Speaker 1: Ba Fam, we have another how to throw back for you,
Speaker 1: of course we do all month. We're looking back at
Speaker 1: some of our favorite episodes from days past for memorable
Speaker 1: guests who unforgettable moments. There's still so much to learn
Speaker 1: from the be Avault. Take a listen, will.
Speaker 2: You, hey Va Fam, I can't tell you how excited
Speaker 2: I am to introduce today's for this week's guest, she
Speaker 2: is someone who I feel like I just don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm embarrassed to say that I wasn't familiar with her
Speaker 2: work until more recently. But when I tell you I
Speaker 2: am now a super fan, I am now a super fan.
Speaker 2: Her name is Menda Hearts Minda is a workplace and
Speaker 2: equity consultant. She's also a best selling and award winning
Speaker 2: author of books like The Memo and Write Within, which
Speaker 2: both have become just Trevor treasure troves of insights and
Speaker 2: strategies and real world tips for women of color struggling
Speaker 2: to find their place in the modern day work. So
Speaker 2: you've got to check out Menda's books. However, she's also
Speaker 2: got a brand new book coming out as well that
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about, called You Are More Than
Speaker 2: Magic for young adults, and that's going to be released
Speaker 2: the spring. I think, like, right now it's out. You
Speaker 2: can go buy it right now. You are more than magic.
Speaker 2: Menda is also a professor at NYU Wagner. She has
Speaker 2: a frequent guest on MSNBC, and she's been featured all
Speaker 2: over the place from ABC to Fast Company, Time Magazine.
Speaker 2: She's a sought after speaker for companies like Liberty, Mutual, Nike, Google,
Speaker 2: You know, no big deal. She's out there, and in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, she was named the top voice for equity
Speaker 2: in the workplace by LinkedIn. You can also check out
Speaker 2: Menda's podcast called Secure the Seat. She is our podcast sister. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so definitely head over to menda hearts dot com and
Speaker 2: check out all of her incredible work. After the show,
Speaker 2: check the show notes. We'll have links to all of
Speaker 2: her amazing content where you can find her books. But
Speaker 2: for right now, Menda is joining us on Brown Ambition
Speaker 2: minda welcome.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you so much for having me. Big
Speaker 3: fans of you and Tiffany, thank you for the work
Speaker 3: that you do.
Speaker 2: Oh likewise, how long have you been in this space
Speaker 2: and why haven't I heard of you? This is my
Speaker 2: I know it's my fault, but I want to know
Speaker 2: all about how I know people who are usually in
Speaker 2: your space have fascinating stories, and I want to hear
Speaker 2: sort of like your origin story of how you became
Speaker 2: someone who is now getting hired by the likes of
Speaker 2: Google and Nike to hopefully come in and help them
Speaker 2: fix and better retain and develop and grow women of
Speaker 2: color talent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, well, thank you for highlighting my work, because,
Speaker 3: like you said, everybody may not have read the memo,
Speaker 3: they may not know it right, and sometimes as black
Speaker 3: women and brown women are were erased in different spaces.
Speaker 3: So it's podcasts like yours, it's us amplifying each other
Speaker 3: so that people know that this work exists, so we
Speaker 3: don't have to suffer in silence. But it really the
Speaker 3: work that I started doing. I started back in twenty
Speaker 3: fifteen when it wasn't as popular to talk about, you know,
Speaker 3: how black women and brown women we're experiencing the workplace.
Speaker 3: And it was shortly after I had read Cheryl Sandberg's
Speaker 3: book Lean In that I thought, wow, you know, there's
Speaker 3: some great advice in this book, but it's not talking
Speaker 3: to me. It's not talking about the experiences that I'm having,
Speaker 3: and so I really just thought about, well, what about
Speaker 3: women in the workplace and why aren't we talking about
Speaker 3: all women? Why are we just talking about women in
Speaker 3: dominant majority? And so I really just set out to say,
Speaker 3: let me start creating content around some of the pain
Speaker 3: points that we experience. And I started doing that by
Speaker 3: a blog in twenty fifteen, and then eventually started doing
Speaker 3: these career boot camps in New York City around black
Speaker 3: and brown women how to negotiate stuff like that, and
Speaker 3: then eventually the books came. But it really my origin
Speaker 3: story was sitting in my car Mandy crying after fifteen
Speaker 3: years of being in corporate America and saying, is this
Speaker 3: what my life is like? Is this what I have
Speaker 3: to do to survive in the workplace? And I wanted
Speaker 3: to make the workplace better than I found it. And
Speaker 3: that's exactly what I've been trying to do.
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, So I mean twenty fifteen that's when we
Speaker 2: launched Brown Ambition, And I love the idea that we
Speaker 2: were like and obviously Tipicans I hear, but she's always
Speaker 2: here in spirit. Yeah. I love the idea that that
Speaker 2: the memo was taking off and Broad Ambition was taking off,
Speaker 2: and you know what's incredible. I know you mentioned until
Speaker 2: more recently maybe it wasn't as popular to talk about
Speaker 2: being black women and women of color in corporate America.
Speaker 2: But I've never been so proud of the work that
Speaker 2: we did back when in twenty fifteen, when it wasn't
Speaker 2: you know, as popular, when the all the media attention
Speaker 2: wasn't there and we weren't on all the lists and stuff,
Speaker 2: because it was like we set the groundwork and planted
Speaker 2: those seeds. Tiffany always uses that analogy of planting seeds
Speaker 2: so that when like, I feel like your phone must
Speaker 2: have been ringing off the proverbial hook, you know, after
Speaker 2: the summer of twenty twenty, it seems like a lot
Speaker 2: of because there's so few of us. It's like, okay,
Speaker 2: who's a person of color and who can talk about
Speaker 2: the workplace and about women and okay, men to heart's done,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? And like who's podcasting about it?
Speaker 2: Brian Ambishon and like two other people, right, So I
Speaker 2: mean it must feel How does that feel? How does
Speaker 2: it feel to now have like all this attention and
Speaker 2: do you feel like, okay, like I've laid the groummar
Speaker 2: for this. I'm ready for this moment to capitalize, for
Speaker 2: lack of a better word, on this newfound interest.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's you know, Mandy, it's bittersweet, right.
Speaker 3: And my life did change a lot after the unfortunate
Speaker 3: death of George Floyd, because to your point, when companies
Speaker 3: were starting to scramble and like.
Speaker 4: What are we going to do? They're like, who's out
Speaker 4: there doing this?
Speaker 3: Right? And when the old saying is if you stay ready,
Speaker 3: you don't have to get ready. I was already doing
Speaker 3: this work, and it was I had the memo had
Speaker 3: came out six or months or eight months before George Floyd,
Speaker 3: somewhere around that time period, and so it was just
Speaker 3: like the perfect culmination of Yes, I've been talking about this,
Speaker 3: and let's dig in more.
Speaker 4: Now let's move to some demonstration and not just talk.
Speaker 4: And so things change, you know.
Speaker 3: I remember coming off the road in February of twenty
Speaker 3: twenty doing my last in person speaking engagement, and I
Speaker 3: didn't know what life was going to be like once
Speaker 3: COVID had kind of shut things down. I was living
Speaker 3: in New York City and then all of a sudden
Speaker 3: things were a little slow, and then just the calls
Speaker 3: were coming, and I've been you know, busy ever since
Speaker 3: in a way. But what I'm happy about is we
Speaker 3: finally get to center black and brown women in the
Speaker 3: career narrative the way that it should have been centered
Speaker 3: all along. Right, So, now that I do have the
Speaker 3: microphone in many spaces, I make no apologies for it
Speaker 3: because I'm like, this is what needs to be said,
Speaker 3: this is what we're going to do. And if there
Speaker 3: are women who haven't yet found their voices in the workplace,
Speaker 3: I hope that our stories will inspire them to activate
Speaker 3: their voice. Because we all have a voice, we just
Speaker 3: have to decide how we want to use it.
Speaker 2: It's such crazy timing and like serendipitous timing that your
Speaker 2: book had come out right before the pandemic and the
Speaker 2: murders of George, Floyd Brown and Taylor and the list
Speaker 2: goes on tragically. Talk to me about your book, I mean,
Speaker 2: having come out before the pandemic, was is there anything
Speaker 2: you would have written differently or if you could add
Speaker 2: a chapter today, what would you imagine adding to the
Speaker 2: book now, having now come on the other side of
Speaker 2: this pandemic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's interesting because before the George Floyd murder.
Speaker 3: Companies would they'd be like, well, what are you going
Speaker 3: to say first? You know, give me a script, like
Speaker 3: we you know, racism doesn't exist here, our black women
Speaker 3: are thriving. They never tell us anything. Differently, I'm like, okay,
Speaker 3: but do they feel safe enough to tell you how
Speaker 3: they're really feeling. That's a different question, just because they
Speaker 3: haven't said anything. And so for me, it was very
Speaker 3: much kind of this push and pull. And then once
Speaker 3: that situation happened in twenty twenty, then companies who were
Speaker 3: like fraid to have a conversation or buy the books
Speaker 3: for their ergs were like, wait, come on in, come
Speaker 3: talk about it, talk about it at its full extent.
Speaker 3: And so I was like, okay, now that you're ready
Speaker 3: to talk about it, we all should be ready to
Speaker 3: talk about it too, right, And it was just this
Speaker 3: weird kind of juxtaposition. And so for me, it was
Speaker 3: again saying, what is the main thing? Has always been
Speaker 3: the main thing centering black and brown women in the workplace,
Speaker 3: And so I just doubled down even more on the
Speaker 3: content and it actually allowed me to write two more books.
Speaker 3: I wrote Write Within and You Are More Than Magic,
Speaker 3: during twenty twenty and then they came out in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty one, in twenty twenty two, But those were an
Speaker 3: extension of the memo because I thought about, Okay, what
Speaker 3: are the roles rules to engagement?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: What are the office politics? How do you build your network?
Speaker 3: All of the different things. You're not going crazy. I
Speaker 3: want the memo to affirm you. But really the extension
Speaker 3: of the memo was within to say, you've been exposed
Speaker 3: to all of these racial experiences. You may not understand
Speaker 3: how much it's harmed you, but you can be free
Speaker 3: of that right because we want you to be your
Speaker 3: healthiest life. You're not going to be able to be
Speaker 3: authentic and do the office politics if you haven't actually
Speaker 3: tapped into what's going on and how you're feeling about
Speaker 3: the environments that you're in.
Speaker 4: That's part of what you can control.
Speaker 3: And so for me, I often thought about the memo
Speaker 3: what I'd add, But I'm like, you know what the
Speaker 3: extra chapter is right within the act secure chapter is
Speaker 3: you were more than magic?
Speaker 2: Okay. I didn't realize the right within came out after
Speaker 2: the memo, So you just like, don't sleep.
Speaker 3: I guess there's a little bags under my eyes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's still like two books in two years,
Speaker 2: my goodness. So okay, talk about the right within? So
Speaker 2: what's the take on that? Is that more, here's actual
Speaker 2: actionable strategies on sort of like how to survive. You know,
Speaker 2: now that we kind of all know what the issues are, now,
Speaker 2: here's how to survive and thrive right within.
Speaker 3: I took it from Lauren Hill's how You're Gonna win
Speaker 3: if you ain't right within? And I thought about, what
Speaker 3: are the things that So for example, when I was
Speaker 3: in my former life, I spent fifteen years in my
Speaker 3: industry and there wasn't a day I didn't go to
Speaker 3: work while I wasn't racially aggressed in some way, shape
Speaker 3: or form, macro or micro. But I had started to
Speaker 3: normalize the behavior, right, So when someone would say, oh,
Speaker 3: the black girl or this or that, any kind of
Speaker 3: derogatory type of experiences, I'd be like, Oh, I guess
Speaker 3: that's just Scott being Scott today, right, So I just
Speaker 3: learned to sweep it under the rug. And I didn't
Speaker 3: realize how damaging that was to me in my life,
Speaker 3: how I saw myself, my worth. And then you think
Speaker 3: about the people you go home to or that you
Speaker 3: engage with that love you. They're not getting the most
Speaker 3: healthiest pieces of you yourself, because you've been in this
Speaker 3: harm this fight or flight survival mode. And I really
Speaker 3: wanted black and brown women to think about what freedom
Speaker 3: looks like, freedom from being the angry black woman, the
Speaker 3: feisty latina, the docile agent, like we can't control being free,
Speaker 3: no longer confined by those things, and so right within
Speaker 3: was the inner work. And I talked about how I
Speaker 3: had experienced so much racial aggression in the workplace that
Speaker 3: I started to get panic attacks and depression, and how
Speaker 3: I sought to find healing. I invite women to heal
Speaker 3: from those experiences so we don't take them with us.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think the hardest thing about the twenty twenty, just
Speaker 2: twenty twenty in general, and the pandemic and everything was
Speaker 2: not was sort of having to confront all of that
Speaker 2: and to acknowledge sort of what you had been through.
Speaker 2: And I mean, your experience sounds truly horrendous. I felt
Speaker 2: like I had the fortune of working at companies that
Speaker 2: were a little bit better than most. It seems like
Speaker 2: at at least not you know, egregiously, it wasn't like
Speaker 2: a lot of egregious racism. But then even for me,
Speaker 2: I think there's like the reflection time and what did
Speaker 2: you go through and kind of acknowledging it that can
Speaker 2: be really painful and that can make you, like you
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier, these companies now want us, Oh, we're gonna
Speaker 2: we want to hear about it. Now, talk to us.
Speaker 2: We're ready to acknowledge it. But for me, it's like,
Speaker 2: but are we are we ready to talk about it
Speaker 2: black women?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 2: And do we have to do it on your time?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: That part you're ready, But like, this is traumatic and
Speaker 2: painful and not in ancess necessarily something that even we've
Speaker 2: confronted internally, you know. So for those of us who've
Speaker 2: maybe and it's been you know, I'm not saying that
Speaker 2: everyone had those points of reflection and came to their
Speaker 2: aha moment in twenty twenty. Maybe you've been working on
Speaker 2: it since then, but it's been a couple of years.
Speaker 2: So I mean, what kind of advice do you have
Speaker 2: for those of us who now have acknowledged it and
Speaker 2: it may feel like we want to start healing. What
Speaker 2: can work? What can help?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, one of the things that I hear
Speaker 3: from a lot of readers or write within is that
Speaker 3: they didn't even realize they needed to heal because they
Speaker 3: had normalized all of the experiences be it. You know,
Speaker 3: we've all been to the doctor and the doctor will say,
Speaker 3: where's your pain point? Is it a ten or is
Speaker 3: it a one? You know, and we all have those experiences,
Speaker 3: But if you only have experienced a three in the workplace,
Speaker 3: those threes add up, and it's painful, right being mistaken
Speaker 3: for the other black women every day, or someone not
Speaker 3: giving you an opportunity to use your voice, or being
Speaker 3: overlooked for the promotion, all of that is painful, and
Speaker 3: we often and know the reasons why it's that way, right,
Speaker 3: But what do we tell ourselves? You know, just work hard,
Speaker 3: just keep your head down. This is what it's like
Speaker 3: for black and brown women in the workplace. But we
Speaker 3: don't have to pass on those old tools of survival anymore, right.
Speaker 3: We want the next generation and our current generations to
Speaker 3: have the tools they need to thrive and not just survive.
Speaker 3: But we first have to acknowledge that harm has been caused.
Speaker 3: And so one of the things that right within is
Speaker 3: a little bit different than the memo is that I
Speaker 3: provide a lot of different frameworks for when you're One
Speaker 3: thing I call Mandy healing while in hell, because not
Speaker 3: all of us are able to leave where we are
Speaker 3: right now. We can't just quit, But how do we
Speaker 3: still focus on the things that we can control?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: But first of all, the number one point is acknowledgement.
Speaker 3: You can't heal from what you're not willing to confront.
Speaker 3: And I think for some of us, we never even
Speaker 3: called it racism because it was never even safe to
Speaker 3: call it that in the workplace, right even to utter
Speaker 3: that something was racist.
Speaker 4: Up until two years ago.
Speaker 3: We you know, it's dominant culture in the workplace will say,
Speaker 3: don't play the race card, don't make it about race.
Speaker 3: And then after George Floyd, let's make.
Speaker 4: It about race. Let's talk about all the things.
Speaker 3: So it's these weird things, and as you know, black
Speaker 3: and brown people, people of color, we just it's a
Speaker 3: very jarring to be in this situation. We're trying to
Speaker 3: figure out what all this means for us. And so
Speaker 3: right within is that soft place for black and brown
Speaker 3: women to land. We just need that space to be
Speaker 3: able to land, to be able to be thoughtful I
Speaker 3: even talk about therapy and how that was a very
Speaker 3: big part of my healing and still part of my maintenance.
Speaker 2: Okay, ba fan, We're going to take a quick break
Speaker 2: and be back with more of my conversation with the
Speaker 2: incredible men to Hearts. All right, we are back. Here's
Speaker 2: more of my conversation with Menda Hearts. So you talk
Speaker 2: about therapy, and I think one of the things that
Speaker 2: is important in healing too, of course, is talking to
Speaker 2: experts and finding the right therapist, and that's also a
Speaker 2: journey in and of itself.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: One of the things that I found was I didn't
Speaker 2: realize I had kind of reached my patience limit for
Speaker 2: talking about race issues at work and women and how
Speaker 2: companies could how my company in particular could be doing better,
Speaker 2: because I had been talking about it and I was
Speaker 2: like kind of like resentful about it when it was
Speaker 2: a summer of twenty twenty and I was like, you
Speaker 2: know what, y'all deal with this, And then within the
Speaker 2: next eight months, I was gone. But for women who
Speaker 2: are at work and maybe they've got some energy or
Speaker 2: they feel like, Okay, maybe I'm ready to talk about it,
Speaker 2: how do we make it? How do we protect ourselves,
Speaker 2: you know, if you want to spend time, whether it's
Speaker 2: you know, doing the town halls or talking to your
Speaker 2: managers or trying to make things better, like you said,
Speaker 2: for the generation to come in the workplace, how do
Speaker 2: we protect ourselves in the workplace? And even if we're
Speaker 2: ready to talk about it in the company says they're
Speaker 2: ready to talk about is there anything we should be
Speaker 2: you know, weary of or just kind of be watching
Speaker 2: our backs a little bit?
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: I think that the one thing that I always say
Speaker 3: is that we have options. And I think sometimes as
Speaker 3: black and brow women, we feel we don't have options,
Speaker 3: that we just kind of have to go with status quo.
Speaker 3: And I think now we're at a position where we
Speaker 3: can say what we mean without saying it mean. So
Speaker 3: what I mean by that is, if we do want
Speaker 3: to engage in race, class, gender, whatever the case may be,
Speaker 3: whatever intersection, we can decide that that's what we want
Speaker 3: to do. But if we feel like we want to
Speaker 3: tap out, we don't want that, Let the DEI person
Speaker 3: or somebody else handle that. I'm going to be over
Speaker 3: here doing my work and doing my own healing.
Speaker 4: Then we also should give our self space to do
Speaker 4: that as well.
Speaker 3: One of the things that right within in the dedication,
Speaker 3: it says to black women who were told they had
Speaker 3: to be strong for everybody but themselves, it's time that
Speaker 3: we no longer have to center everybody else's experiences if
Speaker 3: that's not congruent with what we want. And I think
Speaker 3: we can create the boundaries. Part of healing, in my opinion,
Speaker 3: is creating boundaries with people. So letting people know what
Speaker 3: good like good looks like to us.
Speaker 4: So if we don't feel.
Speaker 3: Comfortable engaging, we can use language like, you know, I
Speaker 3: don't feel like this is a psychological safe environment for
Speaker 3: me to have this conversation right now, but when I'm ready,
Speaker 3: I'll be happy to let you know that, right And
Speaker 3: I think again, a lot of our colleagues, Mandy, they
Speaker 3: will tell us in a heartbeat what's working for them,
Speaker 3: what they don't like, the copy papers out, there's no
Speaker 3: more filters for the coffee maker, you know, like they
Speaker 3: have no problems saying what they want to us. And
Speaker 3: I feel like it's time for us to recenter and say,
Speaker 3: you know what, here's what works for me and what
Speaker 3: doesn't because no one's going to know that if we
Speaker 3: don't let them know what good looks like to us,
Speaker 3: and that is creating those boundaries. And so I talk
Speaker 3: about drawing your line in the sand, letting people know
Speaker 3: what's comfortable. And if you're not able to do that,
Speaker 3: who's your squad? And the memo I talk about your squad?
Speaker 3: Who are those people that you trust inside the workplace
Speaker 3: that maybe you have the conversation with them and they
Speaker 3: can have different conversations. So just knowing again that there
Speaker 3: are various ways and resources that we can utilize that time.
Speaker 3: But we don't have to feel guilt or shame or
Speaker 3: a responsibility to be somebody's teacher and give them the homework, right, Like,
Speaker 3: we can really now start to center ourselves and figure
Speaker 3: out what healthy looks like for us. And if healthy
Speaker 3: is not engaging, then that's not on the job description.
Speaker 3: I don't think any of us were hired. Many of
Speaker 3: us were not hired to be the educators of all
Speaker 3: things related in the workplace. Now, if you want to
Speaker 3: cut the check and this is an additional job role,
Speaker 3: then that's a different kind of conversation.
Speaker 2: Yeah. For me, I think it was also just realizing
Speaker 2: that even if there was good intentions you know, on
Speaker 2: the employer's part or people in the workplace's part. It
Speaker 2: was that sense of am I just the person who
Speaker 2: makes you feel comfortable enough to talk about this, Like
Speaker 2: am I that you know people say they have one
Speaker 2: black friend, am I the black work friend, or am
Speaker 2: I the senior leader black woman who you can sort
Speaker 2: of look to and say, well, we're doing something right
Speaker 2: of Mandy's here and she's doing okay. I have to
Speaker 2: unpack all of that, but if I think back on
Speaker 2: my corporate experience, is the hire and the ranks got
Speaker 2: the more it felt like I became that token that
Speaker 2: like that pet. You know, there's this yeah, there's this
Speaker 2: whole idea of black women in the workplace kind of
Speaker 2: being a pet one day and then a threat the
Speaker 2: next day. And oh man, if that was the exact
Speaker 2: thing that happened to me, I can't even I don't
Speaker 2: even know if I've unpacked that yet, but I totally agree.
Speaker 2: It's like the willingness to draw a line in the sand,
Speaker 2: like you said, set a boundary and not talk, not
Speaker 2: show up until you're, like you said, psychologically safe enough
Speaker 2: to do so.
Speaker 4: And we can create that for ourselves.
Speaker 3: And I think giving ourself permission to do that, right,
Speaker 3: Because we know what it's like to walk on eggshells
Speaker 3: at work. We know what it's like when we're not
Speaker 3: creating boundaries. So let's flip it. Let's give it a.
Speaker 4: Chance, right.
Speaker 3: I invite people to think about, what if you haven't
Speaker 3: been creating boundaries, what's that one step? What's that boundary
Speaker 3: that you can create to help center you? Because we're
Speaker 3: not going to be our healthiest selves if we're constantly
Speaker 3: walking on those eggshells and pretending that some of these
Speaker 3: things are not affecting us. Because I make the joke
Speaker 3: sometimes Mandy is like, no, we're not angry black women
Speaker 3: at work, but when we go home, some of our
Speaker 3: family members might see an angrier side, right, because you're.
Speaker 4: Taking all of that from one.
Speaker 3: Place that we can't express ourselves and articulate what's going
Speaker 3: on now we take it home and then the other
Speaker 3: part of it, it's chronic stress in our bodies, which
Speaker 3: is making us not be able to live our most
Speaker 3: healthiest lives on this planet because of all that chronic stress.
Speaker 4: So our lives, our life really depends on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're absolutely right, and our happiness like our family's happiness.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about you are more than Magic. I love
Speaker 2: the concept of this book, especially being targeted toward young
Speaker 2: black women right young. I'm thinking children, like adolescent age,
Speaker 2: like teenage. I want every little girl and teenage girl
Speaker 2: to know that they are more than magic. Talk to
Speaker 2: me about that book and what it's all about, and
Speaker 2: what made you want to write that next.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's my third book that just came out with
Speaker 4: Penguin Tine. Thank you for it.
Speaker 3: I'm just so incredibly proud of you are more than Magic.
Speaker 3: It's actually I like to say that it's a younger,
Speaker 3: a young adult version of the memo. So I thought
Speaker 3: about what were the things that I needed to hear
Speaker 3: at fifteen, at thirteen, being you know, a black girl
Speaker 3: in a predominantly growing up in a white town, but
Speaker 3: often being the only black girl on your teams in
Speaker 3: your classrooms. Those sorts of things and some of those
Speaker 3: early experiences start to dictate who we show up as
Speaker 3: in our adult life, right and I wanted to be
Speaker 3: able to talk to young girls to say, you know what,
Speaker 3: what you're doing right now, it's not magic. It's resilience,
Speaker 3: it's hard work, it's dedication, it's not luck right, You're
Speaker 3: not some magical faery for people to look at. I
Speaker 3: know we use the term black girl magic as endearing,
Speaker 3: which it's very much is, But any black woman that's
Speaker 3: got where she is today is not magic, right. It's
Speaker 3: hard work, it's grit, it's a community invested in her,
Speaker 3: and we're so much more than that. And I just
Speaker 3: wanted young girls to know that they could take up
Speaker 3: space right now. They just have to decide how much
Speaker 3: space they want to take up. They have a voice
Speaker 3: right now. What does it look like to have those
Speaker 3: conversations when their classmates says something that doesn't feel good,
Speaker 3: maybe it's about their hair or their name, or.
Speaker 4: How they show up? What does how do you respawd?
Speaker 3: You know, you don't have to tie your worth to
Speaker 3: somebody's ignorance, you know, all the little things that we
Speaker 3: probably needed to hear, things like courage. But then also
Speaker 3: I wrote the book in a way in which adults
Speaker 3: in their lives or educators could also engage and read
Speaker 3: this book because they do have voices, and we want
Speaker 3: them to have healthy tools to be able to engage
Speaker 3: and show up in the spaces that they need to
Speaker 3: as their full selves not shrinking, because we know what
Speaker 3: it feels like as adults when our voices are shrunk
Speaker 3: in the workplace, and sometimes those things happen as teenagers,
Speaker 3: and we just want to make sure that that's not
Speaker 3: happening to them so that they can be their best selves.
Speaker 2: I think one of the things for me growing up
Speaker 2: was sometimes the sometimes the voices that tell us as
Speaker 2: young black women, to go with it, go with the flow,
Speaker 2: just be grateful. You know, here's your awards, So pat
Speaker 2: on the head. Aren't you magical? All that Sometimes that
Speaker 2: can come from people who look like us, from family,
Speaker 2: you know, for me, it certainly did. And I wonder, like,
Speaker 2: do you have any advice for this next next generation
Speaker 2: of young black women who I just feel like are
Speaker 2: gonna be a freaking force of nature. And I hope
Speaker 2: they're not going to even know what Imposter's syndrome is.
Speaker 2: They're just gonna be like, what, you're not gonna pay
Speaker 2: me well, bye bye. But I worry a little bit
Speaker 2: about that, like that friction between generations that you have
Speaker 2: a whole other generation who was told a completely different
Speaker 2: way of how to be, and then you have this
Speaker 2: newer generation coming up who is gonna hopefully know a
Speaker 2: lot different because they're going to read you are more
Speaker 2: than magic. But like, do you have any advice for
Speaker 2: that or any thoughts on.
Speaker 4: That, you know what.
Speaker 3: I'm glad that you brought that up, because as I
Speaker 3: wrote the book, I was kind instantly thinking about the
Speaker 3: generational gap, right, because you think about for some of
Speaker 3: our some of our elders, they taught many of us
Speaker 3: be seen and not heard right, or sometimes they use
Speaker 3: language like speak up, girl, or shut up or know
Speaker 3: you're playing. You know, all these different things that are
Speaker 3: you know, social media wasn't necessarily a thing for some generations,
Speaker 3: so they don't understand the pressure that these young girls
Speaker 3: may be under right now. And so instead of me
Speaker 3: showing up to the book and being like when I
Speaker 3: was your age, I decided to do a bunch of
Speaker 3: roundtable discussions with black girls across the country, and I
Speaker 3: sat and asked them questions about what they are experiencing,
Speaker 3: what are what are the pain points? And and I
Speaker 3: wrote from there from their pain points, and I talked
Speaker 3: about my experiences around those and things. And so one
Speaker 3: of the big one told topic is difficult conversations. And
Speaker 3: I talk to them about it because I told them
Speaker 3: there's people in your life that may not have the
Speaker 3: tools they need to help you be your best self.
Speaker 3: So don't let them dict hate you know, how you
Speaker 3: show up in the world, because it's not that they
Speaker 3: don't want you to be seen or use your voice,
Speaker 3: they just might not know that it's possible. Right, And
Speaker 3: so I also write to the parent and the guardians
Speaker 3: to say, you know, don't silence your young girl's voice.
Speaker 3: If she's saying something, hear her out right, so that
Speaker 3: you can have a dialogue. And I think that that's
Speaker 3: crossing the inner generational gap so that we can all
Speaker 3: sit together and say, listen, this is hard out here sometimes,
Speaker 3: but we you deserve to be in this space. You
Speaker 3: deserve to be in every room that you're in, but
Speaker 3: not every.
Speaker 4: Space deserves to have you.
Speaker 3: And the earlier a young black or brown girl can
Speaker 3: know that the moment she can say peace, that she
Speaker 3: doesn't have to just stay here and participate in this
Speaker 3: you know, oppression, but that she can find those spaces
Speaker 3: that celebrate her right. Or when I was younger, my
Speaker 3: father always had to go and talk to one particular
Speaker 3: teacher because she was always singling me out as the
Speaker 3: only black girl in class, so when those things happen,
Speaker 3: having the language to be a articulate that sometimes things
Speaker 3: are race related, but it doesn't dictate your worth.
Speaker 4: And I think young girls just need to know that
Speaker 4: early on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if it's not, I love what you said.
Speaker 2: I want to like go back to that because I
Speaker 2: just feel like I want to put it on a
Speaker 2: poster and hang it on my wall. But it was
Speaker 2: about people around you may not have the tools that
Speaker 2: they need to help you be the best vers something
Speaker 2: like that. So such an incredible way to like a
Speaker 2: mind shift, you know, how to shift your mindset around okay,
Speaker 2: even if someone around you is saying one thing, you
Speaker 2: don't always have to internalize that or going to people
Speaker 2: who may just be you know, your family or your
Speaker 2: friends at school. The world gets so much bigger, you know,
Speaker 2: once you get out of high school, even through college
Speaker 2: and then the working world, and then finding the people
Speaker 2: who do have who are healthy enough themselves to be
Speaker 2: able to pour into you, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: and like surrounding yourself. It may take a while for me.
Speaker 2: I feel like it took me years and years to
Speaker 2: collect the right little group of gems you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. But when you find your chosen family in
Speaker 2: that way, and it's like a collection of mentors like colleagues,
Speaker 2: new friends, but yeah, people who you sort of surround
Speaker 2: yourself with, who are who are able to give you
Speaker 2: what you need and echo back to you how much
Speaker 2: you're capable of. That's such a beautiful, beautiful message. So
Speaker 2: what does this look like for you? I feel like
Speaker 2: you should be at every high school across America, like
Speaker 2: doing talks and stuff. But how are you reaching these teens?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's been a different process having well
Speaker 3: when the memo came out, the book came out before
Speaker 3: the pandemic, then right Within came out during the pandemic,
Speaker 3: and now you are more than magic.
Speaker 4: It's a new group of people.
Speaker 3: So the one thing that I've demographic so I'm starting
Speaker 3: to I did an event with Black Girls Rock last week,
Speaker 3: which was really awesome. They have a Black Girl's Lead program,
Speaker 3: and one of their alums interviewed me about some of
Speaker 3: the topics in the book. But my goal is to
Speaker 3: get to every organization in school and have these conversations
Speaker 3: and also talk with parents and educators and guardians because
Speaker 3: I think that part of the success of young black
Speaker 3: and brown girls is making sure that we have the
Speaker 3: tools to be able to support them in the ways
Speaker 3: that they need to. And so again having these new
Speaker 3: tools so that they can thrive and be their best
Speaker 3: selves right now. But so if anyone listening, if you
Speaker 3: know of any good organizations or sororities or fraternities that
Speaker 3: have you know, little sister or brother organizations, these conversations
Speaker 3: need to be had because now is the time, right
Speaker 3: And like you said, I'm so excited with this generation
Speaker 3: because they're thinking differently, they're more inclusive, and if they
Speaker 3: just have the right curation, there's nothing that they can do.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's also I feel like on some level,
Speaker 2: maybe a little bit more difficult to convince. I'm a
Speaker 2: mom now. I don't know if you're a mom too.
Speaker 2: I have a young son. Being a parent now, I'm
Speaker 2: kind of shocked at how little I recognized how little
Speaker 2: this country, it can feel like countries, this country cares
Speaker 2: about kids in general, let alone black and brown kids.
Speaker 2: And the more I the more I, you know, look
Speaker 2: at the world differently through my son's eyes, I'm just like, damn,
Speaker 2: why don't we do more? And I can just see
Speaker 2: already the challenge of convincing. I mean, it's one thing
Speaker 2: to convince a company to invest in, like having a
Speaker 2: mend to hearts come and speak to their erg or whatnot.
Speaker 2: But how like, I'm just begging everyone listening to just
Speaker 2: think about how we are like those organizations that are
Speaker 2: working with black girls and black girl empowerment and leadership
Speaker 2: and black You mentioned Black Girl's Rock, which is incredible,
Speaker 2: But how are we supporting and showing up for those
Speaker 2: organizations and showing that we care about the work, that
Speaker 2: we care about investing more in young women of color.
Speaker 2: So ugh, I just want to put them all in
Speaker 2: like little snow globes and protect them from everything.
Speaker 3: But ah, you know one thing I'll say really fast, Mandy,
Speaker 3: is that when I did the roundtables with the black
Speaker 3: girls from different parts of the country, and you know,
Speaker 3: one thing, I asked them, what would you want people
Speaker 3: to know about you and how to engage in the
Speaker 3: regardless of where I spoke to them and where they
Speaker 3: live in the country. They said, they just want to
Speaker 3: be seen. They want people to treat them like they
Speaker 3: treat their daughters and their sons, and just be seen.
Speaker 3: And it broke my heart that even at thirteen and
Speaker 3: fourteen and twenty one, that they feel that like not
Speaker 3: being seen. Right, And I use this book as a protector, Like,
Speaker 3: even on those days where they don't see you, know
Speaker 3: that we always see you.
Speaker 4: You're always seen and you're not hidden.
Speaker 2: Yeah, make me cry, Menda, but that's okay. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much for sharing your beautiful work with with Brown Ambition, Bafam.
Speaker 2: You have to go to mindeharts dot com and check
Speaker 2: out all of her incredible work. What else can we
Speaker 2: tell people about you? Go pick up the memo. It's
Speaker 2: called the Memo What Women of Color Need to Notice
Speaker 2: Secure seat at the Table. Also, we talked about the
Speaker 2: Rite Within and your newest book, You Are more than Magic,
Speaker 2: Mendeheart's thank you so much for joining Brown Ambition