will say is--here's the major benefit, right? If you got 100 people, because you were diligent, and let's say you spent, you know, three to six months really building a community around you or tapping into an existing one, and you now have 100 people that you trust that you know you can reach out to. If you get laid off, if you want to go independent and start your own agency. You know, if something bad happens to you, you've got 100 people who got your back, and that's what it comes down to. I can't--you know, just in doing this community, you know, ChangeNerd, I can't tell you the amount of people that I've been able to help, you know? So-and-so got laid off? Oh, I know this partner at this firm, right? And there's a trust that's built. And so, you know, submitting your resume becomes more of a--it's something that happens afterwards, right? Because of trust, that organization is pretty much gonna bring you on, right? And so your resume becomes a formality after the fact, and so, like, that's the beauty of having a network and being tapped in to a digital learning platform or any social learning community that you have.Zach: Yeah, man. You know, it's interesting. You talked about some of your challenges at Deloitte and, like, the barrier being you not having that community, formally or informally, right? So, like, based on your experiences, what advice or, like, what lessons learned would you be able to share and kind of what would you be able to give to black and brown folks today who are looking to build those types of spaces for themselves for their own professional development?Brian: To be honest with you, it's a journey. It's a journey, and the reality is you don't know what you don't know. Years ago when I was at Deloitte, I don't think I had the right mindset, you know? You know, they hired me for a job, you know, primarily to do deliverables on projects, and that's what I did, but to be successful, there are--there are so many other competencies there, you know? You've got to be able to manage up. You've got to be able to build relationships. And, you know, when it comes to corporate, a lot of times, you know, I know for me and probably for the folks that are listening to this podcast, sometimes you may be one of the few black or brown people in a room, and it's difficult to raise your hand, and it's difficult to bring your perspective without being judged, but over time with the right experiences you get really good at it. But honestly, I don't know if there's any advice that I can give to anyone other than, you know, go for it. Continue to build your network out. But ultimately, it's your journey, and you have to own your own learning process, regardless of what type of, you know, leadership development programs you find yourself into. You have to own your own learning. Tapping into a network is beneficial, but just recognize that relationship building and having the ability to build trust with others, those are the things that you'll learn along the way.Zach: Man, well, let's do this. Let's talk about ChangeNerd, because I do get folks who hit me up, right? I have old colleagues, I have people in different, like, just social networks who hit me up about getting into change management. Let's talk about ChangeNerd, you know, why the name, the journey you got there, and then just where people can learn more about it.Brian: Yeah. So it's funny, I knew I wanted to bring--well, I'll tell you this. Me and the team, we were building an app. So we built this nice, sophisticated change management app, and as I was trying to sell it to different companies I realized that change management teams didn't really have the budget for it, so we scrapped it. But I ran into--I live in the Chicago area. I found six large companies all implementing SAP all struggling at the same point in time, right? And it was that moment where I realized "Wow, I need to build a community, because we're just working way too siloed." So I launched the community. And the community is free to join, and every week I interview a subject matter expert around--and we talk about some area surrounding organizational best practices, and every so often we offer virtual courses and we also offer in-person events. And so, you know, when people think of ChangeNerd, I want them to think about the learning community, because at the heart that's what it is. We pay the bills by consulting different companies, but we try to spend the bulk of our time just enriching the learning community.Zach: Well, that's incredible, man. So talk to me about where--at what point did you realize that ChangeNerd was, like, "Okay, wow. This is something serious." Like, this is an actual--so I'm not gonna say it's a movement because that's mad corny.Brian: It is. [laughs]Zach: It's mad corny. People always--man, sidenote. Man, people always talking about "it's a movement, it's a movement." So many--how is everything moving? Brian: I know, I know. So let me tell you how I knew it was real. It got real for me when I got an email. I got an email from an HR VP that said "Hey, Brian. We want to fly you to Boston, and we want you to do a series of workshops for our supply chain leadership," right? That's when it got real for me. So I replied back. I'm like, "Do you have budget?" And they told me the budget, and via email within, like, literally 5 minutes we negotiated budget. That's when it got real for me, because what I found out was when you tap into a community or if you build a community, right, you're automatically building trust with people, right? And so when they see you they trust you because you're giving out good insight, you're giving out--you know, you're helping them, and when opportunities pop up they reach out to you. And so, you know, first it started out as a speaking engagement, right? And I didn't have to give them documents and compete with other firms. They wanted me. That's when I knew. I told my wife, "Honey, this is--like, this is real money," right? And then the phone calls came, you know? Head of IT from this company, head of HR from this company. "Brian, we want to get your perspective," right? And they knew that, you know, I wasn't gonna do it for free, and so they came with the budget, and so it's just--when you have that network of people, you're able to help people, and they can help you as well. And so to be honest with you, that's how I knew that this could be something real, when I started getting emails of different companies, from different companies, that needed my help.Zach: Well, talk to me about what you've been most excited about that ChangeNerd has accomplished, and as you look at 2020, what are you most looking forward to?Brian: Yeah. So when it comes to change management, you have major training companies really trying to control the narrative. You have--I won't call out any names here, but you have companies, you know, controlling the narrative. What I'm so proud of is with me interviewing different subject matter experts every week, it just opens the opportunity for the narrative to change, right? And so for change management not to be come, like, an academic exercise. And so for people not to be locked into one particular framework, and for more stories and experiences to be told. As we move into 2020, we're going to get a little bit more niche. We're gonna have little--well, not little, but smaller digital communities. So change management in health care, change management in non-profits, change management in financial services. We're gonna have digital communities by industry, by specialty, just to give people access to more practical advice. So that's something I'm looking forward to as we move into 2020.Zach: All right, man. Now, look, I wouldn't be a platform if I didn't give you a space to actually plug ChangeNerd. So, like, where can we learn more about it? What's the content? What's the information? Of course we'll have it in the show notes, but go ahead and shout it out right here.Brian: Yeah. So you can dive right in to the online community by going to community.changenerd.com. Community.changenerd.com. That will put you right into the community. Go ahead and join. It's totally free, and I look forward to seeing you there.Zach: All right. Now look, everybody--y'all heard him, okay? So y'all driving, you walking, you're doing whatever you do, you heard what he said. Community.changenerd.com. It'll be in the show notes. And y'all be clicking the links. We look at the Bit.lys. We see that y'all clicking stuff, but you ain't gotta do it. You heard me, right? So you heard Brian, you heard Zach. Just go ahead and click that thing. Now Brian, before we let you get up out of here, any shout-outs or parting words?Brian: No. Zach, I love what you're doing, and it's podcasts like this that really help people like us move forward, so I appreciate the effort that you're doing. And if you're listening to this episode, I would encourage you to reach out to me, and hopefully I can be of help to you, and that's pretty much it. But Zach, I'm very proud of the work that you're doing.Zach: [air horns sfx] Man, them air horns is for you and for me, man. I appreciate you, man. I thank you, and I appreciate the work that you're doing, right? You're demystifying change management. You're creating a space for folks who are interested in change management and who are already established change management practitioners to engage, learn, and build. And this is not an ad. So yeah, just shout-out to you. Shout-out to ChangeNerd. And listen, y'all, this does it for us on the Living Corporate podcast. Thank you for checking in. Now look, y'all typically know I kind of put all the ats and stuff, but every now and then I just kind of flex on 'em, just a little flex. Sometimes I'll just say "Google us." [Flex bomb sfx] You know? Just Google Living Corporate. Just "Living Corporate," right? We're on everything. We're on all of the streaming platforms. We're on Instagram at @LivingCorporate. We're on Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod, right? And then if you want to check out the website, again, just Google us, Living Corporate, or you can type it in the browser - living-corporate, please say the dash, dot com. We're also livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.tv, livingcorporate.net. We've got all of the livingcorporates except, you know it, livigncorporate.com, 'cause Australia has--Brian, Australia has livingcorporate.com, man. Brian: That's crazy.Zach: Ain't that crazy? Yeah. So listen, y'all. Appreciate y'all. Listen, if you have any questions, anything you want to learn about change management, make sure that y'all contact Brian. We're gonna put all of his contact information down in the show notes. Until next time, this has been Zach, and you've been talking to Brian Hampton, CEO and founder of ChangeNerd, a digital learning community for change management professionals. 'Til next time. Peace.

Zach sits down with Alicia Wade, a results-driven leader who works as a district manager at Banana Republic, to speak about black female leadership. Alicia shares her career journey with us and offers some advice for young black and brown women entering the professional space. She and Zach also discuss the concept of proactive feedback and how to effectively solicit it at work.Alicia is the CEO of The HR Source - check it out!Connect with Alicia on LinkedIn and Twitter!TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate. Now, listen, you know what we do. We come to y'all and we bring to y'all, you know, some type of, you know, fire for your head top, right? We have some type of creative, executive leader, public servant, you know, public speaker, educator, entrepreneur, artist. You know, we have somebody, typically of the, you know, melanated variety, but sometimes not. Sometimes we've got some Winter Soldiers, or some Buckys, if you will. Some aspirational allies. But we're having real conversations that center black and brown experiences, and today is no different. Today we have the Alicia Wade. [air horns sfx] Now, listen here, for those who don't know, Alicia Wade actually was one of my first bosses. I'ma say bosses 'cause she is a boss, but she was one of the first people at my first job, when I worked at Target, that was in a leadership position that I had ever seen a black person in a leadership position--actually, the first time I had ever seen a black woman in a leadership position. But I don't want to go ahead and take away from her thunder, so I'ma go ahead and introduce her right now. Alicia, welcome to the show. How are you doing?Alicia: I am amazing. How are you doing today?Zach: I'm doing really, really well. Now, look, I gave a very, like, non-intro intro for you, so why don't you go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself?Alicia: Okay. Where do you want me to start? 1980? [laughs]Zach: You know what? 1980 would not be that bad. Was it the day time or was it late at night?Alicia: It was the morning in the spring.Zach: Okay, okay.Alicia: Yes, for sure. [laughs] But no, I was--you know, I started--you know, to your point around starting as a boss, I really wasn't always a boss. Maybe bossy, but for sure. You know, I--kind of just giving a background of education and then really where I started my career, but, you know, I went to the University of Oklahoma, so I have to shout that out because, you know, the amazing Boomer Sooner, and I actually did--Zach: Okay, okay.Alicia: Yeah, my undergrad degree there, political science, communication, and then went straight to grad school. So for me I share that background because I just really, you know, was one of those black girls that had a list. I knew what I was gonna be. If you asked me when I was growing up, I just knew I was gonna be a lawyer, and then all that changed when I went to school and I was like, "I don't really wanna go to school for, like, three more years and, like, read and do all of that." So I went to grad school at Baldwin-Wallace. It's actually a university now. It was a college then. It is in Berea, Ohio. Do you know where Berea is?Zach: No, where is that?Alicia: So it is actually, you know, the campgrounds for the Cleveland Browns. So it is right outside of Cleveland in Ohio.Zach: Oh, okay, okay.Alicia: Yes, so if you fly into Cleveland, you're technically in Berea. So I was there, I did my MBA there, and I think through that journey I really realized that I had just a knack for wanting to be on teams, obviously being a student athlete and an athlete my whole life. I think that's really where I kind of moved into HR. So starting to your point around being one of your first bosses, I actually started with Target in their training program and did several roles there. So I had an opportunity to be at the store level, district and regional level in HR, and then actually--I was actually there for about 9 years and then moved onto Ross Dress for Less in an HR capacity and did that and then moved over to operations and did that for probably--well, how long when I was in operations there? For two years. So the total time I was there for 5 years, if you're following, and then now--Zach: I am.Alicia: Yeah. And then now currently I'm actually with Gap, Inc., with the Banana Republic division ["ow" sfx] as a district manager. So yeah, that's kind of where I am now.Zach: So that's incredible, and it's interesting. So today we're really talking about black female leadership, right? So you talked about this path that you went on, and then there were points in time where you kind of had to pivot, right? 'Cause you had this very clear plan. Can we talk about, like, what was the cause--what was the cause, like, for you to say, "Look, I don't want to do this particularly." 'Cause you said that you were drawn to being on teams, but, you know, you can be a team and still be a lawyer. So, like, what was the moment that made you say, "You know what? I need to do something different."?Alicia: Well, you know what? I think what I realized in being on teams is that, you know, kind of--I mean, I probably wouldn't say I had the words for it then or the language or even had done the discovery for my own, like, strength and [?] of what that really was, but I did realize that I was really good at making other people better. So to your point, being a track athlete. It could be, like, individual, right? You could do your thing and then also [?] relays, but I felt like at that point I did know that I was really good around motivating other people and that I had an energy that other people fed off of, and I don't know if that was necessarily--would have been [conveyed?] for me. Some people would have through a book or through research. So I just felt like, you know, that leadership role, I was always pushed in those roles. So, like, even when I was at OU, I was a black student president. I was in leadership roles through my sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha. If you have sound effects, it would be a good time to add that right there.Zach: You want, like, a skee-wee or something? I don't have anything like that. Aren't y'all--wait, y'all be suing people. I'm not messing with you on this. [both laugh]Alicia: It could just be an amazing, like, "Alpha! Kappa! Alpha!" So anyway--[both laugh]--you heard that? Like, that little echo? It was amazing.Zach: I did.Alicia: Yes, and you had a picture in your mind of it being magnified, right? [Zach laughing] But we digress. So, you know, through those experiences in college, I think that's where that discovery came for me.Zach: Okay. Okay, cool. No, no, no. Listen, I'ma tell you something, 'cause y'all do be suing people, 'cause I saw somebody was making a joke--somebody made a joke about Kamala Harris and they put that AKA symbol on there, and it was on Twitter, and all the reactions on Twitter was [Law and Order sfx]. I said, "Wait a second. Relax, everybody." [Alicia laughing]Alicia: Well, you know what? Well, at least that sound effects knows--I think all of us through our childhood know that something epic was about to happen. So at the very least it's like, "Wait a minute," and we got their attention, right? And we're compliant. We're compliant, so we're good.Zach: [ow sfx, laughing] All right, so let's talk about this, because you're--when you talk about the roles that you've had and kind of going through the leader--you went through a training program, right? So you went through, like, an actual development program when you started at Target. Can we talk a little bit about what are some of the core things you learned through that program and what are some pieces that you feel like you picked up through that program that you wouldn't have otherwise?Alicia: Oh, my gosh. You know, it was so interesting. I talked--it's funny, you know, looking at what you do now, right, and where I am, and how that all started there, right? And I see that a lot. So I talk to a lot of peers that are in so many different capacities now in their career, and we all talk about the commonality with this, right? So I think for me--the good part is when you work for a company that has very structured development, or I should say an expectation that a supervisor shows up a certain way. Even if somebody doesn't have the capability or even the want to do it, it happens. So with that being said, I didn't always have supervisors that were able to show up in that way for me, but I would say the biggest thing I've learned, and it's a life lesson, is how I manage my expectations of other people, right? And I share that because I hear that a lot, especially as I even mentor, you know, younger, to your point, black and brown people today. If they're entering to the workforce and they have this expectation because of someone's title or their age or, you know, maybe their past experiences, and when they don't get that they are very discouraged. So that was a big lesson for me because I just came in and--you know, being from Houston, I think, you know, when you think about, like, a Southern culture, you really, you know, have a lot of respect, you know, for people. So I was like, "Yes, ma'am," "No, sir," and then when I realized people didn't show up very professional in some cases, I had to--to your point through this program--really position myself to not let that be a distraction, and I share that background because I think one of the biggest things that I had to learn, particularly around communication, is I showed up very rigid in a lot of those environments, whether it was, you know, day-to-day, whether it was in a mixer or things--and there was a lot of promotional opportunities that passed me because people just didn't know who I was, you know? It was just kind of like--you know, it was--I showed up in the workplace thinking, "You just don't share those kind of things," right? Like, they don't need to know what I do at home. And people wanted to, and it was important. So it's interesting, even as you do the intro today to say I was the first person that you saw, right? A person of color that related to you. That was a journey for me to get there, to realize that, and that was a big learning. And even today, you know? Like, obviously with Coco, you know, in the tennis championships now and seeing her and all this conversation about how animated she is, and, you know, just--it's so raw. Like, that is kind of how I showed up, you know what I mean? And being an athlete, being an aggressive, being this--and that didn't always translate into positive for me. [laughs]Zach: No, no, I hear you. But this is the thing about that though, right? I think that we've also been--so I'ma speak for myself, and I've also seen, like, my peers, is black folks, you know, it's--there's a certain level of guardedness that we're taught to have just because, like, you know, "Look, there's only a few of us. Don't mess anything up. Don't put yourself out there too far." And I also think culturally we just have this thing around, like, sharing our personal business in ways that, like--there are things we just don't talk about at work, you know what I'm saying? And so there's this--but to your point though, there's this challenge of, like, "Okay, well, what's the line? How vulnerable can you make yourself?" Because people aren't gonna want to promote or work with somebody that they don't know. Like, most people anyway. I don't--I don't care. Listen, I just want to do the job. It's fine. But I'm learning, and I've learned, that, you know, people just feel more comfortable if they know you a little bit. And so my question is how did you create that cocktail for yourself? Like, how did you come into--you know, what is it that I really want to share? What will I still kind of hold back? Like, how did you kind of give yourself permission to be a bit more vulnerable at your job?Alicia: Yeah, for sure. So I can think of a couple of things. So I can think of an experience where I was actually interviewing, and I was pregnant at the time, and we were doing, like, a Skype, like, interview, because, you know, the actual people that were doing the mock interviews were in other locations, and it was an African-American female. She was in a supervisor position. And we're going through, and I'm thinking--and I share this story often--like, you know, I'm prepared. I've got all my notes. And the message I was trying to convey was someone who was reliable, right, and qualified. So I had all of that to the--you know, bringing that to the table, and I just remember her, like, cutting me off mid-sentence. Like, ugh. Who are you? I'm not feeling you right now, and you need to get it together. And, like, inside--you know, like, we all--we've done so much, particularly as African-American females, to pull it all together and present this package, and when someone is unraveling that it's like, "Wait a minute," right? And that's what happened in that moment for me. But to your point around creating that cocktail, that, like, having her say it's okay and seeing her show up as herself and still be professional, you know, and great at her job, like it wasn't this caricature, right? She was herself. She was professional. She was someone I looked up to, and she was still herself. She didn't become anybody else. It helped give me that courage. But I think for me, like, the steps towards that was me finding things that I was okay to share, right? Like, so to kind of, like, put a little, like, pinky toe in the water. So it's like, "Okay, I like to work out," you know? "So let me talk about that, and then maybe I'll build a connection," and then I just continued to build upon that, about things that, you know, I feel comfortable with, but then I think I learned in that is that that's what motivates people. And then I thought about--I made it personal. Like, I want to know what's important to my boss, right? Like, I want to know them as a person, and then when I started to meet with people and I started to, you know, move up in my career in multi-unit positions and interacted, to your point, at so many different levels with people, I was able to meet people at their level and then also connect at that level.Zach: So then what advice would you have, right, for the young black woman, young brown woman, coming into the professional space who does have it all together? 'Cause you're absolutely right, like, there is--and I believe this translates to black men as well. Like, you know, we try to come with, like, "Look, I got this, I got this. I'm tight. Like, I've got all of these different things. If they ask me this, I'ma say that. If they ask me this, I'ma say that." When you don't have someone who is gonna kind of give you the assurance that it's okay to be yourself and who isn't maybe, you know, guiding you along, what advice would you give to someone who is trying to break out of their shell a little bit?Alicia: Yeah. You know what? I would share--I guess this is where, like, the academic in me comes out, because I also teach at the University of Houston. So it's a great opportunity [ow sfx] as an adjunct professor--aye, let's go. I [?] from OU to our great Cougars here. Zach: To UH. Uh.Alicia: Yes, there we go. H-Town in the house. [both laugh] But one of the things that I share there with the students all of the time is around, like, the dialogue, right? And you have internal dialogue in yourself that you're having, and you can get distracted about maybe, you know, cues that you're not getting from people, right? So even in this conversation, there's things that you're doing that are affirming me that we're on track, right? And vice versa, and sometimes we don't get that, not because we're wrong--it's because you may be the first person that this, you know, particular person has interacted with like you, if that makes sense, right? So just because you may be sharing, right, about whatever that may be that's very personal or maybe you think is cultural and they're looking at you a certain way, that doesn't mean that that's wrong, right? Or that you shouldn't share it. It just may be a new experience, and you can't let those external things go along. Then it starts to spiral and you're not showing up as your authentic self. So I think you have to get to a place where "Hey, this is who I am," you know? And continue to show up that way, because any time I feel like you're--you feel like you are a fraud or you are trying to act like other people, you're never gonna come across as someone that other people want to be around anyway - in my opinion. So that would be my advice.Zach: No, you're absolutely right. Now, you know, you talked a little bit about your sorority, but, you know, everybody, Alicia, is not blessed to don the pink and green and wear the pearls and toss the [?] hair, right? Everybody don't have a community that they come into. So for the folks that are kind of doing [?], what does it look like--what would you suggest that they do to kind of build those networks in those kind of, like, trusted spaces?Alicia: Absolutely, and I think that is definitely something along the journey that I had to learn, even though I was in those environments, because no one in my family really has worked--like, most of--particularly the women are in education, right, and I was kind of brought up that if you weren't a teacher or a nurse, what do you do? Right? So I totally can relate to someone who maybe is not even able to go home or, especially as a new professional, being able to talk to your parents about your experiences, but I would say you have to be very intentional around finding--and not necessarily somebody that looks like you, but maybe they are--whether it's a position or they have the characteristics that you want to possess, that could be a star for you. I think the other piece is maybe somebody that's maybe struggling in the same area as you are, right? So let's say you see someone that is in a position that you want to be in, and let's say communication is your opportunity--it's, like, you're not necessarily the most articulate person, right, but you aspire to do, but you see that person is maybe in a certain role, connecting with them to ask, like, how did they work around that, right? And maybe you don't feel comfortable going straight to them. Maybe you're in an environment that that's not appropriate and you don't have that access to that person, but what events can you go to, right? Like, can you be intentional to say, "Hey, my work schedule doesn't necessarily afford me to do A, B, and C, but there is this networking opportunity at this time through my church," right? Look around you, and I think if you approach it, your development or an area of growth around the abundance as opposed to the limitations, you will find somebody that is gonna be willing to help you or even--they may not even realize they're helping you and you know you're going with that very intentional question and they can answer it for you and you get that nugget, right? [ow sfx] And then you just start believing it. Yes.Zach: No, you're absolutely right. And you know what? I just--I appreciate this because, you know, it's about being resourceful, right? Like, you've got to reach out and use and just think beyond, you know, your initial, you know, four corners or whatever and just reach out a bit, because there are resources available. You've got Google, which is, like, this huge thing where you can, like, type in things into this, like, little square, and then when you press Enter then a bunch of things pop up. You know, there's just all types of resources out there, so you gotta get busy. You gotta get out there.Alicia: Right. But I think to your exact question, even though we have so much information, people are not necessarily more informed per se about specific things when it comes to their career, and I challenge people, particularly to your point minorities a lot and people in my circle where, you know what, their Instagram is popping, their Facebook, like, you have all the great pictures, angles, but then you don't have a LinkedIn account or you don't have an updated resume or you don't have a CV. So it's like you've invested all of this time of creating and crafting this image but not necessarily the same for your professional, right?Zach: Wait a minute. [Flex bomb sfx] What you talking about? You're dropping these bombs over here talking about--so wait a second though, and I know you're church, so you're over here talking about "so you've crafted this image."Alicia: Yes, Jesus. We've got one of them anointed words right there, right? Yes, hallelujah. Zach: "But it's not real!" Then part of me, I was like ["and i oop" sfx]. You know what I'm saying? I was like, "Oh, my gosh." Like, that's real though. Alicia: Yes, wave your hands in there.Zach: No, that's true though.Alicia: Yes, it is, and it's just--recently I had a mentee that I was talking to, and she was preparing for an interview, but she'd post every day on, like, her Insta story, right? Like, videos. She looks beautiful in these videos. And I said, "Well, why don't you use something you do every day?" Like, you want to convey this message. Like, have you ever looked at yourself when you're trying to talk about your career? And she's like, "I never thought about that," and I said, "Well, you clearly like looking at yourself, right? So why don't you start there?" Like, it is around you. So that's what I would say. I think it's kind of step back, realize what you do have, and just start somewhere small, right? Like, it doesn't have to be a program that costs thousands of dollars. It doesn't have to be dropping the name of, you know, this person is my mentor or, you know, they have this title. It really may be the secretary in, you know, your particular office that is someone that is warm, that may be older than you that can give you some advice around navigating that environment that you can learn from at the level you're at right now.Zach: No, I love that. 100%. And I'm curious, you know, we talked a little bit about--again, we started off talking about leadership, and we talked about you coming into yourself. So that was self-management. Let's talk about what does it look like for you to manage others. Particularly what I'd like to talk about is, like, the art of influence, as well as really giving effective feedback. So you and I both--well, so you started at Target, I also started at Target, and I think a large part of the element of Target, the culture at the time was really about, like, you know, positive feedback, public praise, and I've seen that you've carried that forward in your positions with Gap, specifically Banana Republic, and how you give feedback. So can we talk a little bit about that and, like, your theory or your philosophy around feedback and, like, your practices on how you give it to your team?Alicia: Yeah, for sure. You know, I think feedback is something that I value, and I think it starts--you know, my brother and I talk about this all the time because he plays sports, actually football, and is currently still in the field with athletics, and we talk about how that shows up in the workplace of people that are used to being coached, right? Like, you're used to looking at a video and a group of people sitting around critiquing it, right? And really understanding that there's a moment that you have to capture right now. Like, you don't have another day or a week to wait. So I think that kind of shaped my philosophy per se, if there is one, is that you have to [?] find and be aware as a boss, right, or a manager of those coachable moments and not wait. You know, I think we've all been in situations where somebody sat us down and they had a list, and you think, like, "Wow." You know, like, all of these things that they're telling you that you need to get better at, or examples, and you're sitting there, and at a point you just look around like, "Wow, why didn't they tell me then?" Like, "I had no clue," right? So I think that's what I never want to be as a supervisor. I never want somebody to be shocked, right? And I also want them to know, like, "I'm giving you this feedback because I believe you can improve," right? 'Cause I think a lot of times, particularly--if I bring this to your point of our audience here of, like, black and brown people, particularly for black women, when I mentor them there's a lot of times the absence of feedback means that there's an absence of a problem. "Oh. Well, nobody told me that." It's like, "That does not mean that you didn't need to get better." And I think--I share that because the next part of it is, even in my self-journey and things like that or my own development, there's a lot of times I would get feedback and I would want to make it about the other person. Like, "Well, if they just got to know me, then they would know that's not really how I am." Like, "I'm not really like that," right? Or "If they gave me a chance to do it, then they would just know," opposed to thinking, "No, we're talking about this specific instance."Zach: Right now.Alicia: "Right now. Can you understand how you're showing up, how it could be--just the possibility of how it could be perceived this way?" And in that space, what can you control and move forward with? So I think with my team, I try to make sure that I create that--like, we create that as an agreed-upon communication from the beginning, right? Like, so they're not shocked, 'cause I don't want to assume that you've gotten this before, right? And I want you to also understand my intent. So we talked about in the beginning, like, "Hey, here's how I communicate. Here's what I do, and let me know if that works for you," and a lot of times I found that people don't really know how they like to get feedback until they get it. [laughs] 'Cause it's like, "Actually, I don't really want--" You know, they think that they don't like it or it's gonna be odd or it's, like, gonna be breaking them down, and then once they realize, like, this is gonna be a feedback-rich environment, then I think people buy in, but I also feel like it's a great way--I'm in a, you know, environment particularly in retail that moves very fast, right? And it is very results-driven. So if you are in an environment where productivity or--it's high-functioning, then I think it's very rewarding. I am aware that there are environments, right, like, when I go into, like, an educational space, where it's not as frequent, right? And you don't have--it's like an event when you get feedback. I think you really have to meet the person where they are, and I think you have to make sure that they understand where it's coming from, and that's my thoughts about it. Zach: No, I love that. And, you know, this is the thing, because--you know, background and upbringing is all very important, because I would just--for me, it was primarily my mom and I growing up, and my mom would just tell me all of the time, like, you know, "Hey, you need to do this better. You need to change da-da-da-da." Like, "You need to clean it up, boy. You're looking crazy out here." So it's not--it wasn't odd to me to get, like, direct feedback at work. I think it was reinforced by Target too 'cause Target was such a feedback--and I think retail is like that in general, as an industry, right? Because, like you said, it's results-driven, it's very action-oriented, and it's execution-focused and execution-oriented that you're gonna have to get this feedback 'cause we gotta get this stuff done, and so what has been a challenge for me though, Alicia, has been, like, transitioning outside of retail and just realizing, like, the--I don't know, like, just the fragility of folks. So, like, have you ever had a situation as a black person, as a black woman, giving feedback to a non-black person, and they, like, crumble like you've just destroyed them?Alicia: I have, yeah.Zach: Okay. Can we talk about it?Alicia: Yeah. You know, I can think of several. You know, there's one that's coming up, like, top of mind, but I probably would say it's pretty common, and this is how it happened. And to your point, you know, the person reacted very emotionally, and in that moment I had to pause and ask, like, "What are these tears about right now? Because what I'm saying shouldn't be causing tears," right? Like, I'm sharing an observation about something we already have--you know, sometimes you may have something that's very specific, right, that you can measure it, but I also find, particularly in being in the HR space, right, that it's very hard to coach people or for people to give feedback on something they can't measure. So to your point, you start having this very what feels like abstract conversation, like "What are we really talking about?" And then the person can become defensive if you don't have measurables to say, "Hey, look. See, this is what I mean." And in that particular conversation, that's what the person was--I would use the word argued. Maybe argued is not the right word, but they were, you know, disagreeing, right? Like, "Well, I don't see it that way," and I think we had to disagree in that space of "It is okay for you not to agree. However, what we have to agree upon is that you do have to value my opinion as your supervisor," right? "And let's also agree that we don't have to." Right? Like, we can be in this space and see this totally different--Zach: And it still be okay.Alicia: And it still be okay, you know? And I'm not asking you to change your perspective. I'm just putting you on notice, right, like, that this is the way that it looks to me and this is how I would like us to move forward, and in this particular conversation, the person was not ready to talk about the path forward. They weren't, because they were still stuck and just kind of thinking around, and I think you have to know, like, not to overbear--you know what I mean? Like, be overbearing.Zach: Yeah, overwhelming.Alicia: Yeah, overwhelming, 'cause this may be truly--regardless of their age, regardless of the position that they're in, this may be the first time that they've heard this, and you have to respect that, right? So to your point, you've grown up being told, like, "You're not all that. Okay, no, you need to go change," or, like, "Ugh," and that's not something that's crumbling for you, right? But someone that's never gotten honest feedback from someone that loves them, you don't know what that background is in the workplace, right? So somebody shows--Zach: That's real.Alicia: You know, somebody shows up, and then once again going back to that us being comfortable, right, and us being--like, you can't take that as that you did something wrong, because now you can retreat and not be operating in a space that you need to. So yeah, I've absolutely had that, and, you know, what I've done for me is that follow-up is really important. So comment back, like, "Let's agree upon a time on when it'll be good to revisit this," 'cause I find a lot of times for certain people avoidance is a tactic that they use, right, when it comes to conflict, and that's the most ineffective thing that you can do, right? Like, time does not cure all, right? In fact, it makes it worse, because we had this conversation 6 months ago and we still said nothing, right? Or that was last year during your annual review that we talked about it, or as a peer we worked on this project together, but that was--we only do that once a quarter, right? And I didn't really like working with you, and you had an attitude, or you were late, or I didn't really like the quality of your work, but we never really got to the root cause for us to move forward. So I come back to "Okay, you know, last time we spoke this is where we landed. How are you feeling today?" You know? And not let people off the hook with making it about you.Zach: You know, that's just a really good point. That last part is huge, because it is easy for me--'cause I'm a bit of a narcissist, so--[both laugh] Alicia: It's something you--right, but you can internalize it, right? Zach: Right, absolutely. Like, and so it's like, "Okay, well, then, clearly this is something I did wrong. Okay, how can I improve?" And, like, you know, a part of you thinks, like, "Oh, well, this is me being accountable." It's like, "Yeah, but you're being accountable at a toxic--at a point that's not even accurate or helpful," because you're centering yourself and internalizing to the point that we're not actually getting to a solution, you know what I mean?Alicia: Yeah. But I think too to your point around accountability, and this is something that I've, you know, from a learning--you know, to your question initially, that's an area where, like, accountability overused has gotten in the way, right, for me of, like, working too much or, you know, it could come across as aggressive, or--you know, those things, and you're really overly accountable, and I think that's where understanding what accountability and responsibility looks like, right? So you may be in that environment. You're accountable for whatever that project, and that's why you're giving this feedback, but that person is responsible as well, you know, to show up a certain way or deliver in those areas, and how do you balance that, you know, so it doesn't--like, obviously you gotta work on, maybe in that space, what you need to do, but there's also something that they needed to work on, and we can't be distracted about how it came across to them, per se.Zach: No, you're absolutely right, and you're right, like, we do overuse that word, and, you know, I think--again, like, it's an old phrase, but, like, accountability is a two-way street. Like, it's not--because if one person is always accountable and the other person is never accountable, then that's--that's toxic. Like, that doesn't make sense.Alicia: Yes, and I think if you become--like, especially when we think about giving feedback, right, and we're thinking about whether that's from a generational or we think about from a cultural standpoint, we have to make sure that that's a two-way street, and if you're the only person trying to work through this relationship, then you really aren't growing in how to manage and work with people that don't look like you.Zach: You know, I just--[straight up sfx] I mean, you're right. What can I say?Alicia: Hol' up! [both laugh]Zach: Man. Okay, so this has been a great conversation. So, you know, there are times for me where--you talked earlier about, like, people giving you feedback and, like, sitting you down with a laundry list of feedback. We also just talked about accountability and responsibility. For me, I really enjoy the idea of soliciting feedback, because I'm trying to--like, you know, in the idea of you trying to sit me down and have some laundry list of stuff, I'm just over here like ["stupid, i'm not gonna let you get the chance" sfx] You know what I'm saying? I'm just trying to, like, make sure I'm proactive, okay? Alicia: [both laughing] Right, right. Like it's above me now, right?Zach: Listen. Okay, so my question to you is what are your thoughts on proactive feedback? And what are ways that you solicit feedback from your team and from your leadership?Alicia: Yeah. So this is--oh, my gosh, this is definitely a gem for me when I think about just development for myself. I think I've been in situations where I've had supervisors that weren't able to give me feedback, right, because I was meeting goals, I was doing a really good job, and it was meeting their expectations, right? So you go and you ask and you solicit and it's like, "Oh, it's great." Like, "There's nothing you can do better," and that's never worked for me, you know? And maybe because the way that I'm wired, you know? Like, I really want to even get feedback around, like, what did you like? Like, what am I doing well so I can know what to repeat, right? Or even how I got the result, and I find often that people may achieve a goal, right, or whatever it may be, and it's kind of like, "Okay, we're so excited," but they cannot articulate how, right? And for me I feel like that's kind of--there's a silver bullet or a magic sauce, a cocktail, right, that you're creating on how to repeat success. You have to know what you did, right? Because it may be a different environment. So for me, that's really important for personal feedback for me, whether it be from a supervisor, a peer, or even my direct reports. Like, if we feel like we're in a good space, right--and I would start with direct reports--that I manage, I want to know what you like, right? So if you feel like, "Hey, communication is great," I want them to be very specific, but that's just how I'm wired, right? Like, I want to know - do you prefer this type of communication? Do you prefer this type of recognition? Okay, when we're working on a project, what level of autonomy do you like? So I ask, you know? I think there's some people that it's really easy for them and those that aren't, so I'll set it up. If we're gonna have, for instance, a touch-base, or we know we're gonna have a formal sitting down, [I] say, "Hey, when we connect, I want to give some feedback on how that went," and I'll put it out there, right, whether that's in a conversation or even written, for them to prepare their thoughts. So that's something that's worked for me. I think with peers, I have something that's helped me, particularly around communication and working on how I come across, 'cause that was something early in my career and I think still today. Like, my non-verbals. You know, like, that face? Like, okay. Like, having somebody in the room, you know, or your tone to say, "Okay, hey, you know, yeah, you did come across this way." I've always tried to solicit people that can help me in that area, and if they aren't there someone that I've seen that is an expert in the area or better than me. I go to them to say, "Hey, do you mind if I reach out to you, like, once a month just to get your ideas? It doesn't have to be long. Would it be okay if I maybe text you or shoot this over to you and you give me some feedback?" That's really helped also break down, you know, some barriers where--I don't want to say competition per se, right, but it's helped people also give [me] more feedback that maybe they wouldn't before, right? Because I've already put out there, "Hey, I'm trying to get better here. You've already got this locked down. I'm trying to learn. Do you mind if I just--you know, if I send this to you and ask questions?" Most people are gonna be very open. So that's something that I do a lot, and that's how I would say I solicit feedback or try to.Zach: No, that's--no, no, no, that's great, and I think, again, to your point around, like, "Well, no one told me anything so it must be fine," it's like the only time that I--the only time I take that attitude where "nobody told me anything, it must be fine" is if I ask you for feedback and you say, "I don't have any feedback," and then you come back later with something, then I'm like, "Hey, wait a second. You big buggin' now."Alicia: And you know what? Here's one thing. And, you know, I think we learn a lot from also bad supervisors or people we didn't like working for, and that was one. I had a supervisor that comes to mind, and that's--this is why I would say I take the approach now, because she didn't necessarily know what she wanted things to look like, but she did--she was very good at critiquing what you put forward, and that was SO demotivating for me. In fact, it was--like, it was emotional, you know what I mean? Like, I would just be, like, hurt by it, because it was like--to your point--I went to you, asked you for feedback--"Hey, here's my plan. This is what I'm thinking. This is the approach I want to take." And they would be like, "Oh, yeah. Check, check. Great." And then I [?]--you know, I felt [I?] was taking huge leaps or a risk in some cases, right, and we agreed upon this is what we were gonna do going forward, and then she would come back if maybe there were other partners that felt a certain way or it didn't resonate with them or she saw it and then would, like, kind of break me down, you know what I mean? That list would come out of "Okay, well, you could've did this, and you could've did that," and in that--at that time, I shut down. You know? So it became--I won't say angry, but the hurt became--I just took a list, and then I thought, "I'm never gonna do that again," and that didn't help anybody, particularly me. So I think that's when I--to your point, trying to get ahead of it now, like, not letting somebody that says, "Oh, I don't have anything to share," get in the way--get in the way of me moving forward.Zach: No, you're 100% right, and I think--so it's both and, right? It's you were looking for the feedback. You were soliciting it, and then you--not using that as a blocker, right? No matter what you get. So if you don't get anything, don't use it as a blocker. If you get something that doesn't really align with what you think it is, then don't use it as a blocker either. Just make sure that it's something that you're taking the time to do, but it shouldn't impede you from moving forward towards whatever goals that you have. I think--like, a mentor that I have who--she's told me this a few different times. Shout-out to you, Liz. I see you. What's up?Alicia: Hey.Zach: Hey. Come on. So Liz was like "Look--" And Liz is a mentor of mine. She's a great friend, and she was also on the show a few episodes back, actually during Pride Month, but anyway, so look. Liz said--she said, "Look, Zach, you know, the beauty of feedback is you don't have to agree with it. You don't have to take all of it." Alicia: [laughs] Right.Zach: She was like, "You know, Zach, I think you're burdening yourself with every time someone gives you feedback, you take that as, like, a mandate that you need to change something." Like, that's not--that's not what feedback is. Feedback is something for you to consider. So the best thing you can say to someone giving you feedback? "Hey, thank you for your feedback." That's it. [laughs] That's it.Alicia: For sure, and that's so important to your point. It's like, there's--if you can compartmentalize things, right, then you can do something with it later, because that feedback may be relevant at another time, and then you can see it, right? When it shows up again, but today I don't necessarily have to create a plan based on what you said. I can just put there and say, "Oh, okay. That's Zach's feedback that he gave me today. Okay. All right. Hm. I don't necessarily see it, but thank you." And it stays right there. Yeah, I think that's awesome.Zach: And that's it. But I think some of the challenge when it comes to just, like, bias in the workplace, and, like, there's also, like, this underlying and sometimes overlying expectation that women, particularly black women, are just, like, the workhorses of whatever. So, you know, sometimes I've been told--you tell me if I'm right or wrong, but, like, sometimes people give you feedback with the expectation that you're just gonna do what they say, and it's like... that's not necessarily the case. Like, I'm just gonna take this feedback, and I will--I will make a determination as to how, or if, I implement it into what I'm doing.Alicia: Yes, for sure. I think--no, I agree, I think that is true for me and what I've seen. And even more, to take it a step further--'cause I know we've talked through a lot of tips on this podcast around, you know, how--you know, interviewing tips and moving forward, right? I see this a lot in interviewing people and them not being able to explain why they haven't moved forward, right? They feel like it's someone else's--you know, someone else's... I don't know even the word. Like, it's their responsibility or their fault. We'll use the word fault, right? Of "Okay, I'm here," and they can't say why, and to me it's like, "Okay, you've never gotten any feedback or no one's ever told you or you're not able to look at this job or see someone in that role and see what they do better than you and what--maybe even the one thing they do better than you--and what's held you back?" And that's the approach I take for feedback. Like, if you can think about it in that way opposed to, to your point, something that you have to change or take on or feel like you've got to bow down or become someone different, but really as a lens for you to see things that you may not be seeing. So that's what I see often, particularly for black women.Zach: Man, this has been great. Alicia, before we let you go, any parting words or shout-outs?Alicia: Shout--I mean, when you say let you go, I feel like we've got to queue that Beyonce, and that has to be in the background that we have here, but--Zach: Again, I don't know what you don't understand about [Law and Order sfx]. We can't do that. I don't own Roc-a-Fella or whoever she--or whatever she signed that thing through, or House of Dereon, LLC. I don't know. Listen, we're gonna have that nice, you know what I'm saying, copyright-free jazz music that you hear in the background. Trying to get us in trouble. We already said AKA a few times. They're gonna be knocking on my door. Now you're talking about--Alicia: No, they're not. They're gonna be looking at this. We're gonna be--they're gonna be helping with [?] mass media, passing it out here. But no, seriously--Zach: Come on, now.Alicia: You know what I mean? But no, seriously, I want to--you know, if there's a recognition, I want to recognize you, because I think, you know, creating this space, A. to have conversation, is one thing, right? But I think you being very intentional around making sure that the conversation has different perspectives, whether that be from industry, you know, whatever, right? I think that this is just very phenomenal, and I've seen, like I've said, from the beginning when you first sent out this podcast to where you are now. So I just want to, you know, tip my hat to you, brother, and really seeing how you brought also other people in to expand--it's just fantastic. While keeping your full-time job. So round of applause. I'm super excited and just happy to be a part [kids cheering sfx]--yes. So anything, you know, that we can do in the future, any way I can continue to add to the conversation, would be the shout-out. So thank you as well. Zach: Oh, my goodness. Well, first of all, you've got me blushing. I'm turning purple. I appreciate this. And you know what? Shout-out to you, okay? 'Cause, like I said, you were one of the first people, and, you know, the thing about it--see, the thing about Alicia--now, look, I know we have this natural hair movement now and everything. Let me tell you something. Back in, like, 2011, I walked into Target doing my thing, Alicia came through edges LAID, okay?Alicia: All the time.Zach: Okay? Pearls. Pearls thick, y'all. Don't play. And she had heels on, and she was moving. She was working the floor. I was like, "Oh, my gosh. This is incredible." So shout-out to Alicia and your whole brand, everything that you do, everything that you've done. Shout-out to of course, you know what I'm saying, 1906, you know what I'm saying? I got y'all. Pink and green. I respect y'all. Please do not come for my neck. Please. I appreciate y'all. I did not put no logos on this stuff. Alicia: There will be a logo though, in the show notes.Zach: Oh, my gosh. Okay, yes, so we will put a logo in the show notes. It will show all of the legal information and that we are not indemnified by anything--[both laugh]Alicia: You are so silly, for sure.Zach: [laughs] Okay, but look, final air horns for you--[air horns sfx]--and you know what? This has been it, y'all. Thank y'all for listening to the Living Corporate podcast. Of course this has been Zach. You've been listening to Alicia Wade. Now, look, I usually say all of the little Twitter stuff, but look, we brolic now, okay? So I don't have to say "follow us on this." Just Google Living Corporate, okay? Google me. What was that--oh, yeah, Teyana Taylor I think made that song called Google Me. But no, for real, shout-out to Teyana Taylor too, but look, Google me. Just Google Living Corporate. Living--L-I-V-I-N-G--Corporate. I'm not gonna spell out corporate. I don't have the time. But check us out. We're everywhere. Appreciate y'all. We'll talk to y'all soon. Peace.

Zach has the pleasure of speaking with Porter Braswell, co-founder and CEO of Jopwell, to learn more about the company and to hear his story behind its creation. Jopwell is the leading career advancement platform for Black, Latinx, and Native American students and professionals - check them out! Porter shares a bit about the work Jopwell is doing to encourage inclusive cultures within institutions that black and brown folks are trying to enter and a whole lot more.Connect with Porter on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter!Check out his book, Let Them See You: The Guide for Leveraging Your Diversity at Work, on Amazon!Learn more about Jopwell at their website, and connect with them on social media! LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, FacebookTRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? And welcome to Living Corporate. You know what we are. We're talking about real talk in a corporate world. Now, look, I come on here, and I typically will say "What's up, y'all?" But to be honest with y'all I'm a little nervous, 'cause, you know, every time we come at y'all we're coming to you with a really great guest, but this guest is a little bit--you know what? Let me not do that, 'cause we've had a lot of really great guests, right? Like, we've had J. Prince. We've had Chris Moreland. We've had Jennifer Brown. We've had DeRay Mckesson. You know, we've had some big names. We've had Chilla Jones, the battle rapper. We've had people, right? We've had CEOs, executives. We've had Accenture - we spotlighted them a couple months ago. So okay, let me not get too starstruck, but a personal hero of mine, somebody I've been admiring from afar, we have Porter Braswell on the show today. Yo. Listen, if you don't know about Porter Braswell, Porter Braswell is a Yale graduate and former Goldman Sachs associate who co-founded Jopwell.com, the leading career advancement platform for black, Latinx, and Native American students and professionals. Braswell frequently speaks about diversity in the workplace with Jopwell's corporate clients. He's been profiled in Fast Company, Forbes, TechCrunch, Vanity Fair, and Ad Week, and has received numerous rewards and recognitions, such as LinkedIn's Next Wave, Top Professionals 35 and Under, Ink Magazine's 30 Under 30, Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People in Business, Vanity Fair's--look, I'm getting loud, just getting excited, talking about all of this dude's accolades, but I'm really excited to have him on the show, and so with us--we have him, man. Porter, what's going on? How are you doing, man?Porter: [laughs] That's a very generous introduction. I appreciate it.Zach: Well, look, it's great to have you on the show, man. Look, not to put too much sauce on it, but, you know, you're the man, right? You graduated from Yale. You know, you hooped all four years. Now, I have a question for you, 'cause I looked all around--were you, like--you look like a two-guard. What was your position?Porter: [laughs] I was a point guard. Definitely the point guard.Zach: Okay. Now, look, were you the--now, let me ask you this, were you the POINT guard, or were you, like--like, what style? Are you a facilitator? Or are you more like the--or are you kind of like a Russell Westbrook type where you're just out there?Porter: Well, you know what? So I was a scoring guard, and if I could go back in time I would've made me way more of a facilitator, recognizing that, you know, almost 6'1", I'm not gonna go to the league as a scoring guard, and so--I feel like nowadays people draw their inspiration from, like, a Steph or whatever, but when I was growing up it was Allen Iverson and, like, you scored as a point guard. And you still score as a guard now of course, but--Zach: But it's different though.Porter: Yeah. You know, like, a step-back three-point shooter. Like, you can get away with that now. When I was playing, you had to go to the hoop and finish. Zach: Yeah. No, you're absolutely right.Porter: Yeah. I would've [?] my game after other people, [laughs] but it worked outZach: [laughs] Well, look, let's talk about this, right? So, like, you know, what point did you realize that diversity, inclusion and equity was, like, important enough to transfer and transition from Goldman Sachs to create Jopwell? Like, was there a specific moment that rung out to you? Like, what did that look like?Porter: Yeah. So basically when I was--when I was working at Goldman, at the time I was there for about three years, and I was a product of the diversity recruiting efforts starting back in high school. In high school I spent two summers interning at Morgan Stanley via diversity recruiting initiatives, and then at Yale I spent three summers interning at Goldman Sachs, all via diversity initiatives, and so my whole life, up until that point in time, was about diversity and inclusion, and that's where I found my opportunities. And buying and selling currencies, while fulfilling, it wasn't the fulfillment I was looking for. I wanted to do something that I felt was more impactful, something that I felt I was uniquely qualified to do and something that was solving, like, a real pain point--solving a real challenge that people or companies were facing. And so with those ingredients, I took a step back and recognized that diversity recruiting and inclusion was a massive pain point for corporate America. It was something I was uniquely qualified to solve, and I was incredibly passionate about it, and so I decided that my life's focus was gonna be on building more diverse and inclusive organizations and doing it through a tech company - that became Jopwell, and I think that's really important because we took a traditional non-profit model but made it into a for-profit tech thing because we're solving real pain points of companies, and we wanted to basically build a competitive atmosphere, like any other tech company, where you're disrupting an industry and you want to win at it. And so we took that approach, and, you know, I'm very thankful that my life's work and my passion and my actual day-to-day job all align with each other.Zach: ["ow" sfx] Man, I'm really thankful for it too, right? Like I said--I told you, like, right before we got on, like, it's been incredible because Jopwell hasn't really been around that long, right? Like, y'all launched in 2014, right? But at the same time, like, it was so disruptive, right? Like, it was, like, so--I remember when Jopwell came around, and I just remember, like, literally--three years ago even--I was just looking around and I was like, "What is this?" And I signed up. I'm in the Well, you know what I'm saying? Like, I'm engaged, right? But you're right, the platform itself doesn't come across--and I think it's interesting balance, right? Because y'all are providing, like, a profit service, but it doesn't come across like y'all are--what's the word? Like, bartering in people, right? Like, you're actually building community while connecting these folks to, like, opportunities. Like, that's really cool to me.Porter: So the foundational thing of what we do is that we build community, and we can only build community if we are very authentic and understanding of the community, which we are given I'm from the community. Zach: Right.Porter: And that is a hard thing to do, and if you can build the trust of a community, then you can represent brands behind it. And so Jopwell has been able to carve out this area where brands recognize they need to rely on us to authentically connect and engage with this audience that we are a part of, and in doing so we want to deliver the most incredible experience and opportunities for the community. So as long as we keep the community at the center of what we do, we'll be fine as a business, but we're not transactional. We don't think of the community in that way. Like, again, we are from and a part of the community, so we know the pain points, and so we've just--we took a different approach, you know? I think that's the simplest way to describe it. We took a different approach. We took a step back. I'm not from a recruiting background, and I think that helped me, because we looked at this problem in a way in which others didn't look at it before.Zach: Man. You know what? It's 100%, 'cause it's interesting because I don't think--it's easy to, like, understate that when you come up in, like, these corporatized recruiting platforms, it just--it naturally skews your perspective and creates blind spots for you. It doesn't matter what your particular--I mean, your ethnicity and gender plays a part in that, but I'm just talking about the culture of recruiting is often times so regimented that it creates a variety of blind points that you're not necessarily even thinking about--like, recruitment experience--as much. Like, you're thinking about it from a "check the box" perspective, but there's that personal touch that rarely is really considered. And so 100%. I definitely agree that you not having that formal recruiting background gives you a bit more insight. Porter, it also reminds me that, like, the people who are often best suited to solve for inclusion efforts for black and brown people are often black and brown people, right? Like, you had--you were a hooper at Yale. You then were a Goldman Sachs employee and a Rising Star, and then you still, because of your experiences and your insights and your passions, were able to shape that into having really unique insights, enough that you were able to create a whole platform from that. Do you know what I mean?Porter: Yeah. Well, I think that everyone has a unique story, and everybody has unique contexts in which they come to the table with, and it's a responsibility of diverse individuals to expose others to the different contexts. Now, for me, that allowed myself to build the business, but that doesn't have to manifest itself in a business. Like, leveraging your diversity as an asset, you could just expose people to a different way of thinking, which helps any organization, which is the power of diversity of course. So leveraging your diversity doesn't have to lead to a business, but leveraging your diversity can lead to disruption and change, and that is a responsibility that diverse individuals have, and for me I felt that responsibility to build this platform.Zach: So, you know, you talked about this, and it's a really good segue--you know, Porter, it's almost like you're media-trained. It's almost like you do this often, you know? But you talked about leveraging your diversity. That reminds me really of your latest book, "Let Them See You: The Guide for Leveraging Your Diversity at Work." It was just published. And this book carries a theme of personal responsibility, and of course that's critical, right? So, like, talking about how you leverage your diversity to create, to your point, disruption, change, within whatever context that you're in, but with that in mind, can we also talk about the work that you've done personally, and the work Jopwell is doing, to encourage inclusive cultures within these institutions that black and brown folks are trying to enter?Porter: Yeah. So writing a book is a really interesting process. [laughs] I'll start by that, saying that. So when I wrote the book, I decided that I wanted to write a book to professionals of color, because that's, again, what I'm--that's what I know. That's the group I'm a part of. And when you write a book, what's really difficult is that you have to pick one audience [to?] talk to one reader, and you have to make sure that you are speaking in a way that the reader can follow you. So when I chose to write this book, I chose my audience to be the Jopwell member. I chose to write to a professional of color, and in that conversation I am basically mentoring and saying, "As a person of color, regardless of your environment, this is how you leverage your diversity as an asset, and you have a unique opportunity to do so." What I wasn't able to do in the book was talk about what companies can do to create environments where people can actually leverage their diversity as an asset, because if you try to [?] in one it becomes very complicated. You can't--the reader can't follow along. So the book is about what we as professionals of color can do, but now there needs to be a conversation about what can companies do to create environments where this can actually happen? And so a lot of what we do from a Jopwell perspective to companies is that we discuss with them different strategies and ways to think about building diverse, inclusive, and equitable environments, and it really starts [at] the top down, meaning that, like, the senior most people, the CEO, the board level, they have to be committed and bought in. Companies have to clearly define and articulate what diversity even means in the context of their organization. Are you talking about ethnicity? Are you talking about gender? Sexual orientation? Socioeconomic background? What are you talking about? Because to build a culture that is inclusive--well, inclusive of whom? You know? And I think that's a really important concept. And then how do you measure if it's working? And so there are a lot of steps that companies have to take. Unfortunately, a lot of companies don't feel comfortable having uncomfortable conversations and they want to jump to solutions without really thinking through "What does success look like?" So at Jopwell, when we work with a company, we take them through those stages. We work with them to define what success looks like. And diversity and inclusion is not, like, a 1-year initiative. It's gonna be ingrained in your culture moving forward. So it's a long-term play, and so there's a lot of work that we do with companies that's less tech-focused--it's a lot of human capital--but because we're doing that at work, we can help the community find opportunities that they should be able to thrive in.Zach: And so let's talk about that. I want to press a little bit more on what you said about, like, you know, you stated that a lot of times--that part of the inclusive culture for folks to actually leverage their diversity well is in organizations being comfortable having uncomfortable conversations, and I've noticed that too, that, like, a lot of times if you mention the word race, or you mention the word gender, or you mention any of these words that indicate other, you're right, organizations will often kind of go to, "Well, we're just gonna do this, this, this, this, and this." It almost becomes, like, a--like they're putting out a fire, right? It's more reactionary and it's not solution-oriented, and you talked about people being comfortable with those uncomfortable dialogues. What does it look like for Jopwell to help organizations work through some of that discomfort?Porter: Yeah. So what we tell companies is that if there's something that's happening in the world or in the country that disproportionately affects a certain community and you have that community as employees within your organization, how do you express that in a way that's, like, non-polarizing or non-political? Because you should treat your colleagues and your peers as you would want to be treated. So if you're from a community and something's happening within that community that's, like, on national news and you don't address it as an organization, like, of course that employee won't bring their whole self and their authentic self to work, and if they don't bring their authentic self and their whole self to work you're not gonna get the most out of them. So how do you create [environments] where these potentially uncomfortable conversations can occur in a way that it's respectful and that employees understand that the workforce that you work in is very inclusive and these conversations are just a part of the fabric of what makes the organization's culture special? So, like, let's start small, right? And so thinking about topics and news conversations that are happening, how do you start to address those things? Now, we've seen many companies do really interesting things on the back of our recommendations when these things occur. Some companies have hosted town halls where they bring all hands, and, you know, it's a conversation of what's going on and what's the position of a company around certain topics that they cannot ignore. And the feedback has been incredible, naturally so, from the attendees, because they felt like they were seen for the first time. And then again, like, if companies aren't used to doing those things, it can be potentially uncomfortable. So that's an important concept.Zach: And kind of going into that, right? And I shared this a little bit earlier. What excites me about Jopwell is that it's not a job board - it's actually a community, and I talked about this earlier, but it's a community built by and built for underrepresented folks, and, like, that comes with a lot. So I think about Living Corporate--and Living Corporate and Jopwell are not the same, right? Like, the missions are different, but there's some similarity in that we exist as a resource for underrepresented voices, and I think that comes with a lot. I think for Living Corporate it's unique because we're really just here on, like, the employee side. Like, we're just here to amplify voices, but we're not--we don't necessarily have, like, the same connected, like, broad community that you have, and we're also of course not managing, like, tons of corporate relationships, and so I'm really curious about, like, what does it look like for you and your team Porter, to manage the emotional labor of, like, carrying and advocating for and building this platform to amplify and support black and brown folks while at the same time managing, like, the business relationships that come with that?Porter: Yeah. So it can get very complicated, but we always--because [we work?] for the community, the community knows what to expect from Jopwell and companies know what to expect from Jopwell. So we don't speak to the community any differently than we talk to companies, and we don't talk to companies any differently than we talk to the community. Like, we are very consistent in who we are. For us, we always do what we believe is the best for the community, and Jopwell takes stands on things that we feel passionately about that affect the community, regardless of what companies think. So a perfect example is during the last election, when Trump won, we knew, positive or negative, there was gonna be a very strong reaction from them. So even though we're a tech company, we knew we had to host a town hall, or create a forum, where people can share their perspectives and how they feel. So we hosted a town hall in New York City. We had, you know, several hundred people show up. No real agenda other than hearing the perspective of the community, and people shared how they felt, and just providing that forum, I think, was beneficial, and we felt that we had a responsibility to the community. So we know if we're thinking these things, others are thinking these things at work, so there needs to be an outlet where they can have these conversations about all of the stuff that's going on. And so, again, we have to be very committed and very--and always bring it back to we are a community-first class [?]. The two things that we believe are best for the community--again, as long as we're consistent and then companies know that, the community knows that, and Jopwell will always do what's best for the community.Zach: Man, I love that, man, you know? I just--and I appreciate it, and it feels--like, to your point around consistency, like, it's really cool--'cause I've seen other... I don't know. It's just interesting, right? And, like, I've talked about this to other, like, diversity and inclusion leaders. I think that we're seeing this pattern of some of these spaces becoming a bit more authentic in their language and in their presentation, and I really do believe that Jopwell is leading the cause in that, right? Because a lot of times when you have, like, these spaces that are, like, led by predominant majority folks, they can sometimes come across lukewarm or silent on certain spaces, and then it--like, it creates an inconsistent brand, because it's like, "Okay, well, if you're for diversity and inclusion, you should have a voice on this topic because it's impacting the people that you claim to advocate for." And I do recall content coming out around the election, and I do remember just being, like--feeling really affirmed by that. So question for you - you talked a little bit about forums. You recently hosted Jopwell's first ever summit, Jopwell Talks. It looked like an awesome event. Can you tell us a little bit more about the day and what you hope attendees took away from the summit?Porter: Yeah, absolutely. So we were so thrilled to host that event. Basically, Ryan and I, my co-founder and I, we've gone to diversity and inclusion conferences time after time after time over the last, you know, 4.5 years or so of building Jopwell. It was frustrating to me that I didn't leave feeling inspired [for, like, what] tomorrow brings me, and we are incredibly fortunate that throughout the Jopwell journey there have been many mentors and celebrities that have joined the movement with us, and we felt that we could provide these trailblazers [?] a stage to share stories of how they got to where they are and the things they've learned along the way that the audience can recognize that there's no linear path to success and that these individuals that we can highlight, we felt that it's not often that you get access to these folks. So we wanted to create an incredible environment, so we rented out the Brooklyn Museum. We wanted to have the most outstanding speakers, so we went after [sticks?] - Gayle King, Dr. Michael Lomax, Antonio Lucio, the CMO of Facebook, Edith Cooper, [?]. I mean, just incredible folks. [?] loved hosting it. And from these individuals, we were able to share their story and highlight them in such a way that the audience could follow along and let the conversations breathe. So we didn't have panels. There were no breakout sessions. It was amazing content from amazing individuals, and we crowd-sourced some of the questions. You were involved in this incredible environment listening to these folks, and what I've received as feedback from people, they left feeling motivated and excited to [see] tomorrow, and they saw these folks, and that was the goal of the day, and so we're very thankful that people were excited to attend and that they wanted [to be a] part of it, and, you know, we plan on doing a lot more moving forward.Zach: Man, that's incredible. And look, Porter, you know that we appreciate you. Super thankful that you were able to join on the platform. In fact, you know, it's pretty customary. We got to. You know, we typically drop air horns. We drop 'em at the beginning, but I got too excited and nervous 'cause you're on our show and so I didn't drop 'em. So I'ma go ahead and drop the air horns right here--[air horns sfx]--and I'ma go ahead and give you a Flex bomb--[Flex bomb sfx]--and I'ma give you some coins, 'cause you been dropping dimes. [coin sfx] And I just want to thank you, man. I appreciate you. Thank you so much. Before we let you go though, any parting words or shout-outs?Porter: No, [but] I appreciate the work that you all [do]. You know, the more that we lift each other up, the more opportunity exists for everybody, and this is not a zero-sum game, and I get very frustrated when I'm the only person of color in a room, and--again, the conversations need to keep happening, and that's the only way we're gonna start changing things. So thank you for building this and for allowing individuals to hear stories at scale. It's what I need and needed when I was thinking about what I wanted to do next, and it's not often where you can get access to folks and really hear their authentic stories. And so it's an incredible platform that you're building and, you know, thank you for doing that.Zach: Oh, my gosh. Man, I'm about to blush over here. Yo. [laughs] Listen, y'all, it's been Zach. You've been listening to Living Corporate. We are real talk in a corporate world. You make sure you check us out on Twitter at LivingCorp_Pod, Instagram at @LivingCorporate. Make sure you just check us out anywhere. You know, just Google us, you know what I mean? We're not Jopwell level, but we're out here. You just Google "Living Corporate." You want to check out our website? Check out livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.net, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.tv, living-corporate--please say the dash--Porter, do you know we have all the livingcorporates except livingcorporate.com, man? We've got all them domains. I'm trying to get it, man. Australia has livingcorporate.com, but we're gonna get there one day, man. Let's see here. I think that does it for us. This has been Zach again, and you've been listening to Porter Braswell - general beast, but specifically for this podcast, CEO and co-founder of Jopwell. 'Til next time, y'all. Peace.

Zach speaks with Lionel Lee, Zillow Group's Head of Diversity Engagement, and they discuss his unique personal career journey up to this point. Lionel details what influence and coalition-building look like in his position, and he also shares some of the things that he's been able to do at Zillow that he believes have helped to improve the sense of belonging and inclusiveness for black and brown folks in the workplace.Connect with Lionel on LinkedIn!TRANSCRIPTSheneisha: Hey, y'all. Sheneisha here with Living Corporate. As you know, we're about having real talk in a corporate world. With that in mind, before we get into this amazing discussion with Lionel Lee, we want to let you know this content makes mention of violence, which may be upsetting, so if you're listening with some little ones, discretion is advised. Zach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with the Living Corporate podcast, and of course you know what we do. We have interviews, conversations, right, that serve to amplify the voices of black and brown folks at work. And what do I mean by that? I mean we typically have black and brown folks, leaders, executives, creatives, entrepreneurs, you name it, on the show, having real conversations about real topics, and today is no different. We actually have with us today a very special guest. I'm very excited to speak with this person. I've been in contact with him for a little while, and I'm excited just to, like, get him on the show, 'cause, like, we've been texting, and then we talk on LinkedIn, and then, you know, we've been trying to coordinate. Even today we were coordinating back and forth. Lionel Lee. Lionel Lee is the head of diversity engagement at Zillow Group. He provides career development support to underrepresented employees and works with executives to develop equity and belonging policies to improve employee experiences. He also serves as a connecter between employees and community organizations. Prior to joining Zillow Group, he worked in talent acquisition, sourcing candidates across technology and banking industries. Okay, so really quick y'all, all of that to say he's by the people, for the people, you see what I'm saying? Okay. Helping communities has always been a constant throughout his life. Lionel has created and developed community groups that promote health and wellness. He's worked with HIV/AIDS education groups, substance abuse/addiction organizations, as well as health groups for youth. Lionel immigrated to the United States from Korea at age 5. His experiences growing up in south-central Los Angeles and later in the projects of Honolulu, Hawaii--I'm gonna ask a question about that in a little bit--helped nurture his passion for community building. With all that being said, Lionel, welcome to the show. How are you doing?Lionel: I'm doing well, man. Thank you. Appreciate it.Zach: Now, look, you know, of course I've got all of these questions for you and everything, but the first thing I gotta ask - you talked about the projects of Honolulu. Hawaii has projects?Lionel: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Honolulu has projects, and growing up there in the '70s and partial '80s, yeah, it was kind of rough, 'cause most people don't know about that, 'cause what they see about Honolulu and hear about Honolulu is it's just a paradise, but it's not really a paradise for all. You know, the level of poverty there, still to this day, is [amazing?], but back then it was like--where I grew up, in Kalihi--Kalihi is a town right outside of Waikiki, and it's--the projects are called Kuhio Park Terrace. We call it KPT, or Killer Park Terrace. Kill People Today. That's what it was, and I lived on the 16th floor, and I had to actually walk up the stairs to get to my apartment because there was a young lady that got her head cut off in the elevator, so the parents and kids, you know, catch the elevator. And then, you know, you have the same stuff that you have in a lot of different projects. You know, you have a lot of drug abuse, and, you know, you have people defecating in the stairwells. So that was the smell you walked into every single day. The crazy thing is that the dude that cut off the woman's head lived two doors down from me. And he kept it. Kept the head. Zach: What?!?!!!!!!????????????Lionel: He kept the head. But, um...Zach: Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm sorry. Wait, wait, wait. You said he kept the head?Lionel: He kept the head. He was--he was a Cambodian dude, and he was just mentally disturbed, you know? He just had some serious stuff going on, and he kept the head, and we found out, like, you know, two weeks after it had happened, you know? That was--it was a very different kind of place. Very violent. You can still look up--actually, you can go on YouTube and look up videos from Kuhio Park Terrace, and they'll show you videos of what it's like at KPT to this day.Zach: To this day. That is--that is--wow, that is shocking. I'ma tell you, you know, Lionel, in your short 3 minutes of being on the Living Corporate podcast, you have given us the most gangsta introduction we've ever had. And I'm not making light of anything. I'm just taken--I'm very taken aback by this. Wow.Lionel: Yeah, I don't have the typical--you know, I don't have the pedigree of someone that's in my position, definitely. I'm not--you know, I just wasn't raised like that. I wasn't--you know, I didn't think I was gonna go to college. I didn't go to college. I didn't get a degree. You know, I had to work and do all of that kind of stuff. It's just I was given certain opportunities and took advantage of every single one, you know? Made the very best that I could, and I've always had a tremendous work ethic, you know? Just, you know, been out of my house since I was 17 years old. I've lived in my car for, like, three days, just so I can be out here, you know, just doing my thing. You know, just doing my thing and just trying to keep it moving.Zach: Wow. Well, kind of to start there, let's talk a little bit about that. So you've started on that path, but kind of talk to us about your journey from Hawaii to the head of diversity and engagement at Zillow. What did that look like?Lionel: I was a gogo dancer at one time. That was pretty weird. I've done everything, man. Like, I can do stuff around my house--like, right now I'm remodeling my house, and my kids will be like, "Where'd you learn how to do that?" And I'm like, "Man, it wasn't nothing about learning. I just had to survive." Zach: Wait, wait, wait. So let's take a step back. You said you were--you were a what dancer?Lionel: I was a gogo dancer for a little bit. [Zach laughs] Yeah, when I was, like, young, you know, and that kind of stuff. So I was raised extremely religious. My grandfather is a Baptist minister, and I was raised in the church, so we didn't go out and do that kind of stuff a lot, you know? And I went to, like, school dances every once in a while, and I always liked to dance, so as soon as I got out of my house and, you know, I didn't have nobody telling me what I could and could not do, you know, I got caught up in the dance club scene for a while, and I was going there a lot, and the dude that owned the club, you know, he asked me one day if, you know, I'd want to just come in and, you know, get paid for it, right? But it was like--I don't know if you remember. I don't know how old you are, but--Zach: 29.Lionel: There was this one dance that I was really good at. It was The Prep. I don't know if you remember what The Prep is.Zach: Nah, what's The Prep?Lionel: It's just a dance that, you know, like, a lot of black folks did, you know, back then. You know, I'd have to show it to you in order for you to know what it was, but people around my age group, they know what that dance is, and I was really good at it. You can be extremely creative with it, you know? So the dude just kind of, you know--and I didn't paid, like, a lot. It was--like, that was my part-time gig. My full-time gig was, you know, managing the Church's Fried Chicken, which was down the street from the club, right? So after work at Church's Fried Chicken I would shoot over there, and back then they would throw some, you know, neon sweater or some shit on me, and then I'd get on there and, you know, do my thing. [both laugh] So yeah, that's a snippet of my background, but the way that I got into where I'm at now is--the funny thing is I met a dude on a basketball court, right, like, when I was in my late twenties, and it was one of those stereotypical things, you know? I got into a fight with this dude on the basketball court, you know? Like, you know, you get into a fight on the basketball court, they find out you can fight, and then all of a sudden everybody wants to be your friend, right? So dude wanted to be my friend. He was a white dude, and I had never had too much interaction with white people honestly, and definitely not on a personal, you know, like, friendship level. That just wasn't the way I was raised. So I was kind of cautious, and at that time I worked for an organization called Street Outreach Services, and it was an HIV/AIDS prevention organization. It was led by this amazing sister from Brooklyn. Her name was Amani Wood. She recently passed, like, a couple years ago, and I consider her one of the strongest individuals I've ever met and was lucky enough to have her as a mentor for a very large portion of my life. But anyway, she and I were working together, and then I came up with this crazy idea that what we should be doing is we should be documenting, you know, crack addicts and crack dealers under the age of 18, 'cause that's a group that we were not capturing. So the city of Seattle liked the idea. My organization liked the idea. So I ended up doing that for about 2.5 years. So I was going into crack houses and stuff, like, you know, at 3:00 a.m., you know, 4:00 a.m., and dealing with a whole bunch of kids, and I dealt with the kids--I mean, I had one sister, her name was Beautiful, literally, and she was 13 years old, you know? She was 13 years old with a baby and she was a crack addict, and she was a crack dealer. So, you know, I had to deal with that, and that kind of stuff is emotionally extremely taxing, and the--I just couldn't do it as--I couldn't put as much of myself into it as I was, so I was starting to get burnt out, and dude--you know, he was a recruiter, this white dude that I had met, right? He was like, "Hey, you ever thought about, like, recruiting?" And I was like, "I don't even know what that is, man." And he brought me up to his office to show me what he did, and, like, a lot of young black men and young black women and kids that come from, you know, lesser economic areas, you know, when I saw a computer I thought, "Nah, I can't do that," you know? 'Cause, you know, "Computers are magic, right?" They're not meant for me. They're meant for, like, geniuses, right? You know, "Black kids can't do math." You know, "Black kids can't do this kind of stuff," and I bought into a lot of that. I bought into a lot of that kind of stuff. But I had a two-year-old child, so I had to do something, you know? 'Cause I wasn't making enough money, and I wanted him to have a better lifestyle than I did growing up. So I took him up on it, and, you know, I shot across the bridge over into Bellevue from Seattle, and then--I don't know if you know Seattle, but in Seattle you have east side and west side, and when you go across that bridge, man, it's completely different. Extremely affluent. Very, very white. You know, as a brother back in the, you know, '90s, you couldn't be on that side if you weren't an athlete, right, or somebody else, you know, that they recognized, because if you were a black person that they didn't recognize, the cops would give you a hard time. Like, literally. They would follow you around and stuff, right? But I went over there and I interviewed, and I interviewed with, like, nine blonde-haired, blue-eyed women, man, sitting around the table. I was like, "Man, I don't know if I want to do this," and they offered me the job, you know? And I was like, "Whoa, what do I do now?" And at that same time I was actually interviewing with the fire department, and walking out of that office--I drove, like, this beat up 1984 Volvo, you know? And when I say it was beat up, I mean it was *beat up*. There was 100 and something thousand miles on it. The paint was peeling, you know? That kind of stuff, you know? I put on the best clothes that I had at that time.Zach: That was a bucket.Lionel: It was a bucket. Man, it was a buck-et. And I'm walking out, and every car in the parking lot was like Mercedes, Audis, BMWs, you know, that kind of stuff, and I was like, "I don't know, maybe I can do this." And so I accepted and started there, and struggled, man--I struggled a lot. I mean, I struggled so bad the first three months. There's a very large organization. It's called EDP Contract Services. Now I think they're called TAC Worldwide, and it's one of the largest recruiting organizations in the world. At that time, I forget exactly how many people they had, but I know that at one time I was ranked, like, something like 2000th or something out of the company of recruiters, and by the time--I had to make a decision at one point because--you know, because I was basically told that I could be pretty successful in this if I got the street out of my voice, right? So I started [?]--you know, I went home and was, like, frustrated over it, you know? And my girl at that time, she was pretty hood too, so she was like, "[BLEEP] them. You know, we can sue them. Blah, blah, blah, blah," you know? But I went to bed with my two-year-old son, you know, and I was like, "Man, I've got to do something." So I made up my mind. You know, I made up my mind that okay, well, this is what I'm gonna do, and I walked into the office the next day--I got there at 6:00 in the morning. Nobody was there. And I didn't leave until, like, 8:00 at night, and then I did that for, like, a whole year, and I became #2 in the company, and my income went up something like 300% in a year. Zach: Goodness gracious.Lionel: Mm-hmm. And so I figured out that yeah, I can do this. And then I went to--excuse me, sorry. I went to San Francisco right after that. I got recruited by a staffing firm there. I didn't like them too much, so I started my own staffing firm. We did $2.5 million in our second year of business, and that was just, like, you know, three of us, right? And then we added some people on and that kind of stuff. Then I came back to Seattle and, again, you know, got recruited by another company and became the manager for recruiting for a startup during the dot-com era. I was killing it there, then the dot-com bubble burst, and then I went to Washington Mutual as their diverse executive recruiter, and that was probably one of the worst work experiences I've ever had, 'cause what happened--what happened was they wanted this person, but one of the head people in this department didn't want this person. They didn't feel the need for a diversity executive recruiter. So they waited for her to go on maternity leave and then, behind her back, hired me, right? So my first day of work I'm walking down the hall and this woman walks up to me and she goes, "Who are you?" And I said, "Oh, I'm Lionel Lee." And she goes, "Well, what do you do?" And I said, "Well, you know, I run diversity executive recruitment here," and she just looked at me, and I got this, like--it was chilling. Like, this look was crazy, and then the next thing I know, man, like, seven months later or eight months later, you know, maybe close to a year later, you know, the whole group was disbanded and we all had to leave and, you know, go do our own thing. And it was kind of crazy too. The way that they told you was, you know, they asked you to come in for an early morning meeting. I went in for an early morning meeting and they had HR there, and they said it's disbanded.Zach: So where does Zillow come into play?Lionel: 2007 hit, man. 2007, 2008, 2009, you know, and I went through all of my money, and I had to get back to work, you know? So I joined a really small recruiting firm that was, you know, bullshit. They didn't know what they were doing. [both laugh] But then there was this other recruiting firm that I really wanted and I went and joined them, and they were amazing, and--that's one of the crazy things too, the dude that hired me--he's, like, this really young--comparatively. I think he's, like, you know, close to 40 now--Republican white dude, right? And he hired me on to the company, and I go in there and I'm on the phone the first day, and he said "Hey, Lionel, can I [?] you for a second?" And I was like, "Yeah, what's up?" And he goes, "Man, who the hell is that on the phone?" And I was like, "What are you talking about?" He goes, "Do you know you sound white?" And I was like, "What?" He goes, "Yeah. When you talk to me normally, you know, we're fine, but whenever you get on the phone you sound white," and it's because of what I learned in the earlier part of my career.Zach: Code switching, man. Yeah.Lionel: I was code switching. And I told him, "Well, you know, that's how--" And he goes, "Nah, man. I don't think that's why you're successful. I would really love to see you be you. I got enough white dudes in my office. That's why I hired you." [Zach laughs] And I was like, "Oh, okay," and then I started really, like, trying to understand what just happened, and the reason I ended up here at Zillow Group--I stayed there for, like, five years, six years, right? And I ended up killing it there. I was always either #1 or #2. And the reason I ended up here is that the person who had hired me on at Washington Mutual, she became the vice president of talent acquisition here at Zillow, and she--I started my own company after a while, again, right, and she was one of my clients, and she asked me to come in, and she said, "Lionel," you know--this was, like, 2016. "Lionel, we're really trying to do this diversity thing, man, but we don't know what we're doing." You know, "Would you want to help us?" And I said, "Well, I can put something together." You know, I talked about it with them a little bit. They wanted me to do it. I couldn't dedicate time to it 'cause I had my own staffing firm at that time and my staffing firm was doing extremely well, but what happened was that it kind of grabbed a part of me that I didn't know really existed. My experience in tech as a black man was horrible. I mean, it was horrible, so I decided that, you know, by doing this I would be given an opportunity to better the experiences of other people that are underrepresented in the tech space, right? 'Cause when I was starting out, you know, there was no other. You know, there was me. There was me, and I was probably the only one that I knew with the exception of, like, one or two that worked in other agencies. But it was me, right? And it was horrible. I hated it. I mean, I couldn't--there was no way that I could tell somebody that "Yeah, this is a good day." I woke up every single day begrudging going to work, and eventually I was able to push down to the point where I didn't realize that, you know, there was a part of me that was always anxious, right? And that's when I got a chance to change, you know, within this organization, and then what I'm hoping for is that this organization will be--you know, will be, like, a beacon for others to take a look at, right? Like, "What did they do to make a difference?" Right? 'Cause we did. We changed how we are as a company. We've changed the way that we're perceived. You know, people want to come to work here, you know? That kind of thing, and, you know, the brown and black folks here are much happier now than they were. We know that because I'm very data-driven, and we took some surveys and things like that that let us know that the things we're doing are working. But that's how I ended up in this position. And I was a consultant at first, and they--you know, we talked about 20 hours a week. 20 became 40. It became 60. It became an obsession, you know? Because I--you know, I was like, "Ooh, I get a chance to--"Zach: Really move the needle in some way, yeah.Lionel: Yeah. Not just move the needle, but, you know, just--you know, we talk a lot in those kind of terms, right? Like, "move the needle," you know, that kind of stuff, and the way that I looked at it was never really like that, you know? The way that I was looking at it was, you know, "Improve the day-to-day experience of the underrepresented worker going into the tech space." That was my--that's my driver, right? The way that I describe what I do is that my job is to make sure that everybody that comes to work is happy and feels like they belong. That's my job. That is my job, and I--I don't like to say I love my job, because I don't think in that way, but I'm extremely proud of what we've done here at Zillow Group. I'm extremely proud, and I'm hoping to continue on this path and, you know, continue to make us an employer of choice.Zach: [applause sfx] I mean, what can I say? I mean, I hear you. This is incredible. Look, I have another question, but I want to get into this really quick though. You talked about some of the things that y'all are doing here and, like, they've been serving well. What are some of those things that you've been able to do at Zillow that you believe have helped to improve the sense of belonging and inclusiveness for black and brown folks? Lionel: Well, that was the thing, right? 'Cause one of the things that they had asked me to do was go out and find best practices, and the crazy thing is that there were no best practices 'cause nobody was really killing it. Nobody's numbers said that they were killing it, right? So I had to come up with my own stuff, but what that gave me was green fields. So I could do a couple things. So one of the first things that I did is I was walking through the office one day--and we had this wall of speakers, right? And the speakers--I looked at that wall, and it's a pretty big wall of all of these, you know, headshots of all of these speakers that we've had come into the office, and I was like, "Damn, every single person on there is white." Like, literally. Like, every single person on there is white except for one brother that we had, and of course he was a football player, right?Zach: Of course. Of course.Lionel: Right? And I was like, "Come on, man." You know? So I changed that immediately. That was one of my goals, to change that, and I did that. You know, we brought in people like Van Jones. We brought in people that were from the Islamic community. We brought in people from the Latinx community. Totally changed that whole landscape, right? And then we started talking about, like, just simple things like events, you know? Because that's one of the things that tech companies are known for, right? We have these crazy-ass parties where everybody has a good time, but not everybody gets down like that, you know what I mean? Like, I didn't grow up that way, you know? I don't go out and--you know, I'm not one of those people that like to [imbibe?] in that way and that's how I party. That's not how I do. I like the music. I like to dance. I like that kind of stuff, you know? And I'm not saying that we're all the same, but there are certain foundational pieces that make us a little bit the same. [?], right? And so we started throwing, like, parties, but I would tell the dudes that came in--I started going out and creating relationships with external organizations that were representative of underrepresented groups within our company. So we had professional organizations that I went and made agreements with, and then they would come in and they would throw the parties. And they asked me, they said, "Well, how black do you want this to be?" [both laugh] And I was like, "I want it to be as black as you want to make it."Zach: Right. It needs to be black black, with a Q.Lionel: It needs to be, 'cause you have people here from, you know, predominantly black areas, right? You've got a kid that grew up in a predominantly black area. He goes to an HBCU, you know, does really well there, and then all of a sudden he's thrown into this, right, where he's one of--I think we're at, like, 9% or something like that, right? We're still improving in that area, right? And then he's just got to, like, hang out and do what these guys do? You know, why don't we give him some of what he had back home? You know, why don't we create a sense of community for him, you know what I mean? And we did that, and then we started taking a look at some of the things--and it's all from my own experience, right? One of the things that really bothered me is, like, when all of the brothers was getting shot, you know, I felt completely alone in the office, and I had nobody to talk to about it, right? And what we did is we started--we created a forum here where people can--when things like that happen, for example when the El Paso shooting happened recently, you know, we had a forum here inside the office where people from the Latinx community could get together, along with people that were not from that community but allies that were in positions of power and strength here at the company, we all got together and we had a conversation, and we, you know, basically video-taped everybody in from all the other offices, and we had this, you know, straight up conversation about what this feels like, and that made a difference in people's experience, right? And then we talked about "How do we do our recruiting?" We started taking a look at--I started taking a look at how we do the recruiting in the first place, right? Many of our people that come on board come on from internships, so how do we effect that? Well, we start creating more relationships with organizations that are representative of us. So we started a relationship with NSBE, the National Society of Black Engineers. We started a relationship with SHPE, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, right? And then we put into practice talking to the CTO, the chief technology officer, who is just--you know, he's cool, he's just really cool, and I gave him an a-ha moment when I took him to AfroTech, like, two years ago.Zach: Oh, yeah. Shout-out AfroTech. Shout-out Blavity. Yeah, yeah, yeah.Lionel: Yeah, by Blavity, right? And I took him--he was one of the only white dudes there, and I was like, "Look, you know, I'm gonna introduce you to some people. You're gonna have some good conversations, and then we're gonna talk about it afterwards," and he was like, "Cool," but he walks in and there's THOUSANDS of black people, man. Where people were telling him, "Oh," we can't be found, which is bullshit. Zach: It is, man. No, it is. It is so annoying, Lionel. Well, it's annoying and it's insulting and it's racist, right? So you said, "Well, we can't find this talent"--like, we're all over, and, like, look, AfroTech is an obvious one, but man, there are also, like, a lot of, like, local, like, groups, right? Like, there's all--if you go to any major city, there's some grassroots coding group that is black and brown, right? And honestly, even if you just take the time and look in the PWIs that you're recruiting, if you just look one more time, they're there too. Like, we're here. Lionel: Right, right. So what we did--he saw that, and we came back and he was like, "What do we do?" And I said, "Well, let's figure out some strategies," and what we started doing is we started making--'cause Boeing has doing been this forever, but Boeing's been going to NSBE and making offers on the spot, right? And so it was like, "Okay, well, let's do that," and we started doing that, and we started increasing our numbers because of that, right? And then those kids that were coming in as interns, we started converting them to full-time, and then on top of it their experience as workers here is real cool because, like, I'll walk by, you know, and I'll talk to 'em and be like, "Hey, what's happening, brother?" You know? "How you doing?" And they'll look at me like--Zach: Even that alone, which is small, right? It's huge to them.Lionel: It's small. It's really, really small, but it's so important, right? People gotta feel like they feel belong. People gotta feel like they're appreciated, right? That's what has to happen, and that's what we started doing. That's one of the things. I could go on and on, man. We've done--when I say I'm proud of the work that we've done here, I'm extremely proud of the work that we've done here.Zach: Rightfully so.Lionel: Yeah. The executives have been fully on board. You know, we also do this other thing where we understand the C-level, the C-Suite, has to be on board. So we do a thing called the MB Learning Series, which is twice a month. You know, we get together, myself, the senior VP of community and culture, and some other key individuals that are well-versed in this space. We'll get together with a bunch of people from the C-Suite, and we'll sit down and we'll talk for about an hour, an hour and a half, about whatever it is, right? It could be a current event that has impacted an underrepresented group, or it could be about something that they've encountered themselves, right, that they want to know more about, right? So we work with them, and they get to learn, they get to learn what's happening, and it changes their perspective and it changes the way that they go out and approach things and make decisions, right? We have our CEO--our CEO is, like, one of the only CEOs where, you know, in his signature file, you know, he has his pronouns, right? Because that's important, you know, to understand that not everybody identifies in that way. Understanding that people identify differently is extremely important, 'cause it puts you in a different place in your learning, in your journey, and that's how we got here. I mean, there's--you know, I could go on and on, but that would take up your whole segment.Zach: No, no, no. This is great, and look, Lionel, we'll just have you back. It's not a problem, man. We'll just have you--[both laugh] You'll just come on back. But it's interesting, really quickly, about the pronoun point, right? So, you know, some research that Living Corporate has been doing, you know what I'm saying, on our whitepaper--if you check us out on the website, you know, you'll see us on there, and we talk about the fact that, you know, 14% of millennials identify as trans or non-binary, right? So it's a real statistic.Lionel: Oh, it's a real statistic. It's real. And, you know, there's so many different groups of other people that do not feel like they belong. You know, they just--you know, especially with the current climate in our country today. That kind of stuff, the divisiveness of our country today, and, you know, we just--we want to make sure, in our company--and we've been voted, like, one of the best places to work forever, right? ["ow" sfx] Forever. But what was not being considered was that not everybody felt that way. It was not the best place to work for everyone. We found that out through our data, you know? We pulled some data that showed us that. So our goal is to make this the best place to work for everyone, and we don't--I mean, we look at everyone and make sure that they're taken care of. And we started our ERGs here two years ago. We dedicated a lot of resources to it. It has its own program manager that manages everything. That's his full-time gig. That's what he does to make sure that, you know, they're good. You know, we have all of the infrastructure in place for that. They're fully capitalized. Yeah. We do--you know, we do a lot of stuff here that a lot of companies don't do, and I think a lot of it just has to do with the fact that we've been following best practices. 'Cause, like I said, we didn't find any, so we had to create our own.Zach: No, that's incredible, and you're absolutely--this is the thing. It's so interesting because as commercialized and, I'm gonna say it, colonized as diversity and inclusion has become, right, like, as a space, when it comes to actually delivering and doing the work, we're still very much so in our infancy, right? Like, there's not a blueprint for anything.Lionel: No. No, there isn't, and that's--yeah, I would agree with you that there is a lot of stuff in our space that, you know, I kind of, like, look at three or four times too, you know? Like, "Really? That's what we're gonna do now?" [Zach laughs] But that's the thing, you know? Let's be creative, you know? Let's figure it out, and for me it was very personal, you know? That's why, you know, a lot of the stuff that we did here was me imagining me, you know, sitting there at work. You know, what would I want? You know, when I first started in this stuff, what would I want? I'd want to be able to come into work and feel like I can be the best me possible, right? But I don't have to, like, play by nobody else's rules about how I talk, how I walk, and all of those kinds of things. I don't believe that people should or can bring their whole selves to work. I don't believe in that. I think that, you know, there's some shit you need to leave at home, right? [both laugh] I don't believe--you know, like, my grandmother used to tell me, you know, "Tell some. Keep a lot." You know what I mean? You don't need people knowing everything, right?Zach: Yeah, keep going.Lionel: You should be able to be comfortable when you go to work. You shouldn't have to code switch as much. You shouldn't, you know, have to wonder about your place there as much, you know what I mean?Zach: I do. You're 100% right, yeah. Lionel: Yeah, that's what we did. Zach: You said, "Share a little bit. Keep a lot." But you're right though, and some of that, Lionel, is cultural, right? So, like, I would say black and brown folks--and I'll just speak for my experience. Like, I was raised, you know, you keep your business to yourself, right? Like, there's certain things, where as then, you know, there's stereotypes that white folks love to just tell everything they got going on. They'll talk about the medication they're taking, if they're depressed, you know? They'll share everything. But you're right, like, I'm not tripping on--I don't necessarily--my quote-unquote "whole self," like, I don't have to do that, but I should feel comfortable--right, I should not feel uncomfortable and dread going to work or feel like, man, just so otherized to the point where I can't even function.Lionel: Exactly, and being othered is real, and it's difficult for people to see that, you know? Like, "Oh, we're paying you," you know? "I don't know why you don't feel appreciated," you know? It's that kind of stuff, and it's like, "Man." You know, if I'm coming into work and I can't wait to get home--not because, you know, I just don't want to be at work for whatever reason, but just because I don't feel comfortable and when I get home is when I feel comfortable? Or I'm dreading going to a company event because I don't feel comfortable? You know, that's a problem. That's a problem. That's why there's more brothers and sisters that are consultants than full-time employees in the tech space.Zach: Man... listen. Oh, my goodness. So look, Lionel, you gonna have to come back, because I've got, like, four more topics we can talk about, [laughs] but you're 100% right, right? Like, you think about, like, it's these temporary, transient roles, right, that give you space, but then also, like--they give you space to kind of move around and not get too uncomfortable in these environments. Man, not to mention the pattern where I'm seeing a lot of black and brown folks are in these, like, non-client-facing positions. Like, they'll typically in, like, the security tech roles, but let me not even--let me not step on too many toes today. Let's keep going though. I want to respect your time. Let's get into how you and I connected. So of course, you know, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm active active on there, but I seen you on there, and you sent me a link about a project you're working on, which really got my attention, and I'd love to--I'd love for you to talk a little bit about that as well as--and just kind of your passion and interest as to why you're doing the work that you're doing on it.Lionel: Yeah. I think you're referring to the microaggressions survey that we sent out.Zach: That's right. Lionel: So Rebekah Bastian is the VP of Community and Culture here. She's my boss, right? I have a direct line to her and then a [?] line to the chief people officer. She and I sit right next to each other. It's an open kind of space. And she's a contributing writer for Forbes. So she was writing this thing on microaggressions, and I was like, "Let me read that," and I read it, and it talked about microaggressions towards women, right, and more microaggressions towards women, and I was like, "Man, that's crazy," you know? Because we suffer from microaggressions. And she was like, "You do, I know that." And I was like, "Yeah, I know you know that, but, you know, there's no data around it. Why don't we do our own survey?" You know, 'cause we couldn't find no data, right? We did the research and whatever, and she was like, "Yeah, I would love to write something on that, but, you know, I can't find any data," and I said, "Well, let's create our own data, you know?" So she put a survey together, and I sent it out to my network, which is pretty broad, and then many of my--that's one thing I want to thank everybody for, including yourself, you know? Many of them sent them out to their networks too. Like, "Hey, you know, this is happening. Let's talk about this." Right? And yeah, I came back and--I think we're gonna try and do this, like, yearly, and try to go even deeper, 'cause I think that it was a great introduction, but I think that we could have covered a couple areas that, you know, people really don't want to cover. But it's important, right? 'Cause I know that I suffer for them still today on a daily basis. I have to check somebody in a meeting or, you know, I also have to be mindful about certain things, right, you know, that they don't have to, you know? When I say them, I mean, like, white folks that are in my same position or at the same level that I'm at, right? And yeah, we still go through it, and it's difficult. You know, it's difficult, and we had to put that information together ourselves 'cause we couldn't find any.Zach: Well, to that point though, why do you think that I&D programs--so I have a bevy of my own theories, right, but why do you think, when we talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion, we don't zoom in on black male or brown male experiences specifically?Lionel: I don't think people really want that wake-up call yet, you know what I mean? I think that people want to imagine that "Hey," you know, they got to this particular spot in their career, you know, they're making this particular amount of money, you know, they should be happy, right? But they don't know that for a lot of us--I mean a lot of us, man, a lot of us--you know, we have to deal with [BLEEP] on a daily basis that they never have to deal with, they never have to deal with. But nobody really wants to put light on that, you know? 'Cause then that would mean that we have to do some more work, and I think people don't want to do that, you know? I think that, you know, people try and find the easiest and fastest way to get to a certain point, right? But when we're talking about something that's this complicated and this nuanced, it's gonna take some work. It's gonna take some serious work, and--what is it--the implicit bias trainings and all of those kinds of things, you know, that's, like, the tip of the iceberg. Nobody wants to.Zach: No, they don't. And it's aggravating too, because even--so I've talked to--so in my current job, and then at previous jobs too, but, like, I have mentors here, and I've [?]--you know, what I find frustrating about us always running into implicit bias is that it makes the presumption that all bias is accidental or unconscious, right? And it's like, "No." Some of y'all actively don't want black and brown people here. Like, come on. It is 20--it is the age of our Beyonce, 2019. We know the deal. [both laugh] We know where people align politically. Like, more than ever we have direct insight into political idealogies, beliefs, and points of view on race, gender, sex, religion, sexuality. Like, we know all these things, so, like, let's not act like everything is "Oh, I stumbled across this racist thing." Like, come on. That's not the reality. So let me ask you this as we kind of wrap up. What are some of the challenges that you've come across as a black executive leader within an I&D space? 'Cause you're the second person. You're only the second person in one of these positions that I've met that is a black man. So you're in this position, right? Typically I see folks in this position are white women and maybe even white women who identiy as LGBTQ, right? As a black man, what does influence and coalition-building look like in your position?Lionel: Influence and coalition-building in my position? Well, one is--you know, one, you've got to have allies. I don't believe that we're in a position right now, that we have the power right now, to be able to make the change that we need to make without powerful allies, right? But at the same time, those powerful allies are working with biases themselves, so you need to make sure that you're training them up, mentoring up with them, to make sure that when they are supporting you that they're supporting you effectively and they know where it's coming from. I agree with you in many ways that, yeah, I don't necessarily think--well, let me change that. I don't believe that bias is a strong enough word for one thing. Two, I don't believe that it is all implicit. I do think that some people are just that way, and they just believe, you know, all of the propaganda and rhetoric that has been going on in the United States forever about us, right? And coalition-building really means getting rid of some of that, you know? Doing the, you know, behavioral change and thought change is important, you know? That kind of thing has to happen before people can really try to support you, because they have to understand that they are being affected, and their actions are being affected, by things that they've been taught for most of their lives in the United States, you know? The United States, man, we're--this is a country built on racism. This is a country that's, you know, built on the backs of us, you know? Whether you're Asian, Latino, Native-American, you know, that's what this country is built on. [to this day sfx]Zach: Straight up.Lionel: To this day.Zach: To this day!Lionel: To this day, right? To this day, and we have to get to a place where we recognize that. We have to get to a place where we're not okay with it. It is something that we're ashamed of, but it's something that we're gonna admit, right? That this is what's going on with us, and we need to move forward from here. That's coalition-building, you know? Getting people to really understand the mistakes that were made. Fess up to them. Own up to them. Make some changes, right? [?]Zach: [Flex bomb sfx] Man, I love it. And, you know, this is the thing--you're the first person who I've had a conversation with who talks about the fact that coalition-building is not only bringing things in but also pushing things away, right? It's both. I love that. I love that. Well, look, let's do this. If you had three points of advice for any leader seeking to specifically recruit and engage black men, what would they be?Lionel: Make sure that what you want to invite them to is welcoming of black men. Do that, right? I mean, don't ask me to come to your house if your house is falling apart. Don't do that. Like, make sure your outline's right first, right? Make sure that you work with recruiting to help them to understand that, yes, they are out there, you're just gonna have to work a little bit harder. Make sure that you work with your executive staff to make sure that they're on board with whatever programs that you put in place so that you can make sure that you keep people once they get there. Zach: I love it. Just like that. And listen, y'all, you heard Lionel's advice, so we looking at you now. So you're gonna come around trying to invite black and brown men to your organizations, and we're looking back at you like [haha sfx]. Look, don't play yourself. Pay attention. This has been great, Lionel. Before we get out of here, any parting words or shout-outs?Lionel: No, man. Thank you for having me. You know, we've got a lot of work to do. You know, we're nowhere near where we could be, and a lot of this is about the economic divide, the wealth gap, and it's just gonna get wider and wider and wider. We've got to get on, you know, our bikes, man. We've got to get to work, you know, 'cause--we've got to get to work. We've got to get to work.Zach: Well, they're projecting that the median wealth of black families from a household perspective will be zero dollars, like, by 2050 or so, so you're absolutely right. We gotta--man, Lionel, this has been--like, no shade to everybody else, y'all, this has been top two dopest conversations we've had on Living Corporate. Thank you so much for being a guest. We very much so want to have you back. We'll talk about that offline. Until next time, y'all, this has been Zach. You've been listening to Lionel Lee at the Zillow Group. Make sure you check out all of his information. Links in the show notes. Catch y'all next time. Peace.

Zach sits down with Cedric Chambers, the founder and CEO of JUMP Recruits, to discuss the definition of the term "diversity" and the concept of diversity of thought. Cedric also offers a few recommendations to CEOs and chief HR officers who want to see their organization become more diverse.Check out JUMP Recruits and connect with Cedric on LinkedIn!TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and today is another day, another dope interview. Y'all know how we do, okay? So this is not--okay, like, we're coming up on--shoot, actually, let me say this. By the time this episode drops, we might be past 100 episodes, you know what I'm saying? Might have already hit the century mark. In fact, let me go ahead and hit these air horns just--you know, just in case we hit it already by the time this one drops, you know what I'm saying? [air horns sfx] You know, for those who don't know, Living Corporate amplifies the voices of black and brown folks at work. We interview executives, influencers, creatives, movers and shakers, the next folks up. You know, the real ones, you know what I'm saying? Come on. Like, all skin folk ain't kinfolk, okay? That's another podcast from the day. Those who know know what I'm saying. But we interview the real ones, okay? And today is no different with Cedric Chambers. Cedric is dedicated to enhancing the presence of diversity and inclusion in the workplace one client at a time. As the founder and CEO of Jump Recruits, Cedric partners with talented professionals and leading employers to diversify and improve the workforce culture within leading industries and growing sectors. Sound Man, you know what? We gotta drop some more air horns for Cedric. Come on, now. [air horns sfx] And I gotta add one of these Cardi B "ow"s, you know what I'm saying? ["ow" sfx] Just because. Cedric, welcome to the show, man. How are you doing?Cedric: I'm doing wonderful, Zach. Man, you are amazing. That was the best intro I probably ever heard. [both laugh]Zach: Man, I know I gave you a little intro, but for those who don't know you, would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself?Cedric: Yes. Well, look, to give kind of the full but be quick about it--so I'm originally from Georgia. Not Atlanta, Columbus, Georgia. And so--actually a little small town about two hours southwest of Atlanta. Grew up, played football, went to college, did my undergrad playing football, graduated from Savannah State with a business degree. I did a little work, you know, in the industry for about a year or so, went back and got my master's at THE Ohio State University, majored in labor and human resources, but then immediately after I got my degree I went into corporate America, spending almost 10 years in HR in various areas in a few different industries, including aviation, medical device, life sciences, pharma. You know, I've had the--over that time I've had the pleasure of traveling all over the world, and I've had opportunities to live in a few different places across the Midwest and Northeast of the United States, and so, you know, what I do and the experiences I bring, right, I believe are one of the values that I hold. I have a wonderful family, a beautiful wife of five years and two incredible kids. And as you mentioned, I am the founder and CEO of Jump Recruits, and so just to give a brief, Jump Recruits is a full-service diversity and inclusion technology start-up, and it's dedicated to and about inclusion, opportunity, and successful career outcomes for diverse professionals and employers seeking quality diverse talent. And I've been on this journey for almost three years, actually three years, and like Charles Dickens said, "It's been the best of times, it's been the worst of times," but to be honest, through it all, I wouldn't change anything.Zach: First of all, man, you were talking about I gave one of the best intros. That was one of the best, you know what I'm saying, guest intros. It was just--it was, you know, comprehensive, right? You gave a little bit of the sensitive side with the family tip. You gave some of your vulnerable side on the journey with Jump Recruits, and then you gave a bit of, like, just the history of kind of where you're from and what you did. As a side-note, shout-out to the Georgia boys. I was actually born in Rome, Georgia.Cedric: There you go. Look there, you're country too, man. [laughs]Zach: Oh, listen, with a K. [both laugh]Cedric: And that's the one thing--look, we can talk about it as we get into it, right, but I've been in different environments and, you know, traveling across, and I have a deep Southern dialect, and when I go into different places people immediately, you know, hear that. And so we'll probably get into that a little bit later, but, you know, it's all good, right? Embrace where you come from and just be authentic.Zach: Oh, no doubt, man. And, you know, it's just interesting because for me--just because of my exposure. So I went to--I was in Georgia, and then I went to Dallas, and then I went to Minnesota. So, like, my accent kind of comes and goes, or the drawl of my Southern--like, my Southern drawl kind of will recede or kind of extend during--just depending on the situation, right? But at the same time it don't matter about that part. I tell people all the time. I say, "Listen, don't let this pocket square fool you, okay? I'm very country. Don't play with me." [both laugh] Cedric: I'm with you.Zach: Yeah, man. So look, we're talking today about diversity. It's a super common term, right? And honestly a lot of folks use the term "diversity and inclusion" in a broad swath of ways, right? So, like, for you though, what does diversity mean?Cedric: Yes, great question. So, you know, I would say that, you know, when I think about diversity and the term, right, to me, what I pull from it is uniqueness in every way. You know, whether that be race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, perspective, et cetera. You know, when I think about diversity, I think about the setting and context in which it's being applied and the term, because diversity can have different meanings in different places depending on where you're applying it, right? And so, you know, I've lived around. And so living in Atlanta, diversity can be different than living in Wisconsin, where I've lived, can be different than living in Boston, where I've lived, can be different than living in Ohio, where I've lived, but that commonality that I think of is uniqueness and what are you bringing that's unique, what are you bringing that is one yourself authentic as I said before, but I always think about that is when we want to use this word "diversity" and think about "Yes, things are different," but in a different way, you know, how are you unique, and how are you bringing that uniqueness, you know, to everything that you're doing?Zach: You know, and it's interesting, right? Because a lot of times when we talk about diversity I think, like you just said, it's, like, uniqueness in every way. In every way, right? Checking a variety of boxes, right? Just what does it look to be non-standard or non-default? And so with that being said, I'm curious, do you have any particular thoughts around the concept of diversity of thought, and have you ever gotten that pushback in your work with Jump Recruits--they'll be like, "Okay, I see you have all of these, you know--" "You know, ethnic diversity is the only diversity. [?]. Diversity of thought." Like, what do you--[both laugh] When you hear that, like, what is your response?Cedric: Oh, man. I'm not gonna make it through this interview. [both laugh]Zach: Nah, I'ma keep it a bean with you. I'ma keep it a bean with you, right? Because when people say "diversity of thought" to me--I don't know how long you've been rocking with the Living Corporate podcast, and I'm actually surprised we didn't get canceled off of this joke, [Cedric laughs] but one time--and I'ma say it again so y'all have the opportunity to cancel me again. I said that white people made diversity of thought in the same lab they made crack. [both laugh] So you know--so now you know the Living Corporate official position, and yes--look, there's nobody y'all can complain to. Y'all listening to the podcast, if y'all got a problem the emails are gonna come to me and Ade, okay? So be mad, all right? Anyway, back to this interview. So Cedric, what your thoughts on diversity of thought, man? [laughs]Cedric: Look, and perspectives, right? You know, I hear a lot of things, and perspective, right, you've got to understand people's perspective, right? And even what you said, like, you know, I can see the perspective, right, and that's the one thing. You've got to come with an open mind and an open heart into situations, but, you know, thinking about diversity of thought--so, you know, unfortunately I have heard "diversity of thought" and have, you know, seen it used as a pushback, and when I hear it it's typically used in the context of either/or, and what I mean is when I'm having these discussions, and, you know, we could be talking about, you know, diversity, we could be talking about ethnicity and these things, and they bring up diversity of thought. They're saying that either I focus on having diversity of race, gender, sexuality, or I focus on having diversity of thought, which is not the way it should be looked at, right? And so it should be viewed as an and, meaning, like, yes, you should value diversity of thought, and then addition value diversity of background," i.e. race, gender, sexuality, et cetera. But so many people take that position of, you know, "I can't value both, and so I'ma go with the safest way out and say I value diversity of thought as a whole," and depending on how long you let those people talk, right, you can get down into the rabbit holes of, you know, the common terms of "I don't see color," X, Y, and Z, right? So, you know, that's a whole podcast by itself. [both laugh] But, you know, when I've encountered it as a pushback, you know, whether it be clients, prospects, or just in general casual conversations, I usually approach it from the perspective of "Hey, look, you're right. Diversity of thought is important and critical to the success of the team, organization, and relationships," but then I always follow up in that discussion with the question of "Well, then how do you acquire diversity of thought?" Because how a person thinks is heavily based on experiences and backgrounds, and if you aren't pulling from different pools and different backgrounds which have different experiences, then how do you achieve this goal of diversity of thought you're ultimately looking for? And I typically at this point get blank stares, [both laugh] which is great for me because now the real conversation can start, and we can start on even ground to say, "Okay, now let's talk through it and work this out."Zach: Man, you know, that's a great answer, and, you know, I'll tell you what I typically say, right? So, for background, right, I'm in change management. Like, I'm a consultant, so, like, I'm having these conversations where people say "diversity of thought," I'll say something like, "Well, you're absolutely right. Diversity of thought is important, and it directly intersects or it is correlated with diversity of race, gender, sexuality, so on and so forth." Those things are not mutually exclusive, right? On the outside they're giving me the blank stares that they give you, but on the inside I know they're doing a [“and I oop” sfx], you know what I'm saying? [both laugh] They trying to figure out like, "Okay, what do I do?" You know what I'm saying? So I definitely get that. So let's do this then. What are some of the biggest excuses you've heard organizations give as to why they don't have black and brown folks in their organizations? I'm talking black and brown disabled people, black and brown LGBTQ people, black and brown immigrants, black and brown--like, just why? Why is that? What are some of the biggest excuses you've heard?Cedric: You know, I'd probably go with the biggest that I've heard, seen, and I think everybody kind of rallies around, but the biggest is that there's an issue with the pipeline and that there isn't enough qualified black and brown talent for those companies to pull from. Which is totally false, right? Zach: Yeah, man.Cedric: And it's like--I'm not gonna go into why do we keep listening to that lie, [both laugh] so--Zach: Well, I think--let me shoot you some bell, right? I think for me it's challenging because it's like--one, I don't think people, like, really examine or really have examined how offensive and insulting that is, right?Cedric: Yeah. Yeah.Zach: Like, fam, come on, man. Like, we've been here. Like, so--Cedric: It's like you're doing what you can do, you're pushing out the best, and then someone says, "Well, I still don't see you."Zach: Come on, man.Cedric: And that's where it's coming from. Like, it's like we got so many great, you know, whether it be engineers graduating, you've got so many great doctors, you've got so many great scientists, right? We're doing so many things in the news, and it's still, like, this message of "I still don't see you."Zach: And we're all over here like [what more do you want from me? sfx] [both laugh] You know what I'm saying? Like, God. Cedric: Exactly, exactly. And look, I won't be naive to think that there are as many people of color as there are non-people of color, so I won't bet that, but for instance, like, we know that, for a fact, there are less black and brown engineers that graduate for college every year than their counterparts, and the National Society of Black Engineers have done a lot of great research in this area, and they actually have campaigns going on now to increase that number of black engineers graduating every year, black and brown. But what we also know is that from having these discussions daily with corporate leaders as I do, these same organizations are not going to the places and communities where black and brown people are, and they are not effectively attracting and hiring the great talent that's already in the market today. And if I could provide an illustration for you real quick - look at it like this. If I want to go catch a fish, I can't possibly do that by casting my line on land. I must cast in the water where the fish are, and that's what is happening today. Many companies--not all, and I will say not all, but many are casting in the wrong places, and as I see this conversation over and over and I hear this excuse, the question that I often ask myself or that, you know, we must ask is "Are companies knowingly casting in the wrong places because they don't want black and brown talent, or are they misinformed on where to cast?" And honestly I think it's both.Zach: That's a--hold on, hold on. Wait a minute. [Flex bomb sfx] That's a Flex bomb. Yeah, no, you're right. I think it's both. I don't think it's one or the other, and I think really when you talk about these topics, it's often a case of both/and, right? It's rarely ever one versus the other. Because I've had conversations, and I'm--look, I have a nuanced opinion on this, right? Like, when you talk about sourcing candidates--and so, like, you know, you'll hear organizations say, "We're gonna just recruit at all HBCUs." Okay. Yes, you should definitely recruit at the HBCUs, but there's also black and brown folks at the PWIs too, man. [both laugh] Like, all of the black people--like, man all of the black people are not just flocking to HBCUs. HBCUs are expensive. Like, I love me some HBCUs. Ayo, please, y'all, do not cancel me. We love y'all. PV, I see you. Okay? Prairie View, we see you, okay? Texas Southern, we see you. Cedric: Savannah State. Let's go. [laughs]Zach: Savannah State, we see you. Morehouse. Listen, we love y'all, okay? I'm just saying I went to a PWI, and there were many black and brown folks in my space who did not know what they was doing when they graduated, right? So there's talent there. They're in the same rooms with Becky and Keith and whoever else. Like, it's both, man, and I don't know why, but when I hear, like, "pipeline strategies," I hear--I hear--when we talk about minority talent, ethnic minority talent, it's like we're not even trying to think about how we plug into the PWIs. We just say, "Oh, we're just gonna go with the HBCUs." It's like, "You can do both. You can plug into the HBCUs and then look for and look at the student programs," 'cause every PWI has one, right? Every PWI has some program where the black and brown folks have huddled together to say, "Pick us." [laughs] So, like, you just gotta plug in.Cedric: You know, that's right, and it's--the word I'm going to say, for lack of better terms, is laziness. That's what it is, and it's the--you know, being in corporate, right, I've done HBCUs, I've done the PWI. There is a stark difference between the two as far as the resources and opportunities between the two, where I was in a career fair at, you know, HBCUs to where you're talking 20 to 30 companies, a lot of 'em banks and local banks, a lot of 'em militaries--the military is trying to recruit, but then go to PWI, and, like, you're talking about 200 of the Fortune 500 companies in here vying for spots, right? So the opportunity and resources--and then on top of that, when you engage with HBCUs and HSIs and the communities--and let's say this quickly--it's that it's more than money. That's what happened. It's "Hey, let's go give scholarships. Hey, let's go out and let's see, you know, what we can do from a recruiting effort." It's just transactional the entire time, and when you think about big schools, right, to where--whether it's the PWIs, and you think about some of these big companies. One of the biggest differences--if you want to come to an HBCU or an HSI, I need you to look at this long-term, and I need you to look at this and say, "We're talking about money, but not just money, we're talking about resources," i.e. training and development, and there are many institutions--predominantly white--where large companies are staples on their campuses, teaching them the skills and knowledge needed to be successful, not only today but in the future. I mean, these companies have offices in their career development office, right, and they're talking about data analytics, A.I., machine learning. And these companies even have--some of their senior officers are subject matter experts at these campuses teaching the classes. Zach: Man, they be in there. They be hitting up--they tapping every avenue of that relationship like [Cardi B "brat" sfx]. [both laugh] You know what I'm saying? They light that thing up.Cedric: Exactly, exactly. And so when you think about all of those resources, then you turn around and say, "Well, look, let's give a scholarship to somebody," or "Let's go out and let's go to this career fair," and then they don't see you again for another 12 months. It's how d you expect to build that pipeline? How do you expect to build that relationship, that brand and all of the little things that come along with it, if you're not invested? Now, I'ma say this, that's not all, but there's definitely a lot that's [?].Zach: Man, you're 100%. So look, I'm also gonna say something else. Cedric, I don't know, man, what [it is] about this interview, but I just feel like I gotta keep it a buck today. We keep it a buck on Living Corporate generally speaking. Like, don't get me wrong. We be dropping heat on here, okay? Hold on. Wait a second. Shout-out to my team, 'cause, like, we really be doing this, you know what I'm saying? [Kawhi "what it do baby" sfx] You know what I'm saying? We out here, okay? [both laugh] But this is my biggest thing. This is another personal pain point, right, is like we gotta make sure that when black and brown folks--like, when we go out to these HBCUs and, like, we're doing this stuff, like, we have to also bring this thought leadership and take it to the folks who are in charge, right? So, like, we gotta be talking to the recruitment teams, 'cause a lot of times--I'll say in consulting, right? I'm not gonna say the firm. I've been at a few. So I was at a firm, and, like, there was this common narrative that there was an HBCU that we did not hire for, like, the client-facing stuff. We only hired them for the technical stuff, and the reason was because they don't really have the skill set, right? And, like, we would, like--I'm saying, like, the black folks, like, we would lean into that narrative, like, "Yeah, they don't have the skill set. They're just not really--" And it's like, "Okay, first of all, what are you doing? Like, why would you--don't parrot that out loud." Like, let's figure out ways we can help our people. And then two let's, like, just ask the deeper why and think critically about "Well, why don't we believe they have that skill set, and what can we do to help develop that skill set?" And all of the things that you're talking about are 100% facts, but I think it takes a--it's gonna take a joint effort, right? And I 100% agree with you. So let's do this, 'cause I know we're coming up on time. So multiple whitepapers state that before organizations can seek to diversify their organizations, they should seek to diversify leadership and build an inclusive culture. What's your point of view on that, and what does it practically look like for you to help organizations be more inclusive at the leadership level before you start bringing in, like, the campus level undergrad, direct hire talent?Cedric: Oh, man, great question. I think--let's see if I can get both of these. So when it comes to diversity and inclusion, my perspective and point of view is that they have to have it at the same time, and I think that there are different levels at which they happen at. Like, you could float heavy to inclusion but then still do diversity and recruitment and things of that nature and vice versa, but it depends on the organization in which you're in, the culture and what's going on. And I start with inclusion first just to kind of go into it and say, "Let's think this for a second and say, "How do you build an inclusive culture if you don't have any representation, i.e. diversity, from the groups in which you're aiming to affect?" And so--and without this representation, this means that there's nobody from these groups that are able to input on the design of this diversity and inclusion strategy. And so when you talk about this inclusive culture, you have less than 1% of [?] in the organization, you know, less than 20%, you know, women in your organization, how are you gonna go and effectively--and on a leadership level it's definitely not there--how are you gonna go in and actually do this if the representation is not there? And so when you think about diversity, you gotta "Okay, are we bringing leadership in at the same of building that inclusive culture and doing those things at the top and then pushing it down?" As it relates to leadership, look, I would agree, but it goes back to representation, right? How can you effectively have a diversity and inclusion strategy driven from the top down when the top has no representation from the diverse groups in which you're designing for? And so I also say this. We surveyed candidates that had been hired and had received offers from companies. 87% of those candidates that we surveyed say that one of the first things they do when researching the company they're interviewing with is go to the leadership page and see who on the page looks like them. And then--Zach: Keep going, keep going. Preach.Cedric: And of that, 60% of that group say that that was a major factor on whether they accepted the job or not. And if you'll allow me to go just a step further, one of the things we do in our consulting area looks at, like, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and when you think about the top of that pyramid, and we get to self-actualization, the definition of self-actualization is "the realization of one's full potential." So let's think about this. How can I realize my full potential within an organization when I go to the corporate leadership page and I see no one that looks like me? And then how can that help me see myself as rising my career aspirations when I can't see myself on the website, I can't see myself in leadership, you know? I didn't see myself in the interview process with the people that I interviewed with. How can I actually see myself thriving in this organization? I can't.Zach: [straight up sfx, both laugh] No, you can't. Cedric, man, it's so funny. So what I've been doing--'cause I'm coming up on 30, right? Like, you know what I'm saying? Whatever.Cedric: Big time.Zach: Man, listen. It's different, man. Things creaking now, you know what I'm saying? Knees be sore for no reason. It's weird.Cedric: I know. It starts raining and your knee hurts, right?Zach: Right. It's like, "What's going on?" Cedric: Yeah, it's coming. It's coming.Zach: [both laugh] But you're 100% right. Like, lately when I do--like, when I interview, right, when I have the opportunity and people reach out, whatever, I'll always ask, like, "How imperative is your inclusion and diversity strategy at your organization?" They'll say, "Oh, it's very imperative. It's super important. Blah blah blah blah," and I'm like, "Okay, cool." So then I go, you know what I'm saying, I go to the little executive page, right, and, you know, the board looks like--you know, the first, you know, seven, eight presidents like [haha sfx]. I'm like, "Come on, man. Y'all not seeing this, man? This is crazy. This looks like a bunch of dollar bills up here." Like, this is crazy.Cedric: [laughs] Exactly, but that's representation, and so that's diversity, you know, from a recruitment aspect, adding them to the mix, and then inclusion is working on the other hand, trying to make it work. And so you're trying to do both, right? It's almost like--you know, in some cases, right--I mean, I'm from the country, right? And so there's certain cases and certain things where you need to mix and you need to pour stuff in at the same time to get that evenly distributed, and that's the diversity, right, man? You pour the diversity in while you're stirring the inclusion, and you're doing it at the same time, with both hands, because you need for it to evenly get into the mix so that when you look at the cake mix and batter it's something that you can go in and move forward with, right? It's not clumped up. It's not over here. It's not--I'm not gonna say segregated or whatever the case may be, right? You know, things are mixed in together, but they still have their identity, man. So it's--you know, it's interesting.Zach: Let me go ahead and saute on that metaphor, that analogy you got right there. So it's interesting, because even when you make a cake--'cause honestly I thought you were gonna go with, like, a sweet tea analogy, but either way, with sweet tea or cake, right, you gotta make sure you add heat to that jaunt so that way it actually, like, actually comes together, because--and even though that heat might be uncomfortable or may seem uncomfortable, you've got to put on some gloves or whatever and you've got to put it in the oven. You've got to wait, but it's gonna all congeal for the cake--or you gotta turn up the dial on the stove to make sure it gets hot enough so everything can come together, so it can actually merge into one thing that you can actually consume, that you can actually enjoy. It's the same thing, man. In that mixing process, you've got to add some heat to that. That heat might be, you know, accountable conversations, you know? True planning around how we're actually gonna make all this happen, how we're gonna mobilize our inclusion strategy, what does it mean to, like, really build a culture of sponsorship for your organization, and then that creates that culture that you're talking about.Cedric: There you go, there you go. I'm with it. I'm with it. [laughs]Zach: Now, look, let me respect your time. I got one more question for you.Cedric: Go for it, man. I'm here.Zach: What recommendations would give to the average white executive/power holder who wants their organization to be more diverse but isn't getting the talent they're looking for--they're not seeing the talent, you know, at the executive level?Cedric: Oh, man. That's a loaded question. You said white executive/power holder. [both laugh] I'll say this, and I'll say this for all senior executives, not just white--and I'ma primarily speak to CEOs and chief HR officers on this one--look, if you've decided that diversity and inclusion is imperative to the success of your organization, then I think you need to take this approach. First, go out and hire you a chief diversity officer. That's step one. Step two: for the first five to seven years on this journey, that chief diversity officer needs to report directly to the CEO. Not HR, not strategy, not social responsibility or impact. Have them reporting directly to the CEO. This not only will have a visual impact, but it will solidify that just like finance, just like strategy, just like engineering, just like HR, that diversity and inclusion is imperative to the business and it has a direct line to the highest of the high. And I believe it was Steve Jobs that said this, and he said it in the context of design. It's that "If a part of your business is so important to the CEO, it must report to the CEO," because then only can that organization place the same importance on it as the CEO does, and so you're going out and you're saying, "Hey, we believe in diversity," but then the diversity officer is four layers down in the organization [train?] and doesn't have any say-so, power, or ability to go make things happen. But now when that person reports directly to the CEO, and we're talking top-down--they say, "Hey, this is the move, and this is where we're going," and that person is right there, direct communication can get things signed off, accomplished, done quick. That puts you in a better position to be able to accomplish that goal.Zach: Man, I love that. And, you know, it's interesting because I think that kind of transitions--that transitions that D&I space from being just, like, another thing that's, like, in the compliance piece into something that becomes, like, a strategy imperative for the enterprise, right? A lot of times when we think about diversity we're just thinking about ways to avoid, you know, this sound, right? [Law and Order sfx] You know, just trying to make sure you don't get in trouble, you know what I'm saying? [both laugh]Cedric: Oh, man. And also, look--so I was in HR, right? In every organization that I supported, you got the business leader, you got the HR person, you got the finance person, you got quality, you got engineers, but they're in that organization. And so HR is in every organization. Finance is in every organization, right? And so diversity is in every organization. The same way you look at diversity of people, you should be looking at diversity of suppliers. The same way you're looking at diversity of marketing, the way you're looking at diversity and how you're looking at your strategy, where you're going--like, diversity is embedded in every one of those, and if it doesn't have that same vertical as the strategy/HR/finance organization, then how can it have the horizontal piece to where it cuts across all to be able to have that impact and show up in the every day workings and doings of how people act and how they work and how they do their jobs?Zach: No, 100%, man. You know what? You've been dropping bar-bar-bars, man. Like, just [Mario coin sfx x2]. You know what I'm saying?Cedric: [laughs] I love it, man. I love it.Zach: Man, I love it. Now, this has been a dope conversation. Before we go, do you have any shout-outs or parting words?Cedric: Oh, man. Look, I would say one, you know, shout-out to Jump Recruits, right? You can go find more information at JumpRecruits.com. Look, you know, the team, shout-out to my family and my wife, and look, I would say shout-out to all of the leaders, the employees, the janitors, whoever it may be that's out there actively pushing diversity, out there actively pushing inclusion, whether it be in your small circle and you're influencing those around you or whether it's at a large, large scale. Congrats, and I thank you, and I ask you to continue, to continue to push and continue to be--you don't have to be an activist, but you do have to be active. And so, look, continue to do great things, and I just--I love it.Zach: Wow, man. Yo, shout-out--man, round of applause, man, for Cedric, man. [applause sfx] My goodness gracious, man. This has been great, man. Thank you, and thank you for joining us on the Living Corporate podcast. Make sure you follow us on Instagram @LivingCorporate, Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod, and subscribe to our newsletter through living-corporate.com, please say the dash, you know what I'm saying? Look, we've got livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.tv, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.net, livingcorporate. all of 'em except livingcorporate.com, Cedric, believe it or not, 'cause Australia's still got livingcorporate.com, and I'm like, "Man." So I don't know what we gotta do--Cedric: All of that. We're coming to talk to you, Australia. We're gonna have a conversation. 20/20. We need that. We need that.Zach: We need that. We need that. Look, man, 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 Cedric Chambers, CEO and founder of Jump Recruits. Peace.

Zach speaks with Jennifer Brown, founder and CEO of Jennifer Brown Consulting, and they take a deep dive into exploring what diversity and inclusion means. They also talk about what it really means to be inclusive as a leader, and Jennifer shares a bit about her latest two books. Check out Jennifer's books! They're titled "Inclusion" and "How to Be an Inclusive Leader."Connect with Jennifer on the following platforms: Twitter, IG, Facebook, LinkedInPut your name on the mailing list at JenniferBrownSpeaks.com!TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with the Living Corporate podcast. Now, look, y'all know what we do, man. [laughs] Y'all know. Listen, man, we try to drop--come on, Sound Man. Give me them air horns right here. [air horns sfx]. More fire for your head top, and look, today is no different. I ain't even gonna get into a huge, long kind of, like, intro before I get into the interview, 'cause our interview was kind of long, but I really want y'all to hear all of it. I interviewed someone who is a strong--seriously, like, one of the leaders within the D&I space when you talk about, like, presenting content around intersectionality, diversity, inclusion. Her name is Jennifer Brown. She's a facilitator. She's a public speaker. She's a consultant. She's an educator. She has a background in change management, so there's a lot of symbiosis between the both of us, and we had a really dope discussion just about what it really means to be inclusive as a leader, and then we had a conversation--like, kind of a meta discussion about the D&I space as an industry. If y'all remember--this was, like, way back in Season 1--we had Amy C. Waninger, and then we had Drew, A.K.A. Very White Guy, on the show, and Drew talked a little bit about the--, like, D&I as a business, right, and kind of, like, the capitalistic or corporate nature of D&I and, like, what that looks like, and we had a conversation about that too. It was really interesting. So anyway, what you're gonna hear next is the discussion between Jennifer Brown and myself. She's great people, definitely can't wait to have her back on the show. Make sure y'all check out the show notes. You can look and see all of her information, including her latest two books, okay? So make sure y'all check it out, and we'll catch y'all next time. Peace.[pause]Zach: Jennifer, welcome to the show. How are you doing?Jennifer: Oh, thanks. I'm doing great. Trying to stay cool in this July.Zach: Man, it is hot out here.Jennifer: Yeah. Global warming. [laughs]Zach: [laughs] For real. Look, I gave a brief intro, but for those who don't know you, would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself?Jennifer: Of course, yeah. I--let's see. I'm an author. I'm a keynoter. I'm a CEO and an owner of a consulting business, all of which is focused on building more inclusive workplaces for all kinds of talent to thrive, and it's a passionate, personal mission that I have because I've been out since I was 22, and I'm in my 40s now, but the workplace was a place where I couldn't really bring my full self to work. And I want to say it wasn't just being LGBTQ. I mean, the workplace has all sorts of inclusiveness problems when it comes to people like, you know, us, and, you know, most people actually. Anyone that's not a certain mold, and so as somebody who has--I have a master's degree in opera, believe it or not. I came to New York to be an opera singer, and that did not work out.Zach: Wow.Jennifer: Yeah, I know. [laughs] It's crazy. Luckily I reinvented as a corporate trainer, because it's all this--it's like being on the stage, you know, and connecting with audiences. It's just the topic is different. So I reinvented into that field, which remains really my field to this day. So we're really--we're a strategy and training company, and we're working across the Fortune 1,000, I would say, on a daily basis. My team is all over the country. They're amazing. They're so talented at what they do. They have a lot more patience for client work than I do. [laughs] And yeah, we can talk about that if you want, but I've been a consultant in the trenches for a long time, and I'm actually really thrilled now to kind of be more living the keynote and author life. I just--I like it a lot. I love performing. I love big audiences. I like the challenge of thinking on my feet. I like having to write books on this topic and figure out, like, "What does the world need me to write next, and how do I take what I hear and learn and put it in a way that's digestible for people?" Because it's really--it's kind of, like, a life-or-death situation from an inclusion perspective, and I deeply feel that, for myself and many, many others.Zach: Wow. Well, thank you for that. Awesome. I'm already--like, my shoulders are kind of bouncing up and down. This is gonna be a dope conversation.Jennifer: Woo! Yeah. [both laugh]Zach: So today we're talking about inclusive leadership, and before we get too deep into it, can we get some definitions on these terms? Like, from your point of view. Diversity, inclusion, and intersectionality. 'Cause in a lot--in your content and in your IP, both written and your presentations, like, you use these terms a lot, and frankly your content is centered around these terms. For our audience, I'd love it if we could just, like, level-set what these things actually mean.Jennifer: Yes, and you need to consider the history of the conversation. So in the corporate and workplace context, diversity is really--has been traditionally the "who," right? The demographics, the representation in your workforce. Typically it's [counted with?] gender, right? Which is where it started, and race and ethnicity. It wants to count LGBTQ and people with disabilities, but, you know, a lot of those folks can hide who they are, right? We are very good at hiding who we are and not checking boxes. So diversity has really been that representation, the mix, the complexion of the workplace [with a small C?]. And then inclusion really is the "how." So "How do I make that mix work?" You know? "If diversity is the "who" in the mix, how do I make the mix work?" To quote my friend Tyrone Studemeyer, who is, like, a great chief diversity officer. He always uses that example. In fact, he brings a glass of milk on stage and pours in chocolate sauce, and then he stirs it, and he has this bit that he does. So it's making the mix work, and honestly's that's really where behaviors come into play. And so it's how--once you have that talent around the table, how do you make them want to stay? How do you include them, and how do you make them feel that they're valued? And so inclusion is the how and the behaviors. And then intersectionality, something totally different. It is the mix, I guess, of diverse identities that make some of us who we are and kind of present unique challenges. Traditionally defined by Kimberle Crenshaw, of course, it's the mix of multiple stigmatized identities that one person may carry. So why that's important is that I think, you know, anyone who looks at gender issues, for example, as a white women's topic, is not taking into consideration how women of color are impacted differently, how being an LGBTQ woman may mean that you're not only dealing with your gender and all the headwinds that come along with that, but you're dealing with the headwinds relating to sexual orientation. Or say you have, you know, a non-binary gender expression, or you are a woman of color and some of those things at the same time, or a woman with a disability. So it just goes on and on, and that's a very helpful thing for the rest of the world, I think, to help people understand the levels of--and I would use privilege with a small P. I know that word sets some people off, you know, but I think we have to be realistic about some of us walking through the world feeling a lot safer and a lot more protected, a lot more supported. You know, right? Like, a lot more--that others are more comfortable with us because they're relatively more familiar with us, and the sort of further you get away from I guess the straight white male norm that is, like it or not, the whole of the top leadership in the business world. The further you get from that, I think the more difficulty you have in kind of seeing yourself in workplaces, in being supported, grown, invested in, welcomed, proactively fostered. You know, all of the things that really, like, pull you up in an organization. So, you know, when you're different in multiple ways, it's kind of difficult to ever feel that you're in that--in the place you should be in the machine that is the workplace. So, you know, this is where people fall out. They quit. They can't stand it anymore. [laughs] You know, they go and become entrepreneurs, which is great, you know, but sad for corporations and large employers because, of course, you know, you're bleeding out all of your diverse talent because your culture is sort of something that people can't stand. That's a problem. [laughs]Zach: [laughs] No, you're absolutely right, and it's interesting, right, because I was just having a conversation with a couple of close friends this morning, and I was talking about the fact that a lot of times, you know, when we talk about D&I in the most common contexts, it almost feels like some--like, really a competition between white men and [white women] for number one, and then kind of everybody else falls to the wayside. Right? Like, we don't necessarily have, like--I don't know if I'm necessarily always hearing, like, truly intersectional discussions around identity. I don't know, and I don't know if black women are often centered in those discussions. Of course in the past couple years we've seen, like, more and more content come out about it, so don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to be a debbie downer, but at the same time--Jennifer: [laughs] But you're right.Zach: [laughs] I mean, here's a great example, right? So I think it was--yep, Indeed. So Indeed just dropped a commercial, and there was a--the setting was, like, a board room, right, and in the board room, a white man was in the front and he was getting a promotion, right? And, like, the boss was shaking his hand, and everybody was clapping, and then there was a white woman, and she was just kind of standing there, and it was clearly--like, by the framing, right, of the commercial, that she was passed over for this promotion and that the white man got the promotion over her, right? And I was like, "Okay." And so then she looks down at her phone, and she kind of smirks because she gets a notification she's getting an interview, you know, somewhere else, right?Jennifer: [laughs] Oh, my gosh.Zach: Right? So she's like, "I'm leaving," and then it said, "Indeed." You know? I was like, "Okay, cool." So great commercial, but what's interesting about that commercial was behind the white woman--and I don't believe they did this intentionally, but maybe they did--and if they did, yo, they are super cold--but there was a black woman and a black man out of focus right behind them. And so it was, like, super interesting.Jennifer: [sighs] Oh, goodness. Wow. Oh, somebody needs to give that feedback. I'm sure they've heard about it already. [both laugh]Zach: But, like, the idea that a lot of times we talk about D&I, right, it's often centered around gender. We're not having really authentic discussions outside of that. And so a question for you - you know, in your book "Inclusion: Diversity, the New Workplace & the Will to Change," you discussed the nuances of privilege. And you just talked about lower-case privilege, lower-case P privilege. And to make an effort not to vilify white men who have, quote, "seemingly won the privilege lottery." Is it possible to manage the egos of leaders who are in the majority while also having frank and accountable discussions about empowering black and brown professionals or just non-white professionals in the workplace? You know, in your work, what does that process look like? To establish trust for those discussions.Jennifer: Yeah. I mean, that is really the work, and it's--I think it's, like, the third rail, honestly. It's funny - being in the LGBTQ community, there's a level of--strangely, a level of comfort and acceptance of talking about being "I'm a proud ally," you know, or putting that rainbow sticker on your desk or in your email signature. And it's fascinating to me because--by the way, the LGBTQ conversation is also not properly intersectional, right? So there's privileged dynamics playing out in my--this community. I was going to say "my" community. One of my communities, you know, that women's voices aren't well-heard. People of color and the LGBTQ community, trans people, are not well-heard and are not represented in leadership positions in the workplace when it comes to affinity groups and things. So each community has its kind of diversity within its diversity challenges. [laughs] So I just wanted to make that point, because--I often say, "Just because you carry a marginalized identity, or even two, does not make you an inclusive leader."Zach: That's so true.Jennifer: Like, I wish it were true, but it's not, and it's been proven to me over and over again that, you know, I've made that assumption, and I've kind of been wrong. Like, I've been shocked by what people say. So, like, these--like, a lack of that intersectional lens and that inclusive lens can live in all of us, by the way. Elitism and, you know, that blindness and bias. Unchecked. Anyway, that's one point I wanted to make. So how do we center more black and brown voices when the leadership of so many companies--and when you say they are the majority, we always have to clarify. I say majority in leadership positions, because if you look at the aggregate in most companies, of course, women are the majority. Zach: That's absolutely correct, yeah.Jennifer: Right, and then a lot of ethnic diversity lives in different functional areas of the business and, you know, whatever, right? But it just totally thins out, like, when you go up the org chart, right? So the problem is all the power lies with a sort of very homogeneous group, and so the onus is on that group to acknowledge that the world is more and more black and brown, right? That they have to build that confidence and cross those bridges of understanding, and they have to know how to build trust with their workforce. Both current and future, by the way, which is most likely not going to look like them. And then they've got to do it in such a way that they--that then their employee and their leadership base looks like the world that they serve, which is increasingly female, right? Think about the buying decisions. Think about the exploding buying power of the black community. The LGBTQ community is now a trillion-dollar buying power. I mean, it's massive. So any brand that's worth anything, and any leader that's worth anything, must look at this, should look at this, and say, you know, "My demographic group--maybe it was okay for me not to understand what keeps people in the organization I'm a part of or keeps people on my team or how to be a good colleague and sort of step out of my shoes and think about what the other person's experience is like, but I better search and pay attention to this." So my argument is always I throw the business case to people, the demographic argument to people. Sometimes it's a moral argument. Sometimes somebody, you know, has kids of a different race than they are. Sometimes they have lots of daughters. Like, sometimes, you know, they have a unique view on all of this, and so when you, you know, [see?] somebody that looks like a white, straight guy, you know, you just never know what their diversity story might be, and I've been just shocked and reminded that, you know, I can--I can walk in a room and people assume I know nothing about this topic, you know? And that's happened to me. I've been on the receiving end of that. And there are things I don't know, for sure, but I desperately want people to listen to me and somehow kind of wedge my way in and make them listen and convince them and all of those things. So being LGBTQ helps with that. So I'm this interesting hybrid of, you know, being of an identity that people are more comfortable with, like, based on maybe what they see, but then coming out and challenging them to the point where, like, you can hear a pin drop when I do that, and that's kind of--let me tell you, it's pretty uncomfortable when you're standing there in front of, like, 1,000 mostly men in, like, light blue shirts and khakis. You're like, "How is this gonna go?" [laughs] So it takes--for all of us, you know, I think it takes bravery to show ourselves. For some of us with invisible aspects of diversity, it takes kind of a unique kind of bravery to be like, "No." Like, "Make no mistake, this is actually who I am." And particularly if it's a vulnerable aspect of who you are. It can feel really risky. That could include, like, divulging about a disability or, you know, mental health and addiction issues, or age, you know? There's just this, like, widespread hesitation to bring our full selves to work on so many counts, but when you are black and brown of course the issue can be "I can't opt not to show who I am." Like, "Who I am is often visible," and it will trigger the biases if those are there, right? And so it's a conversation we always have about--it's not the pain Olympics, and that's so important to remember. Like, that it's not--it's not a race to the--through the oppression hierarchy to say--Zach: Right.Jennifer: Right? Because that's a useless conversation. I think we have to think about, like, what are the--what's the damage that happens when, you know, we feel shame, or we feel compelled to downplay who we are, even if it's very visible to others? And how can we support each other's voices and create that safety for each other? And that's what I think about every day. Like, if I have been given some kind of privilege with a small P [in] several ways that has been totally unearned by me--my obsession is, like, what responsibility and opportunity does that come with? Which is interesting, because I'm in the LGBTQ community, which is so used to needing that allyship, right? We think about--we struggle to bring our full selves and be comfortable, and we hide, you know? And so allies really bring us out, you know? They stand alongside us and say, "Hey, I'll tell your story. I'll be next to you. I'll have your back." It feels amazing to have that, and I know what that feeling feels like, and so I am turning around and, like, trying to do that for others with my people, which often is my lovely, often good-hearted, you know, white, straight male executive clients, you know, to say, "How can we help you bridge to the future?" Because opting out is not--that's not an option, you know? I think--and the more clued-in ones know this, and I think people are mostly feeling just, like, really--like, wanting to do more, very awkward, very afraid. I know in the light of MeToo, just purely a gender conversation, the--you know, that lean-in research that came out a couple months ago that says that, like, male leaders are, like, even more afraid now to be in these one-on-one scenarios with female mentees or colleagues, and it's really discouraging, and it's definitely going in the wrong direction, but I think that fear is probably bigger than just cross-gender. I think that it's just kind of any moves you might make to say, "Hey, I want to be an inclusive leader. I'm gonna mess up. I'm gonna say the right thing. I really, really want to be better, but how am I gonna learn this thing that I'm gonna get wrong, and where am I gonna learn it? And how am I gonna know that I'm getting it wrong? And then how am I going to be given a chance to develop better skills?" And that's a very legitimate question. So I think we've got to all kind of give each other a lot of berth and also proactive support these days to learn, and we've got to do that in partnership with each other, because otherwise we're learning in a vacuum, and that's hard to do.Zach: It's so complex though, right? Because it's like--like, there has to be space for grace, and then there also has to--like, on both sides, because there's grace for you to learn--there's grace for me to give you space to learn, but then there's also--there has to be humility for you to receive that learning, right? And then there needs to be empathy on the person who is learning for their teacher in that there is a level of emotional labor, right, that goes into me even talking to you about this at all, right? I had a conversation with some colleagues, like, about a month or so ago, and I was like, "Look." Like, something happened, and, you know, it was an educational discussion, and in part of my conversation I said, "Hey, you know, I don't talk about this because it's exhausting." I said, "But being in these majority-white spaces--just me being here is exhausting," and I explained that to them, and I said, "It's not just me. It's exhausting in some way or form or shape for someone in a minority to engage in majority spaces." Like, it is, and so, like, for the people that are doing the work to educate and train and teach or even partner--like, that's--like, there needs to be some empathy on that part, you know what I mean?Jennifer: Yeah. Well, we talk a lot about compassion fatigue, and I think that--and then us being asked to step forward and represent an entire community and their experience, which you and I know is never gonna be accurate. You're just one person talking about your experience. Zach: Right. Not [?], right.Jennifer: Right, but what you're talking about is something--what I say in my next book, right, "How to Be an Inclusive Leader," is that you need to do 80% of the emotional labor yourself before you ask someone to help you on your journey. Zach: Oh, I love that.Jennifer: It's so important, yes. And so for me, what that looks like is I intentionally consume certain media, for example. I listen to certain podcasts. I watch certain films. I acquaint myself with cultural norms across communities that are not mine, right? And in some cases it's a struggle through some of that media, because that media is not built for you. It's not a conversation for you, right? [both laugh] And I've had white friends, and I talk about, like, a podcast we may love. Like, one I love called "Still Processing." I don't know if you know it.Zach: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. "Still Processing" is fire. Shout-out to y'all, yes.Jennifer: Oh, it's so good. So good. And they're queer too. Like, I just love them. I mean, talk about intersectional. They're brilliant. And anyway, I sometimes have a hard time keeping up with it, but also getting all of the cultural references--and sometimes even I will feel, "Gosh, I'm such an outsider, and this is so uncomfortable for me, to try to hang in with the conversation." And then I say to myself--and this is what I say to leaders--"Notice the discomfort, because this is what other people feel every single day in majority-white spaces." Every day of their lives, right? Zach: Right. [laughs]Jennifer: Like, you're uncomfortable for one second, right? Like, get used to it. Like, you should be putting yourself in this discomfort all of the time, because this is the competency. Like, this is the skill that you need to learn so that you get some iota of empathy for what it feels like every single day for other people. The other thing I wanted to say is we just had an LGBTQ--we called it LBTQ. It was just for women actually, so we dropped the G. [laughs] Which was--you know, people can have issues with it, but we dropped the G. It was just meant for Q-identified women. And we had this big conference, and we asked--we had a TON of diversity on the stage, which was my commitment, and we had a couple activists that were trans women of color, and they said, "I will come, but I want you to know, like, Pride is exhausting for me." It was in June. "It's exhausting for me. It's exhausting for me to walk into corporate spaces, to educate, to be that voice on stage, and I'm sort of doing this, but I want you to know it's, like, a lot of labor for me," and I want I guess for all of us that put panels together, for all of us that are speakers and on panels--it was such a learning for me to understand that when you ask someone, you're trying to be inclusive, but it is so seen through this lens of "Oh, I can take the day and go speak at this conference 'cause I work for myself," or, you know, "I'm an activist or an advocate." Like, an activist doesn't always look the same or have the same level of privilege or income. What is the lost income from taking a day out to go into a space you're not comfortable in and educate people about your experience? Like, it was really humbling. And what we ended up doing, by the way--and this may be helpful advice--is for all the speakers, that day we had 30 speakers, we really want to intend that we take up--we have a stipend and honorarium for people who take the time out to come into that space. There's a question of real money, you know, to offset that time and that labor. And again, this was another kind of learning for a lot of privileged people of the privilege that allows them to come in and speak all of the time on things that have a full-time job, you know, that have benefits, you know, that aren't witnessing, you know, the really, really painful reality of certain parts of our community every day. I just thought it was a really interesting demonstration within a marginalized community of sort of the gulf in our experiences, right, even within LBTQ women. So I think being mindful of intersectionality all of the time, it's incumbent--it's incumbent on anybody who has that platform, that voice, that comfort to whatever degree, to ensure spaces are diverse, to ensure voices are elevated, to center stories that aren't our own, and to make sure that those stories are given the proper platform and that people aren't overly requested to give up their time and education. But that means that each white person, each man, you know, when they support gender equality, I would ask, like, "What are you reading? What research do you have under your belt?" Like, "How are you exercising your muscle to show up in allyship, and what are you doing?" And then, and only then, can you ask for tweaks and feedback from people in affected communities. You know, "Did what I say resonate?" "Did the story--did I do this justice?" "Did I use my voice in the right way?" "What more could I have done?" Like, "What feedback would you have for me?" That can be asked, but so much has to be done and earned before that. And then--you know, and then bring somebody in to give you that feedback and make you better, because, you know, without that feedback I can promise you people aren't gonna get better, and they're just gonna keep stumbling, and stumbling is not good for anyone. [laughs] It's humiliating.Zach: No, you're absolutely right. [laughs] The thing about it is there's nothing--so I think the only thing worse than being loud and wrong is being really polished and wrong, right?Jennifer: Ooh, that's interesting.Zach: Right? It's like, you know, you're talking, you got the presentation, and, you know, you got your little clicker, and you got your three points and your--[both laugh] And your pantsuit looks great, but you are wrong.Jennifer: Oh, my gosh. It's in the corporate speak.Zach: Right, it's in the corporate speak, but--Jennifer: People can see through it.Zach: But you're absolutely wrong. And your earlier point about Pride, yeah, and, like, this past year was so big because it was the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, and it's interesting 'cause you talked about--you were talking just a bit about, like, the dissonance there and, like, the emotional labor for everyone who is a minority, but then specifically we're talking about trans activists, and it was so interesting because--I believe it was on the 30th. Like, right at the end of Pride there was a situation at Stonewall Inn where, you know, there was a desire from a trans women to speak up. She wanted to talk a little bit about the day and just reflect, and she was shouted down.Jennifer: No.Zach: Yeah, by gay men who were there in names of, "Hey, we just want to party. We don't want to hear all of that," and then eventually she was able to speak, and she spoke for about 12 minutes, but it was just really interesting. She read the names of the black trans women who died and facts and the disproportionate abuse and oppression that black trans women have and continue to face, and so you're absolutely right. Like, and I think it's incredible. I have yet to have the privilege to directly interview a black trans activist. Like, that's actually a serious [goal] of mine.Jennifer: I can hook you up.Zach: Well, let's do it. Let's talk about that after the interview. For sure.Jennifer: [laughs] Yeah, for sure. So yeah, it's been such a learning for me. And this is why I feel so--the ally energy in me these days, even in the LGBTQ community technically that I'm in, I feel so activated as an--and I don't even want to say, like, "I am an ally," because we're only allies when others give us that--give us that name and that honor, right? But I'll tell you, whether it's me as a cis woman--you know, I spend my time on the keynote stage asking people in the audience, "How many of you know what I mean by sharing our pronouns and why it's important? And how many of you know what cisgender means?" And sharing my identity and coming out as cisgender so that--and sharing my pronouns so that I'm not acting like heterosexuality and cisgenderness is normal, you know? We have to make it visible in order to even point out to people that this--we shouldn't be assuming this is normal, and you shouldn't be walking around every day assuming everybody shares your identity. Like, and we've that. I mean, so many of us have been so comfortable and--you know, I'll share it. You know this statistic probably, but it's so startling that 1 out of every 5 people under 34 is non-cis and non-straight. So 1 out of 5. So as you walk around your life, as you hire people, as you work with teams, as you meet customers, 1 out of 5, and yet the chances are that they're hiding that from you and they're not comfortable for you. So what can you do to say, "Hey, this is a safe place. I am someone that you can bring your whole self to me, around me, and I will see you, and I will be not only just open to it, but I will be embracing of it, and I won't assume that you're like me." You know, "I will give you the chance to self-identify," and I will self-identify. I will be brave in doing that, because, like, I'm not gonna put all the burden on you to talk about your experience, but I'm not gonna remain silent and not talk about mine." It's funny, because I get a lot of questions afterwards. People come up to me and say, "How do I start that conversation with someone?" To say, "Hey, I'm doing my work. I'm trying to learn. I want you to feel comfortable. What would you like me to know?" And we sort of walk through, like, "How do I even start that conversation?" Because people are really--they just don't know how to begin, and they don't know whether it will come across as authentic, and they're worried they're gonna be out of their depth really fast. [laughs] Which, by the way, they will be. [laughs]Zach: [laughs] You're absolutely right, but I think it's the internal getting yourself comfortable with being uncomfortable and being comfortable with being ignorant, and ignorant truly meaning just not knowing, and seeking to learn, right? Like, MLK Jr. talked about this. Like, he was quoted saying something like, "White people, as part of their superiority, think that they have so very little to learn when it comes to--" Like, just race, matters of race, and I think that can be extended and expanded, right? That if you're a part of a majority, a part of a privileged class, it's easy for you to think that you just--you don't need to learn, but being curious, right, and seeking to understand is, like, one of the greatest signs of humility, and really it's endearing. Like, the right people, in my experience--when I come to people and I say, "Hey, I really just want to understand. I want to learn from you. I genuinely want to learn." Those discussions go well, because they--Jennifer: They do.Zach: Right? They go well, because you're humbling yourself to listen and to receive. You talked about the statistics, about 1 in 5 today, [and] I think that really leads me well into the next question. So a good deal of your book discusses the future of work and the role inclusion will play. What are your predictions on how organizations will need to adapt to attract future diverse talent in the next 10 years?Jennifer: Oh, my gosh. Well, they're all, like, woefully behind already and have been. [laughs] It's like the ostrich with its head in the sand. I think, you know, when business is good and the economy is good, it covers--it's like high tide, you know? It covers up a lot of things that low tide reveals. And I think a lot of people are too comfortable. You know, I just think that business leaders in particular--and to your point that you just made, right? If life is working out for me, like economically I'm comfortable, I'm not afraid of, you know, being pulled over, you know, as I'm driving. I'm not afraid for my child in the world. You know, all of those things that are blind spots for some people. You can kind of sail on through life and through your work in being a leader, believe it or not, and not really be held accountable for a lot of these things. People deny that it's an urgent situation, but I see it as a really urgent situation, that the fact that, you know, the number of women and people of color at certain levels in companies--which I'm kind of obsessed with the mid-level, because the mid-level is where people--they're really tired of hanging on, like, white-knuckling it up the pipeline, trying to, you know, get supported, get promoted, get--you know, have somebody take an interest in them, have somebody run interference for them. You know, when you're undermentored and undersupported, and then you're underrepresented as well, and you look around, and you look up, and you don't see anyone that--you know, we say "you've got to see it to be it." You know, you get tired, and it's no wonder to me that the numbers and the representation of anyone who's not a straight white male have been kind of really flatlined, you know? And even the best and most progressive companies are really struggling to hold onto people, to raise them up to the level where I want to see them, right? Which is the executive level, because then they can make all--a whole world of difference, you know? An executive leader can, with one signature, you know, create a policy or address the pay gap, you know? They have so much power. Or hold a customer accountable, or take a stance on a political issue in social media. And so if people can't make up there, and we decide to bail out because it just proves too arduous and we're just, like, physically tired, and we're emotionally tired, and the compassion and fatigue and the emotional labor and all of it, being the spokesperson for an entire community. It becomes too much, and, you know, then we leave and we create our own businesses, which is a great solution, which was, you know, the thing I did. [both laugh] You know, 'cause I was like, "This is not gonna work for me." But that's a loss, because not everybody is set up to be an entrepreneur. You know, you need a lot of capital. You need--we talked about privilege. You know, you need certain things in place in order to make that work, and it's just not tenable for most people. So workplaces have to work for people, for all of us. So the future of work, you know, I get asked a lot about quotas and targets. I personally--I hesitate to say this, like, super publicly because companies are really twitchy about requirements and quotas, and you get a lot of pushback, but I'm honestly--I'm at a point where I feel like if people are left to their own devices change doesn't happen, and if change does happen it's slow and it's not widespread, and it's too slow to make a meaningful difference in the short amount of time we have to really see change.Zach: Absolutely.Jennifer: I mean, I think the house is on fire. [laughs] You know, I think economically people are falling behind. They're not getting promoted. They're therefore missing out on economic growth and opportunity and wealth, and, you know, I'm just not seeing it, when the world is changing so fast and companies are not keeping up with it. And so is the bottom line impacted? Is ROI measured? You know, we really--we have to have, like, an honest conversation about losing customers and clients and people leaving the organization, and companies have to wake up and say, you know, "If we don't do something really serious about this, we're gonna be sitting in the same exact place in 10 years." So, you know, I'm all for the more radical solutions. You know, I think--honestly, I think slates, interview slates, need to have a required number of women on them and a required number of people with diverse ethnicities. LGBTQ is tough because we don't disclose. So the companies I work with struggle with something called self-identification. We don't trust our companies--and this just speaks volumes--we don't trust our companies enough to check a box about who we really are, so we can't be counted. [laughs] So we--so, you know, there has to be, like, faith that we exist in organizations upwards of maybe 10% of the population, because we're only--on paper, we're only recorded at, like, 1%.Zach: Yeah, and that's just not accurate, right?Jennifer: No, it's not accurate, but we're doing that because we're terrified, you know? We're terrified of losing our job. We're just--even in the best companies. And that's true for people with disabilities too, but I think [some] companies have to [?], and I think they're gonna get pushed back. If they roll things out like this, they're gonna get a lot of pushback. People are gonna say, "I don't want to be forced to--" You know, "I believe in a meritocracy, and I want to hire the best person for the job, and you can't force me to hire a candidate that's less than," and my answer to that is if you did a good job of having enough of a pipeline of all kinds of talent, it wouldn't just be one candidate you're looking at and you're feeling like somebody, you know, is forcing you, holding your feet to the fire to hire them. You would have lots of choices. And so we've got to do a better job of filling that pipeline, keeping people in the pipeline, not letting them leave, and investing in them so that they feel they can thrive at a company long-term instead of wanting to bail out because they can't stand it out anymore, you know? That's just a sad commentary on workplace culture, but unfortunately I think it's the experience of tons of people that I talk to.Zach: The thing about it is the challenge with it is like--your earlier point around change, like, not--you know, that if left to its own devices will happen so incrementally, so small, that it won't be--it won't have--Jennifer: So slowly. It won't be meaningful. It won't even be big enough, yeah.Zach: And I think when you look at American history and you look at the history of civil rights in this country, it's really--I don't know if we have, like, a tangible example of truly radical sustained change from a culture perspective in this country. I think when you look across--especially when you look at, like, this current presidency, it's actually forced a lot of people to really, like, look at the history of race relations in America, especially if you want to examine, like, the past 55, 60 years, and you look at--and if you look at, like, the economic positioning of blacks today versus blacks in 1967, you know, you don't see the needle moving much at all. In fact, in a lot of areas you see the needle moving down. So it's interesting, so I 100% agree with you that there needs to be some genuinely radical--I'm gonna use the word again, radical--change in thought in terms of just what it's gonna look like, because--and we talked about this in another interview too. We talked about the future of work and we talked about the future of learning and education. You know, as the economy shifts and changes and more and more folks are not going to school, because school is going to continue to get more expensive and--like, all of that, it's gonna create a completely new environment that I don't know if we're really taking the time to really examine and consider. Jennifer: I know. We're still having the conversation with managers to say, "Hey, don't hire from the school you went to. That's bias." Zach: Right. [laughs]Jennifer: You know, literally that's where we are. But you're talking about, like, the 3.0, which is literally that people are not gonna have these traditional college degrees or any degree. They'll go to trade school or whatever it is. Like, they're gonna have completely non-traditional backgrounds. They will have been, you know, previously incarcerated. They will be, you know, of different statuses, and we have to figure out--like, workplaces need all the talent they can get, and yet they're completely behind in terms of how they seek that talent, where they look. People, like, throw their hands up so too easily, you know? They just say, "Oh, we just couldn't find anyone." [laughs] You know, it's just, like, endless, the stories I hear. And I don't know. It's laziness. It's--I don't even know. I mean, it depends on the day, like, how cynical I am about it all, but I don't know. [laughs] I just am like, "Really?" Like, if you really wanted to find people, they're there, and I--believe me, 'cause I'm on Twitter, and, like, Black Twitter is on fire. Like, you know, the number of angel investment groups, the number of VCs, the number of start-ups, the number of black girls who code. Like, there's such a great community to recruit from, and I just--I wonder, like, what is it--what is it that people aren't doing or won't do? Like, what is the hold up?Zach: Oh, no, 100%. You know what, Jennifer? I'ma say this. Hold on. You know what? You're a real one. I appreciate you. That's a really good call-out, 'cause you're absolutely right. Like, Black Twitter is poppin,', and, like, there's so much--there are so many pools, right, of talent for you to engage in. There's Black Code Collective, like, in D.C. Like, there's all types of stuff. Like, there are people--and, like, to your point around, like, how people are learning today, there are people who went to culinary school and then, like, are now learning how to code, and, like, they're good at it, right? There are communities now that will welcome you in for free. You will--you can learn, and you can genuinely understand and learn how to code. And so there's plenty of opportunity to deepen your pipeline, so yeah, that's a really good point. There are things that people either aren't doing or are choosing not to do, but the talent is definitely out there. You know, you talked about cynicism. I think that really leads to my next question. Like, can we take a step back and just talk about, like, D&I, or I&D, as an industry, right? Jennifer: Oh. [laughs]Zach: [laughs]Jennifer: Speaking of cynicism, I think I know where you're going with this. I'm ready to go there with you too, so I think I know. [both laugh]Zach: So there's a growing sentiment, right, that the largest voices who are advocating for diversity and inclusion in highly-visible or corporate/corporatized spaces are themselves members of the majority and, by relation, have some inherent blind spots within the subject matter that they espouse expertise in. Do you find any merit to that concern? And, like, what have you done to challenge your own blind spots? You spoke to this a little bit earlier, but I'd love for you to expound on that and if you have any other advice you would give to others.Jennifer: Hm, that is such an interesting observation. It's funny, because I could make the counter-argument that I think we're in a time--like, you ask any white diversity leader right now, and their credibility is questioned on a daily basis to be in the role they're in. Like, that is the truth. In fact, they get, like, threats.Zach: Really?Jennifer: Yeah. I've seen some people get some serious heat just for having the audacity of even having the position or accepting the position.Zach: Oh, wow.Jennifer: Yeah. So there's many stories, right, on all sides of this issue, and like I said, I think--I don't know if I said it earlier, but when you're a marginalized community, it also doesn't mean that you're a great leader on inclusion necessarily. Zach: That's true, yeah.Jennifer: Because I've seen plenty of--you know, like, we were talking about white gay men at Stonewall who were--you know, can be, like, very misogynistic, very racist, very--and so, you know, that can carry forward into a diversity leader role, but that doesn't mean that all of them are totally, you know, not effective practitioners, and it also doesn't mean because you're a person of color that you're an effective practitioner, right?Zach: That's right.Jennifer: So to me--and you respect this--it's a skill set, you know? It is a skill set, but it is also your identity, right? And it's how you deal with your identity in the world, and it's how you integrate those two things that makes you an effective voice. But also you've got to be an incredibly savvy change agent to have these roles. I mean, they're very difficult roles. They're some of the most complex roles that exist, I think, in business, because it's part influencing, it's part executive, you know, believability, credibility. It's passion. It's change agility. It is storytelling, right, and being, like--but incredibly data-oriented and, you know, convincing, and knowing the business so that you can make the business case, right? So you need to know the business you're in in order to make the argument for D&I, and you've got to be able to do all of those things. And by the way, you're probably part of a marginalized community, and you're dealing with all of the biases personally, like, that you're getting, at the same time as you're leading an entire institution, like, through this morass, you know? Through these really difficult, tense, and, you know, complex times. So it's really, like, one of the toughest roles, and I have so much respect--I worry about our practicioner community, both on the consulting side but really our internal--my internal clients, 'cause they're just--they're holding up, you know, this planet, you know, these giant organizations. Anyway, but to answer your question [of] "Who's allowed and who has permission to do this work?" It's a very good question. I mean, I've even questioned--you know, 'cause somebody hasn't dug into who I am and has judged me just based on what I look like, and that's okay. I mean, I would say, you know, it hurts me, but whatever. Like, that doesn't matter. It's most important, I think, for us not to judge each other, I think for us to look at the skill set objectively, but I do think the optics of people in these roles are important. You have to be, like, a really amazing, humble leader. Like, you have to be--you have to be really deep in the work, I think, to take on that role as a majority identity. If you're a--say you're a white guy. I don't know a lot of white straight guys in these roles. I do know white gay guys, and they--every day their privilege is pointed out to them. Every day. Nobody lets them forget, you know, that they are--that they have an enormous responsibility in that role and that, like, they have a lot of work to do. And if you talk to any of them--and I know some of my clients are of that identity, and it's a tough lift for them. I know some straight white women, and again, they are pretty enlightened people, and they're very humble, and they're very, like--they've been studying this for a long time. Some of them have sort of really personal relationships. I know a lot of gay white women actually in these roles, and they--and sometimes I know gay women of color in these roles, and they're amazing. I mean, amazing amazing. Like, and the intersectionality they can bring to it is deep, and I find--not to say, you know, certain combinations of identities are, like, more important, but to be able to speak to so many different identities in your workforce in a direct way, you know, there's kind of--that's a wonderful shortcut, to be able to do that and on top of that be, like, somebody who's, like, been in HR for 20 years, you know, and is super savvy about playing the politics and all of the other things you need for the role, but I would like to think that we can all--we all have a role to play, and some companies are more embracing of--I will tell you some inside baseball. Sometimes I get asked to send, you know, a white man to a consulting engagement, and--that is true, you know, and talk to anyone in the work that I do, and they'll tell you that's [?]. And we will push back. We will say, you know, "We're not sure that's the right answer," and "Let's talk about it," and, you know, sometimes strangely it is the right answer for certain groups who have been really, really recalcitrant and resistant, and the messenger matters sometimes more than the message. Like, certain people can be heard in certain ways, and we know this is true. So we--that's why we have such tremendous diversity on our consulting team, because we just--we have to get creative sometimes and make sure that we build a pairing, for example, that's gonna be in front of a room that maybe the client is really, really struggling to be heard in front of this business unit or this team or this, you know, office in a certain region in the country, and we'll need to switch it out. You know, we'll need to put a different voice in front of people to see, you know, and sadly the messenger is something that needs to be considered. And I wouldn't let it rest, and I wouldn't not challenge it, but I do think we--we've got to use every change tool in our arsenal, particularly with those who are really resistant and really stuck and I think experiencing a lot of bias per the messenger that they're hearing the message from. And it's funny. You know, I have to be really careful. I can't be the angry--I have to be careful to not be the angry woman and the angry gay person, and I can't imagine what it would be like delivering that truthful message that I do and also being a person of color, right? I'm very aware that I have a lot more latitude for my quote-unquote passion to come through, right, and to be--and not to have it seen as being threatening, you know? Zach: Absolutely. And, you know, your point around, like, changing up the messenger and mixing it up, it's really interesting because in the work that I have done, I have a similar strategy--and it's interesting, because I do that without even being asked. Like, I'll just be like, "Look, I know that for this I just need to have a really approachable white face to deliver this message," and they're partners for me in that. And honestly, Jennifer, I do that even just at work. Like, if I have a big meeting--Jennifer: Of course. [laughs]Zach: [laughs] If I have a big meeting or, like, you know, there's just something going on and it's like, "Okay, I really want to share this thing, but I know that if I say it, then it's gonna get an eye roll or it's not gonna be heard, so let me go ahead and mobilize this white woman or this white guy."Jennifer: Your allies.Zach: Yes, and then I'll have them say it, or I will let them know that I'm about to say it. Jennifer: I wish that weren't true.Zach: Say that again?Jennifer: I just wish it weren't true, like, that you have to do that, and to me that's, like, the extra tax that we pay. You know, that's extra labor. You have to literally not only have the brilliant idea, but you have to, like, strategize about who is, like, sitting next to you or, you know, backing you up when you have a brilliant idea, or who's gonna echo your--you know, women deal with this, and we all know this is, like, a fact of life. But I appreciate what you're bringing up, that it's a universal experience for so many of us, and it's just--if we look at it on the bright side--let's, like, look at it as a glass half-full, which I always do. [laughs] You know, I think this all makes us really savvy, like, very emotionally intelligent, right? Because as limited as our audience might be in terms of seeing us, doesn't this make us--it sort of sharpens our saw. I mean, I think when you have to think about "How am I gonna get this group over the finish line?" Like, how am I going to get them to listen to me, to believe in what I say and to give me the credibility when I'm walking in the room and I know what they're thinking about me?" You know, "How am I gonna do that?" And to me it's, like, a--you know, it's a brain twister, but it makes you be very creative. And by the way, I hope in enlisting those allies that they know why they're being enlisted and that it really raises their awareness [of] the permutations that so many of us go through in the workplace to be heard. You know, that's--I hope that they're noticing that. Like, that's a really important learning, to be approached by someone--to say, "Hey, would you have my [back?] in this meeting? I'm gonna bring this up," and, you know, to me that is, like, such a sad commentary, and at the same time it's such a demonstration of how far we have to go for people to be heard and the space that we have to learn to hold for each other. Like, we've got to do that--you know what? We need to do that without being asked. That's where I really want to get, right? So that if I'm in this meeting and I hear you bring up this brilliant idea, you don't even need to ask me to have your back. Like, I am gonna instinctively know if you're talked over or if somebody steals your idea or somebody poo-poos it that I'm gonna intervene, and I'm gonna know what's going on, and that to me, that would be sort of nirvana in the workplace, that those pre-conversations, that pre-planning that you just described doesn't even need to happen because everyone knows it's an issue and everyone's on guard for it. Like, can you imagine? Like, if we were all like, "Oh, no, no." You know, "She is not gonna be talked over," or "His idea is not going to be dismissed," you know? "And I'm gonna quote it, and I'm gonna bring the attention back to him and, you know, his idea." It's like the women in the Obama cabinet. I love that story, where they literally decided, like, that this was not gonna happen anymore, and they all banded together and made the plan.Zach: Yes, I loved that.Jennifer: And then they went into--I know. And then they went into the meeting, and they all, like, echoed each other's ideas and mentioned each other by name and made eye contact with other women in the room. So they sort of redirected everybody's attention. I'm still--believe it or not, if I go into a meeting with my male colleague, they will talk to him. Like, it still happens to me. Oh, yeah. And I'm a CEO, and he works for me, you know? [both laugh] So yeah, it's still a thing. And he's really good, because he'll, like, redirect back to me. Zach: "Um, actually, Ms. Brown, what do you think?" [laughs]Jennifer: Yes. Well, he'll say, "Well, as Jennifer always says," right? "As somebody who is an acknowledged expert." I love that. [laughs] But yeah, we need to do that [?], and that would be nirvana. So I really talk about that a lot in my book. Like, the emotional labor of having to ask for help, I really, really wish more of us would know that help is needed. Like, we would know the data. We would know the research. You know, for God's sake, like, read the McKenzie report on women that they do every year. Zach: Oh, it's so good.Jennifer: Yeah, it's so good, and you'll realize that women of color have different headwinds than white women. Just that, you know? And if you go into meetings and you see this dynamic and you have any level of privilege, any level of positional power where you're listened to in a different way, you need to activate that so that you change those numbers and those outcomes. Like, you must do that. And it's such a small thing. This takes two seconds. Like, that's the thing when people are like, "Ugh, inclusion takes so much time, and I'm so busy, and I don't know how--it competes with the business priorities, and I have a long list, and, like, I'm already strapped for time." All of that--I don't think this takes a lot of time. It just takes a moment of attention to [bias?] your own others, a quick conversation to check in with somebody, a request for feedback, a "Hey, you know, I wanted to follow up with you after that meeting." Like, "I really thought your idea was great. I want to support you. How can do I do more of that?" That, like, takes two seconds to say, and like you said earlier, it's so welcome. Like, I think that's the--people are like, "I don't know how to start that conversation." [laughs] It's like, "Most of these conversations are, like, a gift to so many people who are never asked these questions to begin with," right? So please approach me. Ask me how can you support me more differently. What could you say in a meeting? What could you say after a meeting to someone when I'm not around? You know, I think that's the other piece, right? Like, give feedback to people that look like you. Like, I always say, you know, "Men listen to other men in a very different way." And so, you know, if you've got the privilege of being listened to. You know, the messenger, not just the message, and you can take the burden off of my shoulders to have a hard conversation with somebody, to say, "Hey, that joke made me uncomfortable." Like, that's a very risky move for me to do, 'cause I--you know, that is drawing attention to my difference. I have no idea how that person is going to react. And so I really--as a woman, I really appreciate men who proactively are like, "What can I do to--" Really it's kind of protect you in a way, and it's not protect in a sort of damsel-in-distress kind of way. It is literally--like, it could be protecting an idea. It could be making sure you don't fall victim to politics in the office. It could be that I represent you when you're not in the room and I talk about how brilliant you are, you know? It's that kind of thing, because otherwise we're sort of hanging out in the wind. And one of the things I always say is diverse talent is undermentored and very undersponsored, which means that we're not--we literally aren't looked after, like, informally. We are not--like, somebody's not like, "Well, let me have that career conversation with her to make sure that she's up for that role, so that she has P&L experience, so that she's then positioned so she can get that promotion," because there's all of these, like, unspoken and unwritten rules that we're not privy to when you're not in the power structure. So I often task people I speak to, like, "Look at the people you mentor. Look at the people you sponsor. Do they look like you?" You know, if they do, and you are a certain demographic, like, you must remedy that. Like, you've got to be mentoring across difference, sponsoring across difference, and--by the way, it should be reverse mentoring as well. It should be mutual so that you're learning--to your point earlier, like, how are you getting your learning about cultural differences? It's in the context of these really, really important one-on-one relationships. So wherever you can power share, wherever you can be influenced or learn somebody's experience, as a senior executive, your biggest risk is that you're isolated from all of this, and therefore you're not an effective leader. You're not positioning yourself for the future. You're harming your company, because you're setting this vision every day, but you--there's so much you don't know. So, you know, I think that's a good wake-up call for people usually. And if that doesn't work, [laughs] I don't know. I give up.Zach: [laughs] I don't know.Jennifer: I'm like, "I've given you now two books to read." You know, 63 podcast episodes. You know? Come on. [laughs]Zach: [laughs] "What more do you want more from me?"Jennifer: What more do you need? It's writing on the wall. Wake up, you know? Get with--get on the train, you know, and be willing to make mistakes as we were talking about earlier, and, you know, even know how to do a good apology, 'cause, you know, I think there is a real art to a real apology. I think you said earlier [that] there's nothing worse than somebody who, like, says all the right things but, like, in this really authentic kind of faux, polished way.Zach: Yes. You know what? We're gonna have to have you back just to talk about the topic of apologizing [?]. Like, for real.Jennifer: Yeah, right? I love that apology. I mean, I love that topic. Sorry.Zach: No, no, you're good.Jennifer: But a good apology can make up for everything, and it's almost like a required skill set, particularly for those in the majority, because things are gonna happen. Like, you're gonna mess it up. You are. And so being comfortable with uncomfortable, comfortable with hard feedback, and, to me, not slinking away into the corner but saying, "Thank you so much for that, and I'm gonna try it again, and I'm gonna do it differently." Like, wouldn't that resilience be really neat to hear and see in our leaders?Zach: It would. It would be great, and I think--you know, believe it or not I'm actually a little bit encouraged coming out of this conversation. This has been really good.Jennifer: [laughs] Really?Zach: Yeah, I am.Jennifer: Oh, that's good, 'cause we talked about some cynical stuff. [laughs]Zach: We did, we did, but it was real though.Jennifer: Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's such a mixed bag, but like you said earlier, like, we're living in really interesting times of awakening, and you're right--like, I think ever since the 2016 election I would say is when so many people and so many companies were like, "Oh, my goodness," you know? MLK Jr., "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." One of my favorite quotes, but guess what? We have to bend the arc. Like, the arc, it ain't gonna bend itself.Zach: Right? It don't just bend by itself. Right. [laughs]Jennifer: Like, that's the thing. So to me we've got to take that and bend it, and I think what we've realized is it's not this destiny, you know? Things aren't gonna happen without--and they aren't gonna happen because of good intentions. They're not gonna happen because we have maybe progressive values. They're not gonna happen because "Oh, I'm a male leader and I have daughters, so therefore, like, I am an expert on gender equality." No. Zach: Right. [laughs]Jennifer: No. Like, you have to do something, and you have to do something publicly, consistently, constantly. I used an example in a book of Marc Benioff, who is the CEO of Salesforce, who discovered he had a huge pay gap and literally wrote a check for $3 million, like, right away and was like, "I'm gonna gross up pay for people, because I'm not gonna let this stand another day, then we're gonna do the harder work," right? Which is rooting out, like, why did this happen in the first place. And then as he's done this--he does it every year now--they've discovered, by the way, pay gap--not just gender but ethnicity pay gaps. Not surprising.Zach: Right.Jennifer: And then they've acquired so many 10s of companies that also had pay gaps as Salesforce acquired them, and they had to do a new audit, you know, and to look at their pay gaps and, you know, gross it up. So, you know, literally there are people that are--that are just being relentless on this, because under their watch they're not gonna let this persist. And so I do see a lot of courage amongst leaders, and that leaves me really hopeful. I wish I saw it more, and I wish I saw it more publicly. I think there's a lot of really interesting conversations going on with privately with lawyers and, you know, the board and, you know, sometimes I'm privy to those, and I'm really, really heartened by the interest I see in the C-Suite. I have to say, people are getting it, and I think their question now is "How do we change it?" And that's a much harder question to answer when you're dealing with a giant organization that does business all over the world and has to contend with laws in various parts of the world, and, you know, it's hard to know where to start, and I think that's where people are at, that they want to start, and that's a relief to me. I mean, it makes my job easier because I'm not fighting the "Why is this important?" battle all of the time.

Zach sits down with Michelle Gadsden-Williams, the managing director and North American inclusion & diversity lead at Accenture, to discuss her role at work and why inclusion is placed first in her job title. They also talk about her book, Climb, and how she sees organizations shifting in the next decade to be more inclusive to trans people.Read Michelle's full bio on AIT, and check out her book on Amazon! Connect with her on Twitter!Search open positions at Accenture.com!Check out Accenture's Inclusion and Diversity Index!Connect with Accenture on the following platforms: LinkedIn, Twitter, IG, Facebook, YouTubeTRANSCRIPTZach: What’s up, y’all? It’s Zach with Living Corporate, and I’m really excited to share something with y’all, okay? Now, I shared this last week, but just in case you missed it last week I’ma share it again. Living Corporate has partnered with Accenture to feature some of their most experienced North American black and brown managing directors and share their journeys, okay? My hope is you check out this and you peep the links in the show notes to learn more about each of them, including our next guest, Michelle Gadsden-Williams. Michelle Gadsden-Williams is the managing director [and] inclusion and diversity lead for North America at Accenture. Previously, she was the co-founder and chief operating officer of women’s empowerment initiatives and diverse entertainment investments, based in New York City. Michelle Gadsden-Williams has acquired a number of community service awards and accolades for her work as a diversity practitioner. More recently, she has been recognized as a 2015 Ebony Magazine Power 100 Honoree. Over the span of her career, Gadsden-Williams has been profiled in Black Enterprise Magazine, Diversity Inc., Diversity Executive, Ebony, Essence, Fortune, History Makers, Heart & Soul, Jet, New Vision—listen, y’all. Y’all get it, right? Okay, I’ma put the whole bio in the show notes. The point is Michelle has it going on. She’s killing it, okay? Beast. Straight up. [straight up sfx] And you know what? Also put one of those “owww”. [owww sfx] Like, this is crazy. I’m just so, so impressed. Her other notable tributes include being named the 2010 recipient of the Maya Way Award for Diversity Leadership by the incomparable Dr. Maya Angelou, receiving the 2008 recipient of the Harvard Black Men’s Forum Businesswoman of the Year Award, accepting the Rainbow Push Coalition’s Bridge Builder Award by the honorable Rev Jesse L. Jackson, and being recognized with an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters Degree from Kean University for her outstanding personal and professional accomplishments in the field of diversity and inclusion. In 2013, Gadsden-Williams was appointed as a member of the Global Advisory Council on Gender Parity for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Y’all… do y’all understand—like, come on. Give me the air horns right here. [air horns sfx] Like, this is incredible. I am just impressed. I mean, look, man, I’m over here—we grindin’. Like, like, like… [what more do you want from me?] Look, with that being said, the next thing you’re gonna hear is my interview with Michelle Gadsden-Williams. Check it out.Zach: Michelle, welcome to the show. How are you doing?Michelle: I am doing very well. How are you?Zach: [applause sfx] Doing really well, really excited to have you on the show. For those of us who don't know you, would you mind sharing a little bit about yourself?Michelle: Sure. My name is Michelle Gadsden-Williams, and I am the managing director and lead for inclusion and diversity in North America with Accenture and the author of the award-winning book "Climb."Zach: Come on, now. [both laugh] Now--I love it. I love it from the jump. We'll be talking about Climb--we're gonna get there a little bit later in this conversation. Let's talk a little bit about the first thing you said, about the fact that you're the North American lead for I&D. And your title is I&D and not D&I. Can we talk a little bit about why inclusion has been placed firstMichelle: And this is a phenomena that's been happening, I'd say, over the past few years, where a lot of organization and diversity practitioners are starting to think of this notion of diversity as being--being a standalone entity is no longer enough, that inclusion is extremely paramount as having a culture of inclusion. So diversity is the invitation to the party, and inclusion is being asked to dance, as we say. So in my view, I&D is an essential component of everything that Accenture does, and we aim to be the most inclusive organization in the world, and so we recognize that inclusion and diversity foster greater creativity and innovation. So that's one of the reasons why we've decided to reverse it and have big I and big D.Zach: I love it, I love it. You know, and it's interesting, because a piece from Take the Lead, where you were featured, starts like this. It says, quote, "When Michelle Gadsden-Williams started working in human resources in 1990, the mission in her field was called affirmative action." And, I mean, that's really interesting, right? 'Cause we talked a little bit before we started the show--we talked a little bit about your tenure, right, and the breadth and depth of your experience, and, you know--so you started in 1990. Despite it being almost 2020, there are still folks who believe I&D efforts are some version of affirmative action. So, like, how do you, as an executive leader, navigate the fears and frustrations of those who look at I&D as a zero-sum game?Michelle: Yeah, that's an interesting question, and I'm going to go back to a piece of research that Accenture conducted a short time ago. And one of the things that we've done, earlier this year, is to take a step back and think about, you know, what is this impact of I&D in the workplace, and so we conducted a survey of about 18,000 employees of companies around the world, and we asked two very important questions, one of which was "How inclusive is your culture?" The other was "How willing are you to innovate?" And so while diversity factors very much into--and has a significant impact on--the innovation mindset, a culture of equality is the multiplier, and that's what's really going to help companies maximize innovation. So when I started doing this work many years ago, and actually it was just before 1990--yes, it was called affirmative action, and the strategy was really more about "So how many individuals of difference do you have?" So it was basically a headcount exercise. It had nothing to do with culture. It had nothing to do with inclusion. It had nothing to do about what we're talking about today. So fast forward to current day. This notion of inclusion and diversity has evolved, and now many organizations are really starting to see the true power of what this work represents, that it's not just about counting heads. It's about making those heads count and ensuring that every single individual, regardless of their difference, has an opportunity to realize their potential, realize their ambition, have a seat at the table, and to reach their career aspiration, whatever that may be.Zach: That's a really powerful point, because--it's interesting. I've been having conversations with folks who talk about inclusion, and I've asked individuals and leaders of organizations, like, "Look, how do you actually define inclusion?" And people will say, "Well, making sure everybody feels included." And I was like, "Okay..." [both laugh]Michelle: Well, that's interesting.Zach: And I'm like, "Okay..." But what I think is paramount when we talk about inclusion is the fact that inclusion from my perspective--and this may sound--maybe I'm framing it radically, but there's some type of distribution of power, right, to individuals so that they actually have a true voice. Like, I don't--I don't see a voice at the table absent some level of authority or power. And so when you talk about, like, career development and making sure that they're growing and that folks are progressing and things of that nature, what I'm hearing is--and I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, so help me, keep me honest--what I'm hearing is is that part of that inclusion definition also comes with some level of--if it's, like, promotion or positioning them, positioning folks, so their voice can actually be heard in ways that make sense, right? It's not just about, you know, nodding and smiling, but making sure that they're actually empowered.Michelle: That's exactly right. We all--like, we're all sitting around a table, that it's allowing individuals the place and the space to allow their perspective or their point of view to be voiced. So we all have a responsibility to ensure that that happens, whether or not people recognize that or not. I believe that's what true inclusion is all about, ensuring that people who have a seat at that table, they believe that they matter, that their perspectives and opinions and points of view--that they matter.Zach: No, I love that. I love that, and it's so--I really do believe--and I recognize your point in that where Accenture is in their journey, in their I&D journey, but I would challenge that--as I've had multiple conversations with other leaders, HR practitioners, other folks who ascribe themselves as I&D leaders or D&I leaders--that definition of inclusion, it always falls a little bit short to me. And maybe my bar is a little too high, but I'm like, "Okay, at what point are we actually empowering these folks who have been historically disenfranchised and under-represented in these spaces with actual power and, like, authority, so that they can actually, to your point, have the space and the breadth at the table to speak and actually actualize something?"Michelle: Exactly. And I think to your point, organizations are just simply not seeing inclusion as the right thing to do anymore. It just makes all the sense in the world, especially when you're talking about creating a culture of equity and empowerment where every voice counts and all of those kinds of things. This is the action that's behind all of that.Zach: Absolutely. And speaking of action, this year marks the 50th anniversary of Pride, and our workplaces are increasingly diverse, and in that diversity, trans individuals are working in the corporate space at larger numbers than ever before, along with black and brown professionals and, of course, intersect--we can't ignore the reality of intersectionality, that we have black and brown trans professionals also in the workplace. And so how do you see organizations shifting in the next decade to be more inclusive to trans individuals, particularly trans women of color?Michelle: I believe it all goes back to culture first and for organizations to look at building cultures where every single individual feels included and where they can bring their whole selves to work. Things like the Pride celebration--we had a week-long celebration here in New York, which was amazing, and I'm still recovering from all of the celebrations--Zach: Yeah! I had some friends out there.Michelle: Exactly. I just think that it's really about focusing on the individual, their needs and wants and desires, and a lot of us have very different lived experiences outside of the workplace, and a lot of societal burdens, we bring those things into the workplace unfortunately. And so when we talk about inclusion, when we talk about intersectionality and all of those things, none of this works unless the culture is such that it encourages and fosters an environment where authenticity, where being your true, authentic self in ways that invites others to be curious about your lived experience, all of this helps an individual to be a lot more innovative, productive. They will, by nature, feel included. I just think that all of this resonates, and all of this will ensure that, you know, individuals, they will feel truly valued for their differences and to be--and feel free to be exactly who they are, that they're not just there to check a box and that they're empowered to contribute in many ways. So I just think that the underpin of all of this is around culture. It's around innovation mindset. It's about the appreciation of the differences that we all bring to the table and the understanding and awareness that we all don't experience the world, our workplaces, in the same way, and that's what intersectionality is all about.Zach: 100%. You're spot on, Michelle. It's interesting, because what your point reminds me of--we just had a conversation with Tamara, the MD out of Austin--Michelle: Oh, Tamara Fields? Yes.Zach: That's right, Tamara Fields.Michelle: [?] a friend of mine, yes.Zach: Yes, and we were talking to Tamara about the reality of emotional labor. Like, there's a level of emotional labor involved in just existing as a non-white person in a majority-white space, right? So, you know, you see something in the news--like, because we were talking about seeing whatever atrocity you want to choose from--and not to sound flippant or dismissive, but if you're looking at the border crisis or you're looking at a police shooting or whatever the case may be, absorbing that type of content and then coming into a space that is uniquely alien to you can be exhausting. And to your whole point around, like, culture, what I'm reading--and I'm not saying you're saying this. What I read that as is that organizations will--organizational culture will change as the majority allows it to change, right? Meaning that if the majority of a space are adaptive to a particular culture, then the organization will shift, but if there is collective push-back against whatever the initiative may be, then things will slow down, right? And I think we see that, not just at a macro level--or at a micro level in our working perspective, but we also see it, like--we've seen it in the history of America, and so I think that really leads me to ask, like, when you think about--when you talk about culture and culture shifting, what advice or--what are things that you've seen executives do, organizational executives do, to facilitate cultural change for more inclusive workplaces?Michelle: Well, I think there are several things that leaders must do, the first of which is they have to make I&D, inclusion and diversity, a priority. There needs to be established diversity objectives and priorities, equal pay, advancement goals. Like, all of that needs to be established in order to shift the culture to the desired state. The second thing I would say is making leaders accountable, holding individuals' feet to the fire, and we have to track progress and really have some tangible consequences where if a leader does not--is not on board, then there needs to be some sort of--and maybe it's not a consequence. Maybe that is a strong word, but there needs to be some accountability in terms of ensuring that diversity and inclusion is priority #1 if we are to create the ideal culture that we're talking about here. I also think encouraging risk taking and ensuring that employees know that they have the freedom to experiment, to ideate, to innovate, and that's what helps us all learn and grow as professionals. So I just think all of these things will help us get to that ideal state and also create a culture--you talked about the freedom to fail. I think all of this helps in that regard.Zach: No, you're absolutely right, you're absolutely right. So, you know, earlier this season we had Chris Moreland. Chris Moreland is the chief inclusion officer at Vizient, and he was on the show. He talked a bit about covering and the actions that non-majority folks in the corporate space participate in to feel safe. I think the concept of covering--I know that you're fairly, if not deeply, familiar with it, as it's been--it's a fairly established concept. We see it in a lot of whitepapers from McKinsey to Deloitte. I believe Accenture's even talked about the concept of covering within the topic of D*I or I&D. What are some of the key covering activities you believe non-majority members commit in the workplace?Michelle: Let's see--okay, so say that again. So what are some of the--Zach: What are some of the key covering activities--what are some of the key ways that you see black and brown folks covering themselves in the workplace?Michelle: Oh. I would say things like not being active or involved in workplace activities like employee resource groups and things that can be perceived as polarizing. Sometimes people of color tend to opt out of things that might look or--at least from their perception--might look [like it's] nonsensical. So for example, I'm sure you're familiar with the employee resource groups or business resource groups depending upon which company you work for, and I've had individuals not engaged because they're like, "I don't need to be a part of that. I would much rather spend my time being part of the majority population." So that's a form of covering. I've worked with Hispanic colleagues who will change their name so that it's more Anglo-Saxon-sounding versus Latino-sounding. So for example, I worked with a gentleman named Juan Guzman, and he changed his name to John Guzman, because in his view it sounded less ethnic. That's a form of covering. So, you know, the list can go on and on, but I just think that when people cover--I don't think it serves anyone well. I don't believe in pretending. I don't believe in being something that you're not. You are who you are. Be proud of who you are. We are all individuals that have a gift and talent to bring to the table, regardless of what youre last name is, regardless of if you're wearing natural hair, regardless of if you are--if you have a thick accent and you're trying to get rid of that. I just think that the more in which these environments that we're working in are receptive and appreciative of the differences that we all bring, the better off we all are and the more productive we will be.Zach: No, absolutely. I love it, I love it. And it's interesting too because I think--so I was having a conversation with--I was having a conversation, just about some strategy pieces, with a colleague, and we were talking about "How do you determine, like, the members of your D&I space?" And the conversation was around "Well, we've got to make sure they actually go to events, right? They need to go to events." And I was like--and I was trying to explain to them. I said, "Look, I would not boot people out of a group, of an ERG or whatever you call it, right, in your respective organization--I would not boot them out of something because they don't physically attend an event." I said, "Some folks genuinely don't feel safe," right?Michelle: Right. That's true. And sometimes we just have to meet people where they are, right? Because everyone is not going to be on the I&D train, majority or not. So I just think sometimes you have to meet people where they are, explain to them what the benefits are of being part of these what I think are extremely beneficial infrastructures and organizations. It's support systems. It's infrastructures. It's, you know, an informal network of individuals who look like you, and you can talk about things that are unique and specific to your lived experience. So I think the more of which we can educate the non-majority members who don't feel safe being a part of these infrastructures--we just need to continue to work on them, but some people are not gonna get on board. I mean, at the end of the day, everyone is not going to be on the I&D train.Zach: No, 100%, and, like, I think the thing is--like, my point is I've been to some--so even when I worked at Accenture, right, like, there were happy hours and things, and the events--the events were great and people showed up and things like that, but I didn't always just--maybe I had a long day, maybe I felt like it was gonna be something else I was gonna have to kind of perform at. Maybe I was just nervous. Who knows whatever reason? That doesn't mean that I didn't want to be included in the group. It's just that that is not, at that point in time, something I felt like I had the emotional bandwidth to engage in. That doesn't mean that I might still not want to talk to somebody in that group or read whatever emails y'all send out. I just--it's different, and I think it's that--I think it's really considering that--especially when you have folks who are not black or brown or whatever that, you know, depending on that diversity dimension, overseeing the group. Like, sometimes there can just be some gaps because you just have genuine blind spots, right? And just understanding, like, "Hey, this is a different space," right? You know, this is not a technology implementation where you're coming to learn about the project or coming to learn about how this software, this SAP implementation, impacts your job. This is a space that's really meant to foster empathy, authenticity, and trust, and that's a different--to me a different level of measurement, right? And you can't just be so, you know, binary with it.Michelle: Yep, fully agree.Zach: [laughs] Okay, so let's do this. Now, you already kinda--you already kinda let a little bit of the dip on the chip, but can we talk about your book Climb? I'd love to hear about the inspiration behind it and why it should be something that professionals of color--and just really anybody, frankly--should have on their reading list.Michelle: Absolutely. So the inspiration behind the book was--I've always had the intention at some point in time in my career to write a book, and it wasn't until I was at Newark Airport in the United Airlines club lounge and a young woman walked up to me and she said, "Are you Michelle Gadsden-Williams?" And I said yes, and she said, "We used to work together many years ago at Novartis, and I've followed your career and all of the wonderful things that you've done. You know, have you ever thought about writing a book like Sheryl Sandberg or Carly Fiorina or Carla Harris at Morgan Stanley?" And I said, "Yes, but I just didn't have the time to do it." And she said, "You know, you should really make the time to do it, because you have an exceptional story to tell." So it wasn't until that young woman gave me that nugget, that idea to really take the time to do it, that's when I really thought seriously about putting pen to paper and telling my story. And so the act of climbing has been defined as the act of rising, to ascend, to go upward with gradual or continuous progress, and it's a term that I've used to describe my career over the years as a woman, as a woman of color, and as a diversity practitioner, and as you and I were talking about earlier, there's some individuals who have an easy go of it and can take the proverbial elevator up to the C-Suite, and then others not so much. They have to take the stairs with a backpack and no air conditioning. There's no smooth ride to the top for any of us, and so no matter how you ascend there is a journey that we each experience which, you know, ebbs and flows and it twists and turns, but with every step you get that much closer to achieving your highest aspiration, your North Star, whatever that might be. So my book Climb speaks volumes about my professional journey, and one of the things that I'm extremely passionate about--and this hasn't changed over the years--is helping people of color to maximize their full potential in corporate America, no matter where they are, no matter what profession or industry they're in or wherever they're employed. I've used myself as the subject, the protagonist, to candidly describe my jorney, and that would be the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything else in-between. And what I wanted to do was to focus on tackling some of today's most pressing workplace issues that people of color typically run into, but more importantly I wanted to offer some pragmatic solutions. So that's why I decided to write the book. It's my version of "Lean In" through my lens, the lens of a woman of color.Zach: I love that. So you talked about some of the challenges--and again, I'm not asking you to give the sauce away for free, right, but when you talk about some of the most common challenges that you're seeing black and brown folks face in the workplace, like, can you give us an example of one of those challenges?Michelle: Oh, sure. You know, working twice--being twice as smart, twice as good, but getting half as far. You know, that's the old adage that most of us, at least those of us of color, we've heard that growing up in our households. You know, this is not, you know, just jargon that we hear on television. It's our lived reality. And so, you know, the bar is simply at a higher level for those of us of color, and most of us know that.[straight up sfx]Zach: No, you're absolutely right.Michelle: Exactly, and most people of color are over-mentored and under-sponsored.Zach: Hold on. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa. [record scratch sfx] Say that again.Michelle: Most people of color are over-mentored and under-sponsored.Zach: We gotta break that down. Unpack that.Michelle: We can have mentors all day long, people to show us the lay of the land and how to navigate and all of those things. We don't need that. We have a lot of that. We have plenty of that. We need individuals who are going to have a seat at the table, who are gonna be our advocates and champions and our, you know, sports agents sitting at that table, negotiating for us, putting our names up for promotion and for those stretch assignments where it counts. That's what we need.Zach: That is--that is so true. I've never heard it framed that way, but you're 100% right, because frankly I do believe--and in my work experience this has been the case, right? So this was the case when I was at Accenture. It was the case when I went to Capgemini as well and as I've progressed onto my current firm. There are black and brown folks around me--there are minorities around me who would show me how to do something, right, or give me the real from time to time. I was blessed with that, but what I didn't always have--and I had it more than others, to be clear. ['Cause] I have gotten promoted. Like, I've been able to progress in my career a few times, but the people fighting for me, right, the people who are really advocating for me in the same way or just even in a percentage of the way that they may advocate for someone who doesn't look like me who's doing half as much as I'm doing, right? And that's just a really good point. And it's so interesting, because when I talk to--when I talk to black and brown folks, particularly black women, the conversation often comes with a point of like, "Look, I'm working this hard, and I'm doing--I'm going above and beyond every day, and the response when I'm doing all this work is "Well, that's what you're supposed to do," but then if someone who doesn't look like me is doing, like, half of that--" To the point you talked about earlier, the old adage, which is based on history and reality. They do half of what I'm doing. They're getting their praises sung from the highest rafters, right?Michelle: Exactly. And so I think most of us who have been working in corporate spaces and places, we just understand that there's just more scrutiny on our performance, and a lot of this can lead to, you know, just lower performance, you know? Our self-esteem goes down. You know, lower ratings, lower wages, and sometimes job loss, because you're just not happy. So I just say all of this to say that yeah, the bar is simply at a different level for mostly women, but moreover [more] people of color.Zach: And you know what? So that last little point of distinction you made--and I promise I'm not trying to keep you forever, but it reminds me about the fact that you also--in the book you talk about intersectionality, and I feel like that point you just made just now was kind of an example of that. Could you unpack why you broke that out and you said "women," then you paused and you said, "Well, people of color."? Like, what was the--what caused that pause?Michelle: Well, that was just in my research for the book. Women and/or people of color, we do have similar challenges. Not quite the same, and this intersectionality that we're talking about--and this is such a topic that I have a lot of passion around, you know? I was just having a conversation with a majority female colleague of mine yesterday who just happens to be a peer, and she said to me, you know, "Michelle, we as women, we have the same challenges and we have the same barriers, don't you think?" And I had to pause for a second, and I looked at her--and I can't play poker, so I probably gave her, you know, a "Are you crazy?" kind of look. You know, as a woman and as a woman of color, my lived experience is vastly different than yours. So basically [what I said] to her is that, you know, "When I stand in my drive-way in Somerset County, New Jersey--that's not diverse at all and one of the most affluent counties in the state--but I'm standing in my drive-way and I'm holding my neighbor's child, who happens to be of the majority population, and the FedEx guy pulls up and wants to deliver a package to my home, that he automatically assumes that I'm the help and that she owns the house." You know, how often does that happen to you, colleague? How often is it when I walk into an elevator that the purse clutch scenario happens? And it happens to men of color too. So I could break it down for you in a lot of different ways, but, you know, my lived experience as a woman and as a woman of color, there's the double bind. So it's an interesting dichotomy, but it's real.Zach: [Flex bomb sfx] It is an interesting dichotomy, but it is real. Absolutely, and that's why I had to give you the Flex bomb, 'cause you're dropping straight facts. [both laugh] Okay. So look, this has been a great conversation. I'm honored and just very excited about the fact that you're here and that you joined us today. Before we go, any parting words or shout-outs?Michelle: Oh. This has been a terrific conversation, so I thank you for inviting me to be a guest on your podcast. Any parting words? You know, one of the things that my father would say to my two sisters and I growing up is, you know, "You are not here on this earth to take up space. You're here to make a difference, and it's up to you to determine what that difference is. All that I've given you is the tools, the education, and the rest is up to you." So all I will say to your listeners is you have to figure out what your passion is, what your purpose is, and determining how you plan to exert your power. You know, what are some of the kinds of things that give you fulfillment? You know, what feels natural to you? What qualities or attributes do you enjoy expressing to the world? And then just go for it. Anything is possible. Anything is. We just need sponsors, mentors, and others, other allies, who are gonna help us get to that next level. And if there's anyone out there who thinks that they can do it alone, I believe that they're sadly mistaken.Zach: And that's absolutely right, 'cause if you think--if you really think that in this space, as a black or brown person, that you're gonna navigate these historically-white spaces by yourself? Hey, I'm looking at you--Michelle: Exactly. I mean, we're working in institutions that weren't historically built for us.Zach: Absolutely.Michelle: We were not welcome, so therefore we have to be twice as good, twice as smart, Ivy League-educated or whatever the case is. We know that we need to do alllll the extras in order to get to where we want to be.Zach: No doubt. And I was just trying to say that if you really think you can do it by yourself, I'm looking at you like [haha sfx].Michelle: Exactly. Exactly.Zach: Well, Michelle, I just want to thank you again, you know? At some point in the episode we typically drop some Jamaican air horns, because--[Michelle laughs, Zach laughs] Out of thanks or out of exuberance, and I'm just gonna say I'm gonna drop these out of thankful exuberance right here... [air horns sfx] because this has been a dope, dope episode, and I look forward to having you back. Thank you so much.Michelle: Absolutely. I look forward to coming back and wishing you all of the success in the world.Zach: Thank you. Peace.Michelle: Peace.

Zach sits down with Nigel Stephens, the director of government relations for Accenture Federal Services, to discuss the mixing of politics and work. Nigel breaks down the real definitions of economics and politics and details his role as the primary liaison with members of Congress and policy makers for AFS.Connect with SCORE on the following platforms: LinkedIn, Twitter, IG, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, iTunesSearch open positions at Accenture.com!Check out Accenture's Inclusion and Diversity Index!Connect with Accenture Federal Services on the following platforms: LinkedIn, TwitterConnect with Accenture on the following platforms: LinkedIn, Twitter, IG, Facebook, YouTubeTRANSCRIPTZach: Nigel, welcome to the show. How are you doing?Nigel: I am doing well. Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate the invitation.Zach: I appreciate you being here. For those of us who don't know you, would you mind sharing a little bit about yourself?Nigel: Well, I'm a bit of a local in the Washington, D.C. area. I was actually born in Jamaica, but my family came here in the '80s. I grew up in Maryland and still reside in Maryland. I'm in Prince George’s County. I've been involved in political campaigns since I was a child. My parents were very active in the community. My mother was a teacher at Montgomery College for decades, and my dad was an entrepreneur. He was an accountant and ran his business out of our basement for a number of years. So he was very active in the community, and that was just a part of my upbringing. So part of this discussion about being in government relations, I've been in government or government relations as a professional for over 20 years.Zach: Wow.Nigel: Yeah, and I--you know, I love politics, and I love the role of government as it plays a role in everyone's life. The negotiations--there's an old saying--the negotiations of and maneuvering of politics dictates almost every aspect of your life, whether you like it or not, from the safety and quality of the food you eat and the air you breathe to the education you receive, to whether or not your favorite sports team gets the stadium or not, you know? Negotiations in politics controls all of that. It determines all of that. When I was a senior in high school, I was blessed enough to get an internship with Senator Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts, the Lion of the Senate, and it was there that I really got an education and learned the real definition of the terms "economics" and "politics," right? Economics is the distribution of scarce resources, and politics is simply the method by which we determine who gets what, when, and how. So once learning that I fell in love with the place, and I have never left Capitol Hill since. I've worked in it, on it, or related to it every way I possibly could since that time.Zach: And you know what? It's that profile, Nigel, why we're so excited to talk to you today, 'cause as you know, we're talking about politics at work, and I'm excited to talk to you today because in a large sense, I mean, really, politics is your work. Can you talk a little bit about your role as Accenture's primary liaison with members of Congress and policy makers? Like, what does that--what does that mean?Nigel: For me, I lead Accenture Federal Services' government relations team. So I am an advocate for all of the work that we do for the federal government as a client. I really like that, 'cause it's my way of giving back while still having a professional career. I mean, when I'm doing--when I'm having conversations with new joiners, I really try to get them to keep things in perspective of what they do, whether you're a technologist, you're a coder, you're a strategist, whatever it is. What is the big picture of what you're doing? I mean, we provide services to clients and help individuals get their student loans processed. Healthcare. You know, all of those types of meaningful things that make a real difference in real people's lives, and my direct role in government relations really falls into four categories. Strategic advisor, facilitator, translator, and educator. So I provide the strategic advice based on what's happening with authorizations and appropriations and funding of programs to my business team so they can provide better service to their clients. A facilitator to try to promote communication and coordination between the private sector and industry and the government. As a translator, I--so I'm not a lawyer. I went to business school, so I was trained in--I went and got an MBA, so I was trained in that. Communicating and translating the thoughts and intents of business to the government, to legislators, and vice versa, and then finally is educator. There's a lot of--any given day, members and their staff are dealing with hundreds of different issues, and they can't be subject matter experts in every single one. So part of my responsibility--I think the largest part of my responsibility is really serving as an educator to those on the Hill about what the art of the possible is, about what's happening in the private sector, about what industry is doing, about what new things are happening in technology and how that innovation can really help them meet their real core goal, which is providing service to citizens.Zach: Nigel, now, you know what I love? Is that you out here just--you casually, casually dropping bombs, right? Right? Like, I got to give you the [Flex bomb sfx]. I got to give you the Flex bomb. It's crazy. I mean, my goodness gracious. Okay, that's dope.Nigel: Did you for real just drop the Funkmaster Flex bomb?Zach: I did. I got a whole soundboard over here, man. I be like [haha sfx], you know? Nigel: [?] You're doing it.Zach: I got all kinds of stuff over here, man, but look, I really appreciate the answer. It leads me to the next question. Now, has there ever been a situation where your own life experience has shaped how you approach a policy discussion? Like, how do you decide when and where you, you know, flex and let people know, "Hey, actually, I know what I'm talking about," versus where you decide to kind of lean back and let things play a little bit.Nigel: Take it to a bigger picture. It's not so much on a specific policy area, but for my life experience, I think the lesson would be to be vigilant about building your skills and have confidence in your abilities. When I was starting out my career, there were your veteran rock star African-American lobbyists, right? Your Vernon Jordans. Your Toni Cook Bushs. Your Ben Johnsons. They were another upper echelon of influence, but there weren't that many at just the general corporate level, right? Even more, there wasn't really a clear path to where I wanted to go, which is at that corporate level. So I had to really build a diverse set of skills. You know, whether it be political management, financial management, an MBA, where do I get the diverse skills that I'm going to need to piece together to be effective in the role that I want to get to, and then have confidence that I'm building the capabilities to bring my best self to the table? Now, applying that to the policy realm, you know, Accenture's about technology and innovation, right? How is tech being used and how can it be leveraged in the federal government, and how can those best practices in the commercial sector be applied in the federal government to help them bring those services to citizens more effectively? And then even more, in our current atmosphere, at a cheaper price. Now, in government they may not always see the vision, right? They may not be on the tip of the spear of innovation, and unfortunately sometimes inertia and, you know, "We've always done it this way," "This is the safest way of doing it," can be the worst enemy to progress, regardless of how much that progress is needed or regardless of the benefits that could occur, right? But we have to be vigilant as policy makers and as a company trying to provide services to the policy makers. You've got to be vigilant about building those skills and capabilities. You know, what's that new--is it AI? Automation? Machine learning? Is it migrating things to the cloud? Is it ERP systems? What are those innovative things that are happening in the commercial sector? Building those skills and capabilities, and then also being confident in that what we're offering to the client is in the best interest of the client.Zach: Man, I love that. And, you know, again, it's almost like--it's almost like, you know, you've been doing this for two decades, Nigel. [both laugh] I would imagine that your role demands a certain level of intellectual [?]. You have to know what you're talking about when you're coming in and you're advocating for the services that Accenture provides, but also at the same time a certain level of emotional and social intelligence in actually--in how you actually engage those topics with your audience. Can you talk a little bit about the role that emotional and social intelligence play practically in your role day-to-day?Nigel: Yeah. There's always the requirement of learning, lifelong learning. You've got to be committed to it, right? I was telling some colleagues the other day that my kitchen table is covered with books that I never felt my kitchen table would be covered with, about AI and coding and automation and those kinds of things, because I have to really understand the subject matter even though we have subject matter experts that will be exponentially smarter in these things than I ever will be, right? They live it, but for me with the emotional and the social intelligence, you know, as a lobbyist, I always try to keep in mind that elected officials and their staff are always primarily focused on outcomes. They're always focused on meeting the needs of the real people that they represent, right? We may not agree on all of the politics, we may not agree on all of the policy, but I have to keep in mind that your whole purpose of being there, working these long hours for the pay that you get, is because you care about the constituents that you're representing and you're really trying to make a difference for them. So keeping that awareness is, you know, essentially keeping things in perspective, even during the most heated policy debate, right? And then essentially a part of my job is--the main requirement is to pay attention to the nuances of government, you know, and the people in the government, and you can't fake that, right? It's not what you necessarily see on television every day, right? That's the upfront, you know, constant barrage of social media and the 24-hour news cycle. There's a lot of nuance [in] those individuals, what they're working on, what they're passionate about, and how you're gonna play a role in all of that, and you really have to pay attention to that.Zach: Expand a little bit about that. When you say, like, the upfront, like, what do you mean by that?Nigel: Well, there's the stuff that you--that professionals report on, right? That's the high-level news that you see, but at any given time when I walk into an office, a member or a staffer is dealing with a number of different personal and professional issues. You have to look at a staffer--when I was on the House side I was working for a congressman from Maryland, Congressman Albert Wynn. My portfolio included environment, health care, education, transportation, small business, and telecommunications, and I was also the staffer for the Minority Business Task Force for the Congressional Black Caucus. Now, at any given time, I was dealing with issues from, you know, building roads on one side, and then that meeting would end, and I would quickly have to transfer over to satellite communication technology, right? That discussion--you have to keep in mind that these are human beings that are working long hours and that their minds are focused on all of these different things, so having that type of--that emotional intelligence for the challenge that they're facing every single day allows you to approach the conversation in a certain way so it's the most effective use of their time and yours and you can actually make a difference.Zach: Nigel, you're a political relationship subject matter expert, so you know the difference between good and bad, quote unquote, politics, right? Can you give us some examples? And I kind of want to--I want to really take your insight and experience in Capitol Hill and talk about office politics a little bit, 'cause I know you've seen it. You've seen it all, right? 'Cause you don't just--you don't just live in Capitol Hill, you also have to go into the office, you have to--you know what I'm saying? Like, you flex between a variety of different environments, right? So can you give us some examples of, like, tacky office politics and things that all employees, but especially employees of color, should avoid?Nigel: Okay. Well, there's an old adage in government relations and lobbying that "there are no permanent friends or permanent enemies, only permanent interests." And instead of "enemies," "permanent opponents, only permanent interests." And you also have to keep in mind "What is your permanent interest, and does getting involved in petty office politics help your movement towards your interest, or is it creating unnecessary risk?" Right? The shorter version of that is "Keep your eyes on the prize." I would strongly recommend--my personal opinion is don't get involved with that, office politics, because the deck chairs are always gonna shift, right? The only consistent thing in life and in business is change, so there are always gonna be people spending a disproportionate amount of their time worrying about those types of things. I try my best to avoid it. I recommend that people try their best to avoid it. Maintain positive and, even more so, positive and strategic relationships, and focus on delivering your best every single day. You do that and then, you know, the other stuff will play itself out, and often times, you know, you're in a steady state, you will find that you will actually progress moving forward in a straight line, in a linear fashion, versus, you know, losing your focus and getting engaged in other things that aren't gonna help you.Zach: So let's shift gears a little bit. You know, you serve on the board of directors of SCORE, a non-profit organization and national partner to the U.S. Small Business Administration dedicated to entrepreneur education and the formation, growth, and success of small business nationwide. What was your reason for engaging in this space? And at the board level, right? There's plenty of things that you could be doing, Nigel, with your time and with your various talents. What was it about this space that got your attention and your passion? Nigel: Well, I have a long history with small business. As I mentioned before, you know, my dad ran his business out of our basement for years, right? So I've seen--I've got a number of family members that are entrepreneurs and small business owners, and so I've witnessed first-hand the impact small businesses have, not only on a household but on a community in general, right? The positive impact that that can have. I said before, when I was on the Hill, on the House side, the first time I was the staffer for the Minority Business Task Force for the Congressional Black Caucus. When I sent to the Senate to work for Senator Carey on the Senate Small Business Committee, you know, I was working on policy issues that would promote and advance the cause of small businesses and entrepreneurs, and SCORE was one of those organizations that I worked very closely with as a Hill staffer. And then when I got the opportunity to join the board I jumped at it. I mean, these organizations--this is an organization of 11,000 volunteers that are former executives. So these are retired corporate executives and former entrepreneurs themselves who are willing to share their wisdom FOR FREE. Let's say that again. FOR FREE.Zach: For free.Nigel: For free. So if anyone is listening, and you're running a business now or you're interested in starting a business and being an entrepreneur, I strongly encourage you to reach out to SCORE. [straight up sfx] I strongly encourage it. It is a wonderful opportunity. But at the board level, I think I get an opportunity to really provide strategic advice and guide the organization in a way that I can make a difference. The decisions I'm making now and the input that I'm providing now is gonna lead the organization into the future 10, 20 years from now, right? So what are they doing with regards to investments in the organization and building it out, and what are they doing with regards to reaching out to diverse communities and reaching out to the new generation of entrepreneurs, which may be your millennial-aged individuals. What does that mean? What does that mean for women and minorities who are disproportionately creating new businesses faster than other communities? Like, how are we serving all of those communities in such a way that it's really making a difference? And these guys are serving everyone from Mom and Pop sandwich shops all the way up to your innovative technology companies. So how can we help--how can I help play a role in that organization doing its best to reach all communities?Zach: Well, that's incredible. You know, what I think is really powerful about you being in that position is, as we know, there are systemic and structural challenges that come with economic self-empowerment and advancement and really participating on these stages--and when I say we I mean, like, black and brown folks in these spaces--so you having that insight and giving your point of view in how--not just your point of view, but your strategic wisdom I believe is very much so invaluable, so that's powerful. Because a lot of this stuff, like, we don't really know--a lot of us don't really know where to start, right? It's not--it isn't, you know, your grandfather's space anymore, you know? It's more complex. There are different hurdles to jump and spaces to navigate. So that's really incredible. This has been an amazing conversation. Before we let you go--Nigel: Thank you.Zach: Yeah, nah. Hey, I appreciate you. Before we let you go, any parting words or shout-outs?Nigel: Well, I just want to thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate the invitation, and I appreciate the opportunity to have this conversation. It's really made me think about, you know, the context of what I do and what--there are a number of others in the Washington, D.C. metro area that are making a real difference in the lives of individuals and really in what governments are doing and what industry is doing and what our overall community is doing. So I thank you for the platform. I really appreciate the invitation, and I look forward to having many more conversations.Zach: I look forward to it too, Nigel. Man, look, we definitely consider you a friend of the show. We can't wait to have you back. Now, look, Nigel, I don't know how much of the Living Corporate podcast you've listened to, but every now and then we've got to drop some air horns, okay? So I gotta put 'em in here right... here. [air horns sfx]Nigel: There we go.Zach: I'm saying. I just got to it. And I hope it's not culturally insensitive. I recognize [you/your family are] from Jamaica. I love air horns.Nigel: I love it.Zach: All right, cool. [laughs]Nigel: I love it. [laughs]Zach: Well, all right. Nigel, 'til next time, we'll catch up, man. I appreciate you. Nigel: Thank you very much. Have a great day.Zach: Peace.

Zach welcomes career designer, speaker, career coach and business coach Latesha Byrd of Byrd Career Consulting to the podcast, and they announce a new weekly show called The Link Up with Latesha! She'll be sharing real deal advice on how to level up professionally in your career every Saturday, so don't forget to check back on the weekend!Find out more about Latesha on the BCC website or connect with her through her socials! LinkedIn, IG, Twitter, FBCheck out Latesha's YouTube channel!BCC's socials: LinkedIn, IG, Twitter, FBRead the Flexin' In My Complexion story!TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and look, this is when I typically say "You know how we do," I say something like, "You know what we got going on. So excited to have y'all today," "Ah, ah, ah," "Yearp." I do something, right? But, you know, I'ma keep it a bean with y'all. I'ma have a whole bunch of sound effects. We're gonna have a great time. This is a random Saturday podcast. We don't drop episodes on Saturdays. So we want y'all to have a good time with us, you know what I mean? So we're gonna have a good time. I've got the soundboard, you know, and of course who would I be--that's right, you know it's coming--if I didn't have a special guest? Today we have the one and the only L.B., A.K.A. your favorite coach's favorite coach, A.K.A. I've been on TV a few times, A.K.A. I do this full-time, A.K.A. I have my own podcast setup, I don't really need nobody's help, A.K.A. Ms. Independent, A.K.A. Latesha Byrd. Latesha: What's up, Zach?Zach: What's up, Latesha? How are you doing today? Welcome to the show. Latesha: I'm doing well.Zach: Oh, my goodness. Well, look, you know, I gave a little quick intro, but for those of us who don't know you, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?Latesha: Yeah. So my name is Latesha Byrd. I am a career designer, speaker, career coach, business coach, but I like to call myself a career designer because what I'm passionate about is helping my clients design lives that will allow them to show up in their best and truest and fullest selves at work and beyond, so--yes. Yes, yes. So I started a company, Byrd Career Consulting. It is a consulting agency focused on professional development resources for professionals that are in the corporate space. So we provide resume writing, LinkedIn writing, interview coaching, salary negotiation, strategy sessions, but most importantly career coaching. So I provide career coaching to professionals of color that helps them to just level up professionally. What I'm passionate about is making sure that everyone is happy at work, that they are fulfilled, but not only that but they're able to, like I said, bring their truest selves--show up as their fullest self to work, get paid, and be able to live the life that not only they want, but the life that they deserve. So I am extremely intentional with helping my clients through self-discovery, career empowerment, and then also personal development. I started my company about four years ago. We work with over 800 professionals in a variety of industries. Some of my clients have landed at some pretty great companies such as LinkedIn, Google, Amazon, Deloitte. Just a few to name, and I've had clients that have even gotten over $60,000 salary increases. So before--yes, cha-ching--so before I started my company I worked in recruiting, and I managed recruiting for a public accounting firm headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, where I'm at. Shout-out to QC. Zach: Shout-out to QC.Latesha: Yes. And as a recruiter, I manage recruiting for about five offices up and down the East Coast, making sure that the companies had innovative recruiting strategies, that they were out getting top talent. I worked directly with leadership as well on a lot of diversity and inclusion initiatives. And as a recruiter, I realize that there is a huge disconnect--there is a huge disconnect between top talent looking for good for jobs, and also good companies that are having issues that--that they claim they were having issues with finding top talent. We've all heard where companies or recruiters will say they can't find good talent, specifically good diverse talent, right? Which we all know is not true, and so I said, "You know what? Why do I meet so many professionals with great skill sets, with great work experience, that are just dope, and they're having issues with getting connected or getting their foot in the door with these companies? Why are companies complaining about not being able to find good talent?" So I started my company really as a way to bridge the gap between those dope professionals with these companies that were claiming that they had a hard time with finding good talent. So that's pretty much me in a nutshell.Zach: I love that. And, you know, what I'm hearing is you're doing a little bit of everything, right?Latesha: Just a little bit. [laughs]Zach: Just a little bit, you know what I'm saying? And it's interesting, 'cause a lot of us, we think, you know, "I'ma quit this job," and, you know, "I'ma do this," "I'ma do that." You know, "I'ma get what I need to get," without any type of help, and, you know, meanwhile--you're seeing all this in your resume and your online brand, you know, they're looking back at you like [haha sfx], right? Like, you need some help, okay? Like, you need to figure out how you're really gonna get all of this together, and that's where, you know what I'm saying, Latesha--where you come in.Latesha: Yeah, that's right. I meet a lot, a lot of talented people, and when they're telling me about their experience and when I look at their resume I'll just be like, "Hold on, now. Hold on, Holiday." Like, "You're leaving out so much great experience." A lot of times--this is what I've realized, is that we are taught that we should not brag, we shouldn't boast, we shouldn't really talk about what it is that we bring to the table, but when it comes to going after these jobs and getting these coins, you have to make sure that you're really setting yourself up for success and, with that being said, investing that--investing back into yourself, because that's gonna pay off dividends in the future. So you're right. It is important to have some assistance as you are looking to level up professionally, whether it's a career coach, whether it's a resume writer, or whether it's investing your time, you know, and listening to podcasts such as Living Corporate. Shameless plug.Zach: [straight up sfx] You're absolutely right, and, you know, it's a really good point, because a lot of us I think--and we talked about this a few different times over through various guests and topics around the idea that, like, you know, sometimes we think if we get an education, we get an extra degree, then people are gonna look at our resume and go, "Oh, he has XYZ, or she has XYZ in this subject field. We're gonna automatically hire them." That's just not the way it works. Latesha: Not at all.Zach: Right? Meanwhile, we're spending, like, all this time and money and energy getting all of these certifications, but we're not--we're not telling our story well, right? We're not telling our story well. We're upset. We're looking over at our job market like [what more do you want from me sfx], you know? And I-- [both laugh] But yeah, no, you're absolutely right that, like, it's more than a degree, right? And it's more than just having it. You have to figure out a way to present yourself.Latesha: Right, right. And you have to. You have to figure out a way to present yourself and position yourself in a way, whether it is in person or online, and be able to speak to what it is that you bring to the table in a way that will resonate with recruiters, hiring managers, or just your network in general. One thing that I tell my clients all of the time is that people hire people, so if your job search strategy is just about applying to job after job after job, you're not doing enough. You've got to get from behind the computer and really build your network and actually reach out to people. The best way to get a job--well, I won't say the best way. The quickest way, or the most popular way, that positions are filled is first through employee referrals. All day. So if I decide I want to go work at a company like Google, I need to get connected with some people that work at Google, and that might take you not just applying online and praying that, you know, they find your resume in the stack of 300, but actually reaching out to people that work at that company. So when it comes to my coaching, I always, always, always first ask my clients to be able to, like you said, tell your story. Being able to tell your--what I call your career--figure out what your career brand identity is, and how do you communicate that? And then once you figure that out and you get that confidence in who you are and what you bring to the table, that will then allow you to actually be able to reach out to those or build relationships with those or go a little extra mile to get into those positions that you are truly interested in, and that you deserve too.Zach: [Flex bomb sfx] Dropping bombs, yo. Listen, y'all, real Flex bombs are not the ones that are multi-syllabic, you know what I'm saying? Got you looking like Michael Eric Dyson. Real Flex bombs come from real talk. Latesha, thank you so much. Big facts all around for your head top, as it were. Okay, so, you know, you and I have been chopping it up, having a good time, whatever, you know what I'm saying? You're talking about what you got going on, but, like, what--and yes, what you're talking about is all facts of course, Flex bomb worthy, all of that. You know, whatever whatever, [but] it's a Saturday though [and] we're dropping this podcast. Like, what's going on? I feel like you got some news for me. I feel like I got some news for our listeners. Like, let's get to it. What's the deal? Why don't you tell 'em?Latesha: So I will be launching a segment on Living Corporate called The Link Up with Latesha, where [air horns sfx]--aye. Where I'll be sharing some real deal advice to all of the listeners on how to level up professionally for your career.Zach: Yes! Now, look here, what are we talking about on The Link Up with Latesha? Like, what, like--like, what's the format? What's going on?Latesha: So it's gonna be really a variety of things, and this is gonna be coming from a career coach and a former recruiter's perspective on how to get through the job search process, how to find your personal value--I don't want to say how to find it, but how to identify it, how to go after your dreams, how to really think about the life--how to think about the life that it is that you want to live and how to actually go out and get that, but from a recruiter's perspective, I'm gonna be sharing a lot of things that I've seen job seekers do wrong, not just from applying to interviewing to negotiating salary, but also for new employees. When you're starting your career, how do you show up to become a high performer? But I'm gonna be bringing, you know, kind of my own style to it. I'm very, very direct. I'm real all day long. I don't know how to sugarcoat, so I'm just gonna give it to you straight.Zach: I love it. So look here, this is what Latesha is really saying. Latesha's got the inside scoop. She knows what she's talking about. She knows what these businesses want, and also as a consultant she knows what these businesses need to be doing, so you're getting the best of both worlds, you know what I'm saying? She's gonna help you take your brand from [who? sfx] to [Kawhi "what it do baby?" sfx], you feel me? Like, she's gonna take you from, you know, one side to the other. Latesha: Right.Zach: And I love that. I'm so thankful to have you on the show, have you a part of our team, have you a part of this--have you a part of this platform, and, you know, y'all need to make sure y'all pay attention on Saturdays. Every Saturday, the crack of dawn, it's gonna be the show. It's gonna be Latesha. Y'all are gonna be checking her out, okay? So every Saturday be sure to check out--Latesha: I said every Saturday. And Zach, can I just share, like, some of the topics I'm gonna be talking about?Zach: Oh, absolutely. Do your thing.Latesha: Yes, yes, yes. So just a few things I want to talk about is "That's Not My Job, how to set boundaries at work, how to love your job when you actually hate it, how to play the playing field--like, why you should be looking for a job even if you're happy, how to keep your stamina up while job searching, [and] how one of my clients actually got a new job in three months, and she only applied to 12 jobs. So these are some of the things that I want to talk about. What to do if a recruiter ghosts you, 'cause that's a common thing, right? Ghosting is real, not just in the dating life but also in the professional life.Zach: That's facts.Latesha: And what to do if your company isn't taking your desire for growth seriously. Like, I had a friend that said she had a meeting with her boss and basically asked "What does my future look like here at this company?" And the boss said, "Oh, just keep doing the same thing." Needless to say, she is no longer with that company, but, you know, this is gonna be about career empowerment, career growth. Like I said, really leveling up self-discovery, just finding who you are, being true in that, going after what it is that you truly deserve. So that's, you know, a little bit about what I will be talking about on The Link Up.Zach: All right, y'all. Y'all heard it here first. We got a new show. Just to recap, we got a new show hosted by Latesha Byrd, career coach, former recruiter and D&I extraordinaire, okay? Resume writer, branding/personal branding extraordinaire. That's right.Latesha: All the things.Zach: You know what I'm saying? All the things. She's flexing in her complexion and on y'all and on me.Latesha: Ooh, I like that. Flexing in my complexion. Did you just make that up?Zach: No, no, we got--that's a whole business. You know, you got the black girl--in fact, y'all, look in the show notes. We're gonna have the story about the woman--the young girl rather, excuse me--who made a whole fashion company with the phrase "flexing in my complexion." It's very cute, very great, and empowering to our mocha sisters out there and to all of our black and brown women out there. Anyway, thank y'all for listening to the Living Corporate podcast. Make sure you check us out. The only way you're gonna be able to check out the Living Corporate podcast--excuse me, the only way you're gonna be able to check out The Link Up with Latesha is on the Living Corporate podcast, so make sure you follow us on Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod, on Instagram @LivingCorporate, and really just anywhere that podcasts are--if you just Google Living Corporate, you know what I'm saying, we're popping up, okay? We out here. We out here, okay? We in that--Latesha: We outchea.Zach: We in that--we outchea. We in that SEO like [Cardi "blat blat blat brrr" sfx], okay? We letting everybody--we hitting everybody, okay? We're on every podcasting platform.Latesha: Errbody.Zach: Errbody, okay? And yeah. So look, we got the domains, okay? So you go online, livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.net, livingcorporate.tv, okay? Livingcorporate.--we've just got all the livingcorporates except livingcorporate.com, 'cause Australia just--they're not letting it go. Australia, we love y'all. One day we're gonna have enough flex to actually come and get that domain. One day. I don't know, maybe.Latesha: No, no, no. Like, legit going to Australia.Zach: But go to there though? Yes, we're gonna go to Australia.Latesha: We're gonna pull up.Zach: We're gonna pull up, you know what I'm saying? But yeah, so we out here is my point. Latesha out here. You know, she's--she and I got this new thing going on, so I'm trying to give her something. She's giving me something. We're kind of doing, like, this give and go thing. It's really fun, even at the end of the show. So what else we got going on? Oh, yeah. Make sure--Latesha: [inaudible] shout-outs.Zach: Oh, yeah, we do got shout-outs! That's right. Okay, so--'cause I'm trying to do this new thing, right? Like, every now and then. Like, not every episode, but I just want to give a shout-out to those people that listen to the show and, you know, people being in the Living Corporate DMs talking about, "Keep doing what you're doing." People hit us up on LinkedIn. People talking about, "You know, we just love what you got going on." So shout-out to the engineers and the accountants and all the STEM folks. Shout-outs to my people out in the DMV. Shout-out to our top five demographics. So we're seeing you New York, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, you know what I'm saying? Dallas. We appreciate y'all, you know? Shout-out to the West Coast. You know, we're not really popping out there like we want to so, you know, somebody out there come on--like, the tech people, y'all show us some love, man. You know, we be out here. We be making moves, you know what I'm saying? We're not--you know, I'm not drinking kombucha every day. It's not--you know, it kind of unsettles my stomach, but I like it, you know? So, like, give us some love.Latesha: It's good.Zach: It's delicious actually. It's just--it just doesn't sit well with me. Anyway, shout-out to all of our hustlers and entrepreneurs. Shout-out to our creatives, you know what I mean? Shout-out to my college students. Shout-out to the Gen Z'ers, you know what I mean? Latesha: [?].Zach: Uh-huh. Shout-out to the Buckys, you know what I'm saying? The White Wolves. The allies, okay? For those who don't know Marvel, like, you know what I'm saying, like, the folks out there who are not as melanin-rich as some of us but still care and empathize, you know what I'm saying, with the black and brown people and [?].Latesha: We love our allies.Zach: We love our allies, you know what I'm saying? Where would we be without allies, okay? We're a minority. We need people. We need help, okay? We need help. Help me, you know what I'm saying? Like, you gotta--we need it, so shout-out to y'all. Shout-out to, you know what I'm saying, the older white people, you know, who listen to the show, you know, trying to figure out just what's going on. Maybe they got a little nervous, they wanted to check it out. Shout-out to my coworkers. If y'all are listening to this right now, shout-out to y'all. I appreciate y'all. And shout-out to the people that give us 5 stars, you know? Shout-out to the educators. Who else am I missing? Who am I missing, Latesha?Latesha: I think you said entrepreneurs, but side hustlers. Like, those that have a 9-to-5 and a 5-to-9. We see you. I was there. I know how it is. And then--so shout-out to them.Zach: Yeah, shout-out to y'all, man, and shout-out--you know, just shout-out to all the listeners. We appreciate y'all, excited for y'all to venture with us on this new leg of our journey, and we'll catch y'all next time. Until next time, this has been Zach.Latesha: And Latesha.Zach: And you've been listening to Living Corporate, and make sure y'all come back and check us out on--now we've got--my goodness, we've got episodes on Tuesdays, we've got episodes on Fridays (editor's note: Thursdays), and now we're gonna have episodes on Saturdays because we've got the new show, The Link Up with Latesha. Aye. Catch y'all next time. Peace.

Zach sits down with Guide co-founder Mike Yates to discuss the future of learning. Mike shares what he thinks are the top three things that are changing within the world of learning. He also lists a few ways he thinks organizations will need to adjust for future workforces.Connect with Guide! We've got their website and socials: Twitter, IG, FacebookTRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach, and you're listening to Living Corporate. And today we're talking about the workforce of the future, okay? So you've heard some conversations that we've had with Tim Salau a few times about the future of work, and, you know, it's just a really prominent topic because the workforce is changing, and the dynamics and the cultural makeup--not just from an ethnic perspective or sexual orientation, but from a generational perspective--is shifting, so we're really excited to talk about the future of learning with Mike Yates. Mike taught in a traditional school setting for five years before entering his current role, where he designs curriculum, plans projects, and motivates students to break all of the rules. His passion is in change and finding the next set of large innovations to the classroom through the use of adaptive learning technology and artificial intelligence. The world is rapidly changing and innovating, and it is his belief that schools must follow that trend. So with that being said, Mike, welcome to the show, man. How are you doing?Mike: Thank you so much. I'm really good. I'm excited to be here. I'm actually a pretty--I'm a regular listener, so I'm excited to be on this podcast.Zach: Stop playing. You listen to Living Corporate?Mike: Yeah. I'm a listener. I listen to it through Apple Podcasts, and I love the--I love the podcast. I actually saw stuff about Living Corporate via LinkedIn or Twitter. I cannot remember where I saw it first.Zach: Okay.Mike: Yeah, yeah, but I started listening a while ago. So, like, I've recently listened to the one--like, Ramadan at Work.Zach: Whaaat? Stop playing.Mike: Yeah, yeah. Respectability Politics, yeah.Zach: That's awesome. Okay, well, hey. First of all, we're already--we're honored, but definitely certainly flattered and happy about the fact that you enjoy the show. So look, we gave a little bit of an intro for you from the top. For those of us who don't know you, what would you mind telling us about yourself?Mike: Yeah, yeah. So one of the things--like, I just saw this meme on the internet that said, like, "I wish I loved somebody the way that people from Houston love being from Houston," and I'm one of the people that makes that true. I love being from Houston. That's where I'm from. So, you know, NBA Finals time I'm a little hurt, 'cause I thought the Rockets should have played better, but--Zach: Yeah, man. It was tough, right?Mike: Yeah, yeah. But I'm from Houston. I'm from a family of educators. My mom is a teacher. I basically grew up in school. I grew up in the classroom. I am married. I have four amazing children, an amazing wife.Zach: Oh, man. Congratulations to that.Mike: Thank you, yeah, yeah. Our house is nuts.Zach: I'll bet.Mike: Yeah. [laughs] It is. But that's one of my favorite parts about my life, the grind that I have for them. And so my passion is education. I have tried to avoid the career field for as long as I could, because when growing up I thought to myself "Oh, you know, educators don't make any money," but the gravitational pull of education was too strong for me. I became really curious about it after I graduated from college and I got into planning education programs for the United Way in-between Austin and San Antonio. Once I started doing that, I entered the classroom as a teacher and fell in love with the field. I'm also an educator that is convinced that everybody is lying when they tell you that you can't make money in education, things like that. "You can't be happy in education." "You can't have work-life balance in education." I am seeking to create trends within education that show you that all of those things are possible.Zach: Man, that's incredible. And, you know, I really respect--first of all, you know, there's articles--I feel like you see articles every other month about the importance of even having just black male teachers in the classroom, so shout-out to you, shout-out to educators. Shout-out to my wife who's an educator, as well as my--Mike: Your wife?Zach: Yeah, man. My wife is in education. She's been teaching for some years, and then my mother is a principal of an elementary school. She's been in education for 32 years.Mike: Wow, that's great. That's phenomenal.Zach: Yeah, man. And then, you know, my in-laws, they come from a--there's a deep family of educators there as well. So yeah, man, shout-out to educators. Shout-out to those who, like, reach back and are really trying to shape the future of the world. Like, it's so undervalued and just underappreciated. So yeah, definitely a shout-out to you, and a shout-out to your family, man. That's awesome. So look, let's talk about this. Let's talk a little bit about the future of learning. So in your profile, right, like, when people look you up, you know, you talk about the world changing and, by relation, learning methods along with it. So what would you say are the top three things changing within the world of learning?Mike: So that's a great question, and I think that the #1 thing is--the way I would describe it is the urgency. There is going to be a shift in the way that people attend school, and that's what I mean when I say urgency. Like, how you get information and how quickly it comes to you. So right now, especially through K-12 education and even into college, education is sit and get, right? It's like, you trust that this person has the content knowledge to teach you, and so you sit and listen to lectures and take notes, and hopefully you retain enough to prove that you should get a job later in the future. The future of learning is different. The future of learning is gonna be on-demand. Learning is going to come to the person. The execution that you can see today would be, like, a Western Governors University where all of their courses are online. You can take them at your own pace. You have one mentor that you interact with your entire time, whether you're in undergrad or grad school, and you can get your college degree that way. The second thing that I think is changing in the world of learning is quite honestly students. One of the saddest things to think about in education is the idea that, like, education is the last frontier in the United States of America that remains without innovation. You walk into any public school, you will see desks in rows, you will see--you might even see chalkboards that have been there since the '60s, '70s, '40s in some cases, right? It is a model that is antiquated and has not responded to the change in people, the change in interest, the change in, like, you cannot educate students the way that you used to, right? And then the last thing that I think is changing in the world of education is technology, technology in and outside of the field. You know, artificial intelligence, machine learning, like, we have figured out how to make machines and devices do more for us today than ever before. When we were in school--I don't know if you remember this, but my teacher used to always tell me, "Mike, you have to show your work when you're doing math, because you won't always have a calculator with you."Zach: Yes. [laughs] Wow, wait a minute. Pause right there. Yo, that was a lie. Like [inaudible]--Mike: Right?Zach: The teacher definitely said you're not always gonna have--they'd be like, "What are you gonna do if you don't have a calculator with you?" Like, there's nowhere--you always have a calculator with you now. You have a phone.Mike: Always, yeah. I have a calculator, a media company, a personal assistant. I have [inaudible].Zach: Everything, yes.Mike: Everything, right? And that's what's so beautiful about the future of learning, right? Because up until now teachers tried to prepare students for the existing work world, but now you have a movement of educators and a movement of schools that are trying to prepare students for jobs that don't exist yet, right? And the calculator--you know, the iPhone is the perfect example. Like, no teacher in 1995 would ever believe you if you would have told them there's gonna be a flat glass device that you're gonna touch, and you can call, it can talk to you, it can be a calculator, right? They would never believe that. So I am fortunate to have been raised by an educator, you know, being my mom, who would tell me, like, "We don't know what the world's gonna look like when you go to work, so you have to be in your head. You have to imagine. You have to always look forward." And my mother very much so made me a futurist, so all I do is think about "What's the world gonna be like 10, 15 years in the future?" And that's why I think technology is so exciting, and it's--you know, if I'm talking about, you know, the last major change, you know, adaptive learning technology is going to do more for students than the best teacher ever could, and I--you know, adaptive learning tech is--if you don't know, it's technology that--like, let's say I'm in a math application. If I'm in 6th grade, it will give me a set of questions that are at a 6th grade difficulty. If I do well on those questions and prove to the app that I know 6th grade content, it will automatically move me up to 7th grade math. If I don't know a 6th grade concept, it will move me down to 5th grade until I master that concept, it'd move me back up to 6th grade and let me keep mastering and moving up. That is so much more efficient than even your best math teacher that it will change--in the future, that will change the role of the adult in the room. All of a sudden, you no longer have to disseminate information, but you have to create projects to help students use that information. You have to create real world connections and learning experience. And honestly, it helps teachers get to the part of their job that they love and away from the part of their job that they hate, which is lesson planning and lectures.Zach: Yeah. Man, that's incredible. That's incredible, and it's just so interesting because--so my father also--he also taught math for a little while as well, and, you know, he was on Living Corporate last season, and he talked a lot about the various jobs that he had, and one of the jobs he had was actually--he was a teacher's assistant, and he also taught high school math, and he was talking--he's a bit of a futurist himself. He was talking about, like--this was back in, like, '90. Like, '89, '90, and he's talking to these kids, and he's like, "Y'all, one day you're gonna have machines that are gonna be doing--a lot of these manual processes that we're doing, one day machines are gonna be taking over. They're gonna do these things." And, like, at the time all of his students were like, "What are you talking about?" "No, that's, like, way, way later in the future." And he's like, "I'm telling y'all." And, like, he was just talking about it, but he was just kind of, like, waxing poetic. He wasn't, like, really trying to, like--you know, he was just talking, but he wholeheartedly meant it. You know, it's rare though to have folks who can see, right? So yeah, that's definitely a blessing to have, folks in your life who can talk to you about those things. You know, so what would you say your top three predictions are for how organizations will need to adapt to future workforces in light of--you know, in light of what you're sharing about the future of learning, what ways do you think that organizations, like, you know, professional organizations in any industry--in oil and gas, in technology, in healthcare--how do you feel like these organizations are gonna have to adjust for future workforces?Mike: Yeah. So I think that they're gonna have to be comfortable with remote workers. That's my first big prediction is, like, they're gonna have be comfortable with remote workers, because today's internet allows you to do so much more than ever before. You know, like, now you have IT companies that no longer have to be in the building with you and can take over your desktop or your laptop and y'all are not even on the same Wi-Fi network. Like, that's how advanced we are. So if that's possible, then, you know, oil and gas companies or software companies or even, like, the National Basketball Association, who could be playing a game in Toronto and reviewing replay footage in live-time in Secaucus, New Jersey, right? So I think that they're gonna have to be comfortable with remote. The next big prediction that I have, and this is a really, really big one, is that in the future of work, the college degree will lose value. And I don't mean it will be completely worthless, but I do think because we came up in this generation where everybody sort of forced us to go to college, and I do think that there's somewhat of an oversaturation of bachelor's degrees in the marketplace right now, but what I think is because of things like lambda school and because of things like University for the People, Western Governors, there will be a pressure on any university that is outside of the top 20. If you're not in the Ivy League or if you're not a top 20 school that produces the best doctors and lawyers, you know, all of those positions that require advanced college degrees, then you are going to struggle to get students to sign up for your school after the next economic collapse. Like, things have been going financially, economically in this country pretty well for the last nine years, and my big prediction is in the next five to ten years there will be--economic collapse is the wrong turn, but there will be an economic recession, and when that recession hits--like, my alma mater, Texas State University, I don't know if students will enroll there and take on debt when they could go to a lambda school for free, or they could go to University of the People and get a bachelor's degree for $2,000. Like, you know? So I think that the college degree requirements are gonna have to change, and my last big prediction about what the future needs to adapt to is--it's the scary one. It's not [inaudible]--Zach: [laughs] I hear you hesitating. Go ahead.Mike: Yeah, [laughs] it's robots. Like, it's--there is a robot that can open doors. Like, there are companies, like [Boston?] Dynamics, that are designing robots that can deliver packages, right? And so I think we're gonna have to get used to--and this may be, you know, 20 to 30 years down the line, but there may be a robot that walks up to you and greets you and drops a package off at your door, right? And I think that, you know, direct-to-consumer business is gonna change. I think, like, Amazon--we'll see Amazon finally have to compete with, like, Old Navy and other brands, because everybody's gonna be able to use drone delivery and robot delivery to drop packages off at your door within the hour. So I think that, you know, that big artificial intelligence in that sense, like robots, drones, those are gonna be really, really important in the future of work, and companies are gonna have to start bending and altering the way that they operate.Zach: So, you know, first of all, everything you're talking about--like, Mike--and I'm not trying to poo-poo you--I don't really hear anything crazy in your predictions. Like, I think they're all very realistic. Like, so first of all--especially when you start talking about schools, because we're already seeing that today, right? Like, we're already seeing it, like, in MBA programs. If it's not a top 20, top--lowkey top, like, five, ten to five, you're not gonna get--you know, 'cause some folks think that, you know, you get an MBA--and we talked about this, we talked about this--this was early in season 1. There's a misconception that if you go and you get a graduate degree, then that automatically lines you up for paper, and it's like, "Eh, not necessarily," and it's because--it's because of the economic demand. It's also because of perception, but, like, there's no reason to--there's no reason to not assume that the trend that we're seeing within grad schools, we won't just start seeing that in, like, universities, and we do see that in universities already, right? Like, we already know that there some undergraduate degrees that are worth more than others, right? Like, we know that already, but, like, it hasn't been, like, super stark yet, but it will be one day.Mike: Yeah, it will be. Absolutely.Zach: Man, that's incredible. So, you know, I think this really, like, leads well into your current role as the chief operating officer of Guide. So, like, what can you talk to us about when it comes to Guide? Like, what can you share?Mike: Man, Guide--Guide is amazing. So Guide came together because a couple of people online were all having the same conversation about education. I was--you know, about two months ago, I sort of--you know, this is my first year outside of the traditional school system. I work for--my day job is at a school called Alpha, which is a school that uses adaptive learning technology in place of direct instruction, so we don't have any lecture. There's no classrooms. Our school looks like an open co-working space. It looks a WeWork for kids, right? And once I got out of the traditional school system, I had this opportunity to pick my head up and sort of look around, and I saw, like, there was all this stuff that I was missing. I saw that I was misusing LinkedIn and that I didn't know how powerful it could be. I didn't really know how to build community. So two months ago I started doing that. I went hardcore on LinkedIn. I went all in on, you know, Twitter and community building, and Tim Salau and I sort of started crossing paths because we were both posting about the future of learning, the future of work, sort of interacting with each other on LinkedIn, until one day Tim reached out and was like, "Hey, man, we've got to talk about this thing I'm working on." So Tim, myself, and our third co-founder Taban got on a call and talked about what has now turned into Guide, and Guide is a social learning app that is tailored towards high school students specifically to teach them life skills. We're going to create a new media called Snapshots, which are 30-second courses where a creator, any content creator, can come to our platform and break down transferable life skills into 30-second segments so that students can digest them and so they can remember the steps, go back and rewatch, and start to learn skills that are gonna benefit them in the future of work. So LinkedIn Learning is sort of, like, the adult version of this, but, you know, to get a certificate in LinkedIn Learning you may have to spend 12-15 hours doing that. Students [inaudible]--yeah, students don't have the capacity to think that way.Zach: No, nah-uh. We don't have the capacity to think that way. [laughs]Mike: Right, yeah, so imagine being able to build a course where a student could spend 15 minutes and get the same amount of material, the same amount of value? And now you have high school students, community college students, early college students, that are starting to build up this connection between skill building and the future of work, because--so I think the official number is, like, 65% of all, like, elementary school kids are going to fill jobs that currently don't exist. With that being the future, you have to build up this sort of tool-belt of skills that you can use in multiple ways. Ones like public speaking, ones like community building, ones like adaptability, ones like creativity, that are not as easily taught in skills. So that's what we're doing with Guide, and my role specifically with Guide is obviously managing the personnel that we have. We're sort of--we're in startup mode, so we sort of do it all, but I specifically create teacher content. I manage all of the curriculum on the app. I do strategic partnerships. And so our founders team works really, really close together. You know, Tim is doing most of the UX and user experience design. Taban is our CTO, and he's actually code--like, hard-coding the app and everything like that, so we have a phenomenal team that's ready to do some phenomenal work. So I'm super excited about Guide, and I'm glad you asked me about it.Zach: Man, that's awesome. No, no, no. I'm glad that you guys are working on it, and I'm really excited for what it's gonna be. Where can people learn more about Guide today?Mike: So you can learn more about Guide at guideapp.co. That's our website right now. We have sort of, like, a "Coming Soon" page. Our website is currently under construction. Our communications lead and our content team is working really, really hard to get the website up in the next couple of weeks. You can also follow myself on LinkedIn. You can follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter. My Twitter handle is @justmikeyates, like j-u-s-t Mike Yates. You can also follow and connect with Tim. We are constantly posting about Guide. We're posting resources in the--for all the educators out there, in the coming weeks we will be posting some teacher toolkits and some quick-start guides so that you can use Guide and our Snapshots in your classroom, and we'll sort of, like, break down what a school day would look like with Guide to where you don't have to abandon all of your curriculums trying to teach life skills. You can do it within the course of your math class or your history class or your English class.Zach: Oh, I love this, man. It's so disruptive, but, like, for all the right reasons. It's not like guys from California trying to disrupt, like, your local bodega. This is, like, something that we need. This is awesome. Well, look, man, you know I could keep on going, but let's go ahead and wrap up, man. I want to give you a second though. Do you have any words, any shout-outs for us?Mike: Yeah. So one of the things that--sort of my goal in terms of online communication, the goal that I had set for myself for online communication has been to tell educators out there this very simple message, and that's that you need to be building a personal brand. You need to be on LinkedIn, active, and interacting with other business professionals and other fields as well as professionals in education, because #1 there's a larger conversation being had about disruptive education technology, about the future of learning and the way that that's gonna look. I want you to be a part of that. I want you to be a part of shaping what school looks like in this country forever. The other thing is that school districts all across the country quite frankly are running out of money and teachers are getting laid off. It doesn't pay enough for you to put all of the time and the passion and the heart that you do into your classroom on a day-to-day, so you should have a plan B, and that plan B can be your personal brand, because everybody's looking for expertise that comes from the classroom, it seems like at this point. So I want teachers to know that. And in terms of shout-outs, I want to shout-out my wife, Alex. She holds it down like no other. My wife a stay-at-home mom and we have four kids, so she is--she's working a lot harder than I am. So shout-outs to her and my kids and the whole Guide team. Shout-out to Tim, Taban, Monale, Jonathan. We are doing some phenomenal work.Zach: Man, that's awesome, man. Well, look, that's gonna do it for us, y'all. Thank you 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. 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 Mike Yates, learning futurist and COO of Guide. Peace.

Zach sits down with Precious Williams of Perfect Pitches by Precious to talk about how to pitch for yourself effectively. They break down the basics of a pitch and discuss what most people get wrong when pitching for themselves.Connect with Precious on LinkedIn or Twitter, and check out her website below!https://perfectpitchesbyprecious.com/TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach, and you're listening to Living Corporate. Now, look, y'all. Y'all know we have people come through the spot from time to time. We have real conversations about real things, okay? And this episode is no different, okay? We've got Precious Williams with us on the show. Precious Williams is a world-class master communicator who works with successful women entrepreneurs and helps them take their professional speaking skills to the next level. With over 23--count 'em, 2-3, Michael Jordan, LeBron James--years of experience conceptualizing unique branding and marketing techniques, Williams seeks to train individuals and companies on how to remain authentic while marketing concepts and visions to distinctive audiences. Sound Man, you've got to give me a round of applause for that. [he obliges] With that being said--Precious: Oh, let me snap. Snap, snap, snap.Zach: Come on. Come on, snaps. With that being said, Precious, welcome to the show. How are you doing?Precious: I'm good. I'm really good today. I'm living well. I'm living my life like it's golden. "Living my life like it's golden."Zach: Drinking some water?Precious: You know [what?] We do. We drink water all day.Zach: You sound really hydrated right now.Precious: I am hydrated. I'm really hydrated. Come on now.Zach: I can feel it--I can feel it through the ancestral plane.Precious: Okay!Zach: I know I gave a little bit of an intro, but for those of us who don't know you, would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself?Precious: Yes. My name is Precious Williams, proud founder and CEO of Perfect Pitches by Precious. And again, thank you for saying I'm a world-class master communicator, and it is very true. I've been a professional speaker since I was 16 years old, and this year I turned 40. I've appeared on Shark Tank, CNN, Wall Street Journal, FOX Business News, appeared in movies, I've been in television commercials, and I'm a 13-time National Elevator Pitch champion. So that is how a lot of shows got interested in me in the first place, but before we did all of that, we were--I was an unwanted child living in the inner city of St. Louis, Missouri, and my mother didn't like me and beat me up constantly. My father was a drug addict. And so when I look back at my life, I'm always astounded to this day - "How did I make it? How did I not become a statistic? How do I live in the great state of New York?" And I've been here 11 years. Never been raped, robbed, or beaten. Living my dream of being a professional speaker where I work with wonderful, successful women entrepreneurs who struggle with bringing their next big ideas, concepts, brands, products and services, to different markets. So if you need a pitch for an investor, I got you. Need a pitch for media? I got you. You need a pitch at networking events? I got you. That is what I do. And I've also iterated to teaching new and emerging speakers how to successfully build a speaker platform so that they're attractive to conference organizers and event planners. And for professional speakers or seasoned speakers, I teach them how to get paid speaking engagements. So when I tell you we are the art and science of the most killer pitches, we also do not play. I'm not new to this. I'm true to this. I am Precious Williams, the #KillerPitchMaster, and I will help you - what? - #slay all competition.Zach: My God. Sound Man, give me some air horns. [he complies] That's crazy. That's incredible. And honestly, I really want to add one of those '90s "Ow"s. That was incredible. That's incredible. Precious: Thank you.Zach: My goodness gracious. Okay, then. Well, shoot. You did that with that little ol' question, so you're gonna kill the rest of this. Let's start with the basics. What is a pitch?Precious: A pitch is a short, brief introduction to you, your company, your career, your life, that will make you attractive and interesting to an interested party, someone that you don't know but you want to get in front of. So think about getting on an elevator and taking it to, I don't know, the 20th floor. In that time, you should be able to have a pitch good enough to spark attention and make them want to meet with you or take your phone call. So as an elevator pitch master, I have won competitions in 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, and 10 minutes. When I won Black Enterprise, I won it in 1 minute--I became a finalist in 60 seconds, and I killed it in 30 seconds, and that's how I won in 2013, Black Enterprise.Zach: Wow. Wow, wow, wow. So, you know, we've talked about a little bit about--we've talked a bit. Not a little bit. We've talked a good bit actually about strategic self-advocacy on Living Corporate, right? What would you say most folk get wrong when it comes to pitching themselves?Precious: I find that most people are very boring. Most people have no idea how to introduce themselves in a way that makes them star-quality material. I find that people don't give a lot of thought to it, thinking that you should just wing it, and if [you learn anything] from me, it's preparation is key, practice perfectly, perform perfectly is key. Also, give them some of that funk, that flavor of who you are. So for example, when I went on Shark Tank, I knew they weren't ready for me, 'cause I don't come like anybody else. As a champion, you can't come like anybody else. If you want the basics, you don't have Precious. I'm not a basic chick at all. So I went in with a low-cut canary yellow form-fitting [inaudible] dress--and I was 275 pounds, and my company was Curvy Girls Lingerie, and I was pitching Curvy Girls Lingerie--and so, you know, when you're walking down the hall that music doesn't play. Just so we're clear, that music does not play. When they open up those doors and it's just you and the Sharks, I walked in like "Wait until they get a load of me. They ain't never seen nothing like me." So when I hit that X, I was going IN. Listen, I was in the paint. I was going HARD in the paint, and then I said, "Okay, ladies. Now let's get in formation." The door opened again, and my plus-sized models came through, and I tell you, they had never--I said, "Because I know what I'm doing." If you want to be average, [random?], or ordinary, do what regular people do. If you want to stand out and really make an impact, you have to be different. So I wrote an article a long time ago called "Does Shark Tank Teach You Everything You Need to Know About Pitching?" And there's no way it can, and don't be lulled into thinking that the people who get the investments are actually better than the people who don't. And sometimes your vision is beyond what most people can see. That's why you're called a visionary, and I'm a visionary and a trailblazer. You're speaking to investors. If you're speaking to a network--speaking at a networking event or you're speaking to the media, what is going to make you stand out like no other? And when we talk about self-promotion or self-actualization, all of that, you really need to hone in on what makes you different from everyone else and can you demonstrate that difference even if your products and services weren't in the room. Zach: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I love that. I love that. This is what we're gonna do. This is a first for the Living Corporate podcast, but I feel like you can handle it. So I'm gonna give you some scenarios, right, where you would pitch yourself. I want you to give me, like, how you would do it. So I got three of 'em, okay? So are you ready?Precious: I'm ready.Zach: Okay, here we go. "You're a mid-level employee who's done the work but keeps getting passed over for a promotion that you've wanted for a while. How do you handle that?" How do you pitch yourself to get the promotion you're looking for?Precious: First of all, I would start making noise and buzz about what it is that I have done. So if you're a mid-level employee, what are your results? What's your value added? What content have you created? What things have set you apart from the others? A lot of the times when you're a mid-level employee you think that just doing the work is enough, but you have to promote what you do. You have to quantify what you do. You have to qualify what you do. You have to show how you being you has increased sales, has decreased problem areas, how you've been invaluable to the company. You have shown loyalty, fidelity, and you want the opportunity to shine on a bigger state in that promotion, but before you can do that, you have to show where you came from and where you took the company from where it was to where it is now, and that means you need to document what it is that you've done, what you've brought to the table, great ideas that have been implemented on, and you definitely want to walk in dressed like the promotion, not what you are right now. Give them something to look at. Give them a visual that they're not ready for.Zach: Yeah. I love it. I'm so excited. Okay, okay, okay. So that's great. This is the second scenario. "You're a new employee, and you're looking for a mentor." Precious: This is where we get into passion, energy, and intensity. So when you're looking for a mentor, one of the greatest tools alive, especially if you're a new employee at a new company, is to go about seeing who are the power players in the organization or in the company. What you want to do is see if you can spend a little bit of time with a few of them and get to know them. You'll ask them [if] they can take on any projects where you get to work closely with them. Let them know that you're always available--within reason, let me put it like that--that you're always available within reason to work on different projects because you want to stay a step above the people that you started with, and you have to show initiative. You have to show focus, grace, ease, and just mercy. You have to show all of that. And so when they see you working hard, they see that you came in that first day and you were strategic about what it is that you're doing. That stands out. When you allow them into your strategic vision and how you see yourself elevating the company or being a very valuable resource to the company, don't be afraid to toot your horn about what you've done in the past and what you plan to do there. And if you're young, man, you can do a lot for a company, as long as you keep showing that dedication and that focus. You can take instruction, but you can also give the ideas that young people always have that are so vibrant and so necessary to an organization in moving forward. That's what I would do.Zach: Amen. I love this, I love this. Okay, here's #3. Here we go. Last one. "You're venturing out to start your own side hustle, and you've found someone you think would be a great fit to join the team."Precious: Mm-hmm. Thinking that they're a great fit before I just jump on the bandwagon, I would vet them, because there are things in peoples' backgrounds that you may not know that might prevent them from being the great asset that you think they're going to be. So I would look them up online. I would--you know, 'cause you can meet a lot of people, and listen, I've been in this situation. I've had a partner that we did not work out. On paper we both looked good together. In person, in reality, we could be at each other's throats. One could be focused on money so much, the other one focused on customer service so much, that you constantly bump heads because you're not in a true partnership. What does that person bring to the table that you already don't have? You vet them, and you also go through a due diligence process. You interview them. You let them know about this great opportunity, but you vet them as they're vetting you. Don't make a decision immediately. You're not thirsty. You're not thirsty.Zach: Yeah. Precious: And since you're not thirsty, you can give it a week. You can give it a little bit of time and do more due diligence. You want to make sure that--even if you're the top person in your company or in your program, what you definitely want to make sure is that you sound off to someone that you trust to make sure that you're not rushing into a decision. That's what I would do as a killer pitch master.Zach: I love that, I love that. Now, look, you know we could keep going. You know this.Precious: I know.Zach: But before I let you go, do you have any parting words or shout-outs? Precious: Yes. I want to say that fortune favors the bold. If you are bold enough, you can make miracles happen with God's grace and mercy. When you step out on that faith, and you've been given a vision, it's time you move towards it. We don't live in the day and age of our grandparents or even our parents. You can really eat what you kill. You can really make a difference and impact walking in your authentic light and in your authentic, God-given purpose. Secondly, if you're someone who is looking for pitching help, I am here, and I am available. I am here to work with you on how to monetize your message, how to turn your mess into your message, and how to really--Zach: Come on, now. "Mess into your message?"Precious: Your mess into your message. Listen, I've been homeless. I've had an addiction. I've had all sorts of things happen to me. I've battled cancer and all of that kind of stuff. It doesn't matter. And I've been living my best life because I was able to face it and move on. Deal with the trauma. So what I want to say to everyone, when you look at someone that you think has it going on, you don't know their backstory, and it's important--and that's why I used to watch Behind the Musics when I was younger, Intimate Portrait, Biography, because I really wanted to know the true story. I didn't want the glitz and glamour story. I wanted to know "What did they overcome?" Because that would give me strength to know that I could overcome too. So get really comfortable with wanting to hear peoples' stories, because that will give you the catalyst to get off of your behind and make moves. Like Future and Drake said, "What a time to be alive." What a time. We can have a Zoom call, a Skype call. You don't have to leave and go to the office. You can just do things as you already are, and you can make a great impact. I've been in Corporate America. I've done that, and now I am a serial entrepreneur, international professional speaker, and just an all-around gal about town, right? All-around gal about town, and I am a full-figured diva on a mission, and that's to take over the world one curvy girl at a time.Zach: Come on. Yo, this has been a great interview. Thank you so much for being here, Precious.Precious: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.Zach: No, I appreciate you. So look, that does it for us, y'all. Thank y'all for joining us on the Living Corporate podcast. Make sure you follow us on Instagram @LivingCorporate, Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod, and subscribe to our newsletter through living-corporate.com or livingcorporate.co or livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.net. We've got all the Living Corporates except for livingcorporate.com because Australia has livingcorporate.com, you know what I'm saying? They're not really trying to talk to us yet. I might need to talk to you, Precious, on how we can pitch to them so they can give us that domain, but look--Precious: That's right.Zach: I'm saying, but we got--but if you Google Living Corporate, ayo, we out here. So 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 could just DM us on any social media 'cause the DMs are wide open. This has been Zach, and you've been listening to Precious Williams, CEO of Perfect Pitches by Precious. Boy, my sound man is gonna have to really work on those Ps, but I love it. This has been Zach, y'all. Chat with y'all soon. Peace.Precious: We out!