Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to will Gate f Daily
Speaker 1: with Me your Girl Danielle Moody pre recording from the
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Bunker, Folks, I hope that you are enjoying this
Speaker 1: week in March of our Women Power Week. I wanted
Speaker 1: to bring you conversations and books and inspiration and important
Speaker 1: news from a woman's perspective, as you get that usually
Speaker 1: with me, but I wanted to make a conscious effort
Speaker 1: over the course of this week while I'm away on vacation,
Speaker 1: to bring you some really thoughtful conversations, particularly this one.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy to welcome to the show for the
Speaker 1: very first time Deepa Porta Shafman, who is the author
Speaker 1: of the First, The Few, and the Only, How Women
Speaker 1: of Color Can Redefine Power in Corporate America. Deepa and
Speaker 1: I will get into a conversation that I think is
Speaker 1: you know a similar story that many of us who
Speaker 1: have worked, whether you've worked in the nonprofit spere, if
Speaker 1: you've worked for government, if you have worked in corporate America,
Speaker 1: have experienced the emotional and physical fatigue of microaggressions that
Speaker 1: don't seem so micro when you were facing utter and
Speaker 1: complete burnout. Deepa found herself as one of the very
Speaker 1: few and only woman of color in the C suite
Speaker 1: in her company, and Deepa was working, you know, ridiculous hours,
Speaker 1: traveling a majority of the year, living outside of a suitcase,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, she started to feel incredibly unwell.
Speaker 1: She'll tell the story about how when she was off
Speaker 1: from work, she was sleeping fourteen hour days, that the exhaustion,
Speaker 1: the way that she was looking and feeling. She would
Speaker 1: go through fifteen doctors before she would get a diagnosis.
Speaker 1: That was that had gone overlooked because we tell women
Speaker 1: that when you hit a certain age, oh it's your forties,
Speaker 1: Oh it's this, Oh it's that. We don't take into
Speaker 1: consideration the physical effects of burnout, the physical effects of
Speaker 1: what it is like spending your entire professional life contorting
Speaker 1: yourself into a pretzel to fit in to other people's
Speaker 1: expectations and ideas about how you should show up and
Speaker 1: how you should present. There is a unspoken of weight
Speaker 1: that women of color, and I would argue LGBTQ women,
Speaker 1: women from most marginalized communities face right that we don't
Speaker 1: talk about. We're just told to kind of keep your
Speaker 1: head down and keep working and not having to deal
Speaker 1: with the job that you will hire to deal with,
Speaker 1: and then all of the misogyny, the racism, right, the
Speaker 1: homophobia in some cases the transphobia on top of that.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you this. I tell you it's a
Speaker 1: little bit of a story before I introduce the conversation
Speaker 1: with Deepa. So, I, you know, had been working and
Speaker 1: have always worked in political and policy spaces, and you know,
Speaker 1: by virtue of being raised as one of the only
Speaker 1: one right in a white suburb out east on Long Island,
Speaker 1: I was used to what it was like to be
Speaker 1: in a classroom and be the only black person right.
Speaker 1: That had been my norm. I was used to being
Speaker 1: on sports team and in spaces where I was the
Speaker 1: only person, only person of color, and recognizing, you know,
Speaker 1: I put an un know an unneeded burden on myself
Speaker 1: as a young person because I decided that I would
Speaker 1: see myself as an ambassador right that I may be
Speaker 1: the only black person that some of these families, some
Speaker 1: of these kids, ever come into contact with. So I
Speaker 1: felt the pressure of having to be this model black
Speaker 1: person so that somehow, in my mind, I would stop
Speaker 1: them later down the road from being racist. Think about
Speaker 1: that think about being in middle school and recognizing that
Speaker 1: you are the sole black person that many people around
Speaker 1: you are ever going to come into contact with, and
Speaker 1: that you feel the burden of forming and acting in
Speaker 1: such a way so that somehow you're going to be
Speaker 1: able to shift their thinking about other black people, because
Speaker 1: in their mind they'll say, oh, but I knew Danielle folks.
Speaker 1: The fact that I even thought that, the fact that
Speaker 1: I even did that for so long is ridiculous. And
Speaker 1: that's what I talk about when I say the burden
Speaker 1: right of having to show up, be perfect, right, navigate
Speaker 1: microaggressions of people telling me that, oh, you know, your
Speaker 1: writing is not that great. And I would say, to
Speaker 1: these white men who would critique me, where was the
Speaker 1: last place that you were published? Please show me, because
Speaker 1: I'm published in a variety of outlets. So how dare
Speaker 1: you come to me and say that my writing isn't
Speaker 1: up to your part? I said, well, it seemed to
Speaker 1: have worked for Cosmo, seemed to have worked for the
Speaker 1: Center for American Progress, it seemed to have worked for Vogue.
Speaker 1: I'm confused about why it doesn't work for you, right,
Speaker 1: So deep an Eye we'll talk about you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of the ways in which one we are forced
Speaker 1: into this minimal view, this crouching that women do to
Speaker 1: not really be seen or to just fit in, and
Speaker 1: how that begins to break us down emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
Speaker 1: And so what does it look like to create a network, right,
Speaker 1: a community of women that can be of support to
Speaker 1: one another, so that you don't feel alone and you
Speaker 1: don't feel crazy, like you're the only one that is
Speaker 1: navigating the obstacles that are put in place by whiteness
Speaker 1: and patriarchy, right, and that we are dealing with so
Speaker 1: many things at one time when other people, white men,
Speaker 1: to just get to show up at work and perform, right,
Speaker 1: or white women, Okay, they get to show up at
Speaker 1: work and perform, but then they're still right the misogyny. Well,
Speaker 1: if you're a woman of color, you're dealing with the misogyny,
Speaker 1: you're dealing with the patriarchy, you're dealing with the racism.
Speaker 1: You know, it's enough to drive people crazy. So deep
Speaker 1: Up writes this, Women of color comprise one of the
Speaker 1: fastest growing segments in the corporate workforce, yet often we
Speaker 1: are underrepresented among the first few or only ones in
Speaker 1: a department or company for too long, corporate structures, social zeitgeist,
Speaker 1: and cultural conditioning have left us feeling exhausted and downtrodden,
Speaker 1: believing that in order to quote fit in and be successful,
Speaker 1: we must hide or change who we are. As a
Speaker 1: former senior partner at a large global services firm, Deepa
Speaker 1: Portoshatman experience these feelings of isolation and burnout. She met
Speaker 1: with hundreds of other women of color across industries and
Speaker 1: cultural backgrounds, eager to hear about their unique and shared experiences.
Speaker 1: In In doing so, she has come to understand our
Speaker 1: collective setbacks and the path forward in achieving our goals. Business,
Speaker 1: she writes, must evolve, and women of color have the
Speaker 1: potential to lead that transformation. We must begin by pushing
Speaker 1: back against toxic messaging, including the things we tell ourselves,
Speaker 1: while embracing the valuable cultural viewpoints and experiences that give
Speaker 1: us unique perspectives at work. By fully realizing our own strengths,
Speaker 1: we can build collective power and use it to confront microaggressions,
Speaker 1: outdated norms, and work place misconceptions, create cultures we're belonging
Speaker 1: is never conditional, and rework corporations to be genuinely inclusive
Speaker 1: to all, the first, the few, the only is a
Speaker 1: roadmap for us to make a profound impact within and
Speaker 1: outside our organizations while ensuring that our words are heard,
Speaker 1: our lived experiences are respected, and our contributions are finally valued. Folks,
Speaker 1: if you are a veteran in the workforce, if you
Speaker 1: are new to the workforce and a woman of color,
Speaker 1: this book is for you. If you are a white
Speaker 1: woman or a white man, but you are in a
Speaker 1: managing position, a position of power, this book is for you.
Speaker 1: We can't create cultures and environments that are inclusive without
Speaker 1: identifying that there is a problem to begin with, and
Speaker 1: what we are each doing to either perpetuate the wrongs
Speaker 1: that we see or ignore them so that there's no
Speaker 1: opportunity for change or expansion. Deepa gives in this book
Speaker 1: some really thoughtful advice as well as shares her own
Speaker 1: experience about being the only one and how it almost
Speaker 1: cost her her life, her well being, her health. And
Speaker 1: this is why you know, on wok F I try
Speaker 1: and talk about wellness, you know, as often as I can.
Speaker 1: And it's four reasons like this that we are all
Speaker 1: managing and dealing with so much and on top of that.
Speaker 1: If you are a person of color, if you are
Speaker 1: a queer person or a person from a marginalized community,
Speaker 1: you are dealing with the fuckery on top of fuckery
Speaker 1: every day. Right. It is exhausting, and you need to
Speaker 1: build up your reserve right as you go to battle
Speaker 1: each and every day. It's why I meditate, go walking,
Speaker 1: build community with friends that are like minded and caring,
Speaker 1: that can hold some of the pains and strains that
Speaker 1: I deal with on a regular basis. We all need that.
Speaker 1: I can remember, you know a friend many many years ago,
Speaker 1: it's said, to deal with this world, you need a team,
Speaker 1: right if you can afford to hire that team in
Speaker 1: terms of a personal trainer, a meditation guru, a you know,
Speaker 1: a bodywork person, a therapist. You need a team. Getting
Speaker 1: through this life, particularly now ain't fucking easy. So Deepa
Speaker 1: offers in her book, folks, a pathway, a guideline for us,
Speaker 1: and also some wonderful essays that allow us to realize
Speaker 1: that we are not alone. So coming up next my
Speaker 1: conversation with the brilliant Deepa Portashatman, I hope that you enjoy, folks.
Speaker 1: I am very excited to welcome to wok F a
Speaker 1: daily for the very first time author of the book,
Speaker 1: The First, the Few, the Only, How women of Color
Speaker 1: can redefine power in Corporate America. Deepa Pershathaman, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining woke F and for writing a
Speaker 1: book that you know. Mind you. I want to say
Speaker 1: that this may be one of the first to really
Speaker 1: examine what it is like to be a woman of
Speaker 1: color in in corporate America. To be a woman of
Speaker 1: color in any workplace and professional setting is a space
Speaker 1: where you're doing multiple jobs. You're doing the one that
Speaker 1: you were hired for, uh, and then a lot of
Speaker 1: the behind the scenes work to you know, unpack white supremacy,
Speaker 1: to back you know, uh, misogyny, to do all of
Speaker 1: these things as the first So talk to us about
Speaker 1: how this book came to be and what experiences you
Speaker 1: have had that led you to the creation of this book. Yes,
Speaker 1: thank you so first of all, thank you for having me. Yes,
Speaker 1: I want to believe it's one of the first books,
Speaker 1: but it's not the first book. There's out you know,
Speaker 1: of course, other books out there, and I want to
Speaker 1: give them their due because my sisters also need attention
Speaker 1: for the books that they have done like Menda Hearts
Speaker 1: right has been a pioneer this work, and so I
Speaker 1: love her work. But yes, it does feel like this
Speaker 1: is one of the first books that has this many stories. Right,
Speaker 1: So I interviewed over five hundred women of color. Was
Speaker 1: very intentional in the term women of color, and we
Speaker 1: can unpack that as well. But it started because of
Speaker 1: my own journey. So I was a partner in a
Speaker 1: very large firm, Deloitte. I was one of our first partner.
Speaker 1: I made partner young and candidly. Being a first I
Speaker 1: didn't see role models that look like me, and there
Speaker 1: weren't a lot of women of color in front of me,
Speaker 1: whether it was the company or other clients, and so
Speaker 1: there was always a struggle of belonging and fitting in.
Speaker 1: It also kind of came in how I grew up.
Speaker 1: I grew up in a white town, and so navigating
Speaker 1: spaces and schools and universities that, you know, where I
Speaker 1: didn't feel like I belonged and I was making it
Speaker 1: up as I go. We also didn't talk about race
Speaker 1: at home, which might be different from some of your listeners.
Speaker 1: Like being of Indian descent, my parents were immigrants to
Speaker 1: this country, so there was a lot of if you
Speaker 1: just work hard, it'll all work itself out, and I
Speaker 1: would navigate spaces and no, that's not the case. But
Speaker 1: there was no place to have that conversation. And so
Speaker 1: as I was struggling, I struggled for three years and
Speaker 1: whether or not I wanted to quit my job or
Speaker 1: leave my job. I was in a very senior role,
Speaker 1: highly visible, all eyes on me, you know, at the
Speaker 1: height of my career, and it was a combination of
Speaker 1: questions around purpose and then getting really sick in all
Speaker 1: candle like burnt out. Probably traumatize that we can unpack
Speaker 1: as well. And I started meeting with women of color.
Speaker 1: Very long answer, very sure. I started meeting with women
Speaker 1: of color. It started one on one, then two person,
Speaker 1: then three person, and then with my now business, we
Speaker 1: ended up doing twelve dinners across the country where we
Speaker 1: gathered twenty or thirty women of color each, all senior women,
Speaker 1: because I was looking for at a senior level, where
Speaker 1: does one go we would get in these rooms? I
Speaker 1: thought for one or two hours, six or seven hours later,
Speaker 1: we were still in the rooms talking about the microaggressions,
Speaker 1: the racism, the being a first what it's like to
Speaker 1: the extra work. I call it the job and the job,
Speaker 1: all of these topics, and none of these women had
Speaker 1: talked about it before because we all were navigating on
Speaker 1: our own. So I knew right then it was special.
Speaker 1: I knew right then that there was something to be
Speaker 1: talked about. It was freeing to me, it was freeing
Speaker 1: to them, And so that became the basis for the
Speaker 1: book and also for the company that we started that's
Speaker 1: also about safe space for women of color. Deep But
Speaker 1: that's amazing, And I want to go back to a
Speaker 1: point that you made about getting sick and feeling this burnout,
Speaker 1: you know, in coming from your Indian family who basically said,
Speaker 1: you know, just work hard, right, just work hard, put
Speaker 1: your head down, and get the job done. They must
Speaker 1: have been very excited about the fact that you were
Speaker 1: so young, right, and being promoted in this major, you know,
Speaker 1: corporation that is very well known. But did you how
Speaker 1: did you experience your burnout? Were you feeling like you
Speaker 1: weren't up to the task because your parents had said
Speaker 1: just work hard, and you were working hard. How did
Speaker 1: you experience your burnout? Yeah, it was I think that
Speaker 1: was some of it. Where there was always a high
Speaker 1: lesson or a big lesson in my family of just
Speaker 1: work harder and do more, and performance and productivity were
Speaker 1: super important, which is I think now I understand better
Speaker 1: as a lot of white supremacy, indoctrination, do more and
Speaker 1: all of that. But it's very immigrant, you know, very
Speaker 1: strong and immigrant families. And I did talk to a
Speaker 1: lot of different groups just to share with you. What
Speaker 1: was interesting is some of the black women had a
Speaker 1: different perspective, a small segment, but with everyone else there
Speaker 1: was a common thread of just work harder and it'll
Speaker 1: be okay, I'm peanut buttering a little bit of you know,
Speaker 1: the conversations over five hundred, but there were some patterns
Speaker 1: amongst types of women and where they came from, how
Speaker 1: many you know, how many decades they were here if
Speaker 1: they were immigrants, So there is some there is some grouping.
Speaker 1: But yes, I do think that was it. I also,
Speaker 1: you know, I was rewarded for sacrificing my health. I mean,
Speaker 1: I am now at a point in my life where
Speaker 1: I can tell you I know that success has to
Speaker 1: come with health. Like I don't think those two ideas
Speaker 1: are different. But when I was in corporate America and
Speaker 1: I think it's true for a lot of workplaces. I
Speaker 1: got more money, I got raises, I got promotions as
Speaker 1: a result of sacrificing my personal life and probably sacrificing
Speaker 1: my health. And so it's a big question for me.
Speaker 1: I mean, ultimately, for me, it became unquestionable. So I
Speaker 1: was at my fifteenth doctor. I had, you know, all
Speaker 1: kinds of growing symptoms over two or three years. I
Speaker 1: just sold the biggest project of my career, had just
Speaker 1: gotten married, I tell the story in the book, And
Speaker 1: all of these things were coming to a head, and
Speaker 1: I was getting progressively and progressively sicker and sicker. And
Speaker 1: so I'm sitting in the doctor's office and she's looking
Speaker 1: at me, and she has run hundreds of tests, and
Speaker 1: she's agreeing there's something wrong with me. But we can't
Speaker 1: find the smoking gun, as I call it. And she said,
Speaker 1: we can run more tests, or I can just tell
Speaker 1: you what you already know. Your job is killing you.
Speaker 1: And the stress, the travel. So if you remember, my
Speaker 1: job was living out of a suitcase. I did three
Speaker 1: cities a week sometimes, so I even my own bed.
Speaker 1: I didn't eat well, right. I was very much performance oriented,
Speaker 1: And so she asked me three life changing questions, and
Speaker 1: I write about this. She said, what would you do
Speaker 1: if you didn't do a big job like this? Do
Speaker 1: you feel number two? Do you feel like you have
Speaker 1: to do a big job like this to feel you know,
Speaker 1: to feel powerful? And three don't you see value in
Speaker 1: just being you? And I just felt seen through. I
Speaker 1: literally like a moment of reckoning. And so I left
Speaker 1: that doctor and really had to ask myself some hard questions.
Speaker 1: I ended up, you know, my fifteenth doctor with a
Speaker 1: sixteenth doctor with a with a line, a late stage
Speaker 1: line diagnosis that had probably been triggered during the stress.
Speaker 1: And the symptoms were pretty strong, pretty severe. I had
Speaker 1: i'd pins and needles, it up on bed rest for
Speaker 1: almost eight months, so it was a pretty severe case.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I had a deep pushing through that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I will share one last thing and then it
Speaker 1: happy to answer more questions. But what's interesting is the
Speaker 1: number one, hands down, most glaring thing from these five
Speaker 1: hundred women that I interviewed is that almost all of them,
Speaker 1: so two and three women I interviewed was sick similar
Speaker 1: to me. So some sort of undiagnosable illness, so not
Speaker 1: like cancer or some sort of clear, you know, you
Speaker 1: can see a doctor and hopefully get a treatment sort
Speaker 1: of illness, but more skin rashes, stomach pains, heart palpitations,
Speaker 1: fertility issues, you know, rashes, all kinds of these what
Speaker 1: we call mysterious illnesses or disorders that I've now spoken
Speaker 1: to enough doctors. I think it's trauma and stress related.
Speaker 1: And we've never really had conversation in space for that.
Speaker 1: What happens when you're not seen and heard in structures, right,
Speaker 1: and what happens when you constantly edit yourself and let
Speaker 1: go of parts of yourself. Well, this is what happens.
Speaker 1: I believe it shows up in your body if you
Speaker 1: don't listen. And I'm a great example of what happened.
Speaker 1: You know. It's so interesting because also, you know, what
Speaker 1: we know to be true about Western medicine in particular,
Speaker 1: is that we don't really interrogate the differences between men
Speaker 1: and women. We don't interrogate the differences between people of color.
Speaker 1: I remember going into a doctor, and I've told this
Speaker 1: story on WOKE a f before, where I'd gone in
Speaker 1: for a regular physical many moons ago. I was when
Speaker 1: I was living in Washington, DC, gone in for a
Speaker 1: regular physical comes back, my white blood cell count is low,
Speaker 1: and my general practitioner was was alarmed by the numbers
Speaker 1: while I head into hematologists to come and find out that, yes,
Speaker 1: your white blood cell count is low. But if we're
Speaker 1: comparing you to white Europeans, to white Europeans, then yes
Speaker 1: it seems low. If I'm comparing you to other black people,
Speaker 1: yes it is normal. And so here's what you need
Speaker 1: to understand about how you are being measured, right, And
Speaker 1: he and he, you know, a great doctor, and he
Speaker 1: was just like, I'm going to monitor you for the
Speaker 1: next three months just to make sure that you know,
Speaker 1: all is actually well. But I just want to start
Speaker 1: off this conversation with saying, just how we are measuring
Speaker 1: you is not even right, you know. So then for women,
Speaker 1: particularly women of color, to go into the medical industrial
Speaker 1: complex where we are our voices are ignored, right, um
Speaker 1: our feelings and our physical feelings are are oftentimes ignored.
Speaker 1: How do you how did you even get I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess you know, was it that you had another
Speaker 1: woman doctor or like, how how were you able? And
Speaker 1: it took fifteen, right, it took fifteen to get super clear?
Speaker 1: Why story is not dissimilar than and it's I think
Speaker 1: most acute as you're saying for black women that that's
Speaker 1: also true in the health in the health space, right. Um,
Speaker 1: I was told so many times you turn forty, this
Speaker 1: is what happens when you turn forty, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: this is not forty. I have mono. I have you know?
Speaker 1: I had shingles. I'd all literally everything. Every two weeks.
Speaker 1: I was in some sort of you know, spin on
Speaker 1: being sick. I don't I knew it wasn't normal. So
Speaker 1: many white male doctors told me it was just forty,
Speaker 1: and I just wouldn't take that for an answer. I
Speaker 1: honestly felt like I was unplugged, is what I'd call it,
Speaker 1: or dying, like my battery was not recharging. I got lucky,
Speaker 1: so I left that doctor's office that I mentioned to
Speaker 1: you where she asked me those three questions, and I
Speaker 1: went back to my hotel room and I started crying,
Speaker 1: and I called a senior manager on my project. That
Speaker 1: senior manager happened to have a dad who was a rheumatologist,
Speaker 1: and she said, my dad is like doctor House, I
Speaker 1: believe you have lyme disease. I'm just telling you from
Speaker 1: all the things he talks about he's got like a
Speaker 1: six month waiting list, but I'm going to make a call.
Speaker 1: I want you to go see him. Just please go
Speaker 1: see him. I'm pretty sure this is what it is.
Speaker 1: And she made the call and he's the one that
Speaker 1: diagnosed it and got me on a path to wellness.
Speaker 1: So it was I believe in interventions like the universe intervening,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, I listened. Yeah, I was desperate. I
Speaker 1: was desperate enough to she had offered once or twice before,
Speaker 1: and I was like, it's you know, I want to
Speaker 1: see another doctor. I'm sure it's not that. He sounded
Speaker 1: a little bit scary to me. And at that point
Speaker 1: I just said I'll take whatever help the universe is
Speaker 1: bringing me because I can't. I can't solve this anymore.
Speaker 1: I honestly couldn't keep going. I had just had been
Speaker 1: maybe two years married at that point, and I remember
Speaker 1: saying to my husband, I'm sorry that we got married,
Speaker 1: Like this is not the life you signed up for.
Speaker 1: I had no energy. I would just sit on the
Speaker 1: couch when I got home on the weekends and sleep
Speaker 1: for like fourteen hours a day because I was trying
Speaker 1: to catch up on my sleep. So it was a
Speaker 1: really severe situation. But I think a lot of us
Speaker 1: ignore how we're feeling. And I think had I maybe
Speaker 1: had more tools earlier, I would have insisted, you know,
Speaker 1: as a symptom started mounting like that, none of this
Speaker 1: is normal, let's talk about it. Let's understand that, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's it's very true. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that you know, I believe that
Speaker 1: the pandemic has illuminated is a conversation about how we
Speaker 1: work and rest. And what we saw right in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty were over two million women being forced out of
Speaker 1: the workforce because they are now homeschooling. Right they were
Speaker 1: now homeschooling young children and trying also to hold on
Speaker 1: to a job. And so we got to see, you know,
Speaker 1: the reality, the lived reality and experience of what it's
Speaker 1: like to be a work a working mother and how
Speaker 1: by virtue of not creating space and not really understanding
Speaker 1: or caring about how your employees are actually working, these
Speaker 1: women had to leave the workforce. In these dinners that
Speaker 1: you that you began that would turn into your book,
Speaker 1: what were some of the common themes that came out
Speaker 1: that allowed you to see oh, this is a bigger problem.
Speaker 1: Like if I'm feeling this way, I know that other
Speaker 1: people must be feeling this way. But now you're going
Speaker 1: through these series of dinners, what are some of the
Speaker 1: things that were illuminated for you? I think for me,
Speaker 1: and this is true for a lot of us. So again,
Speaker 1: these women were high performing right like VP level and
Speaker 1: above women. I think most of us had been navigating
Speaker 1: on our own. We were so busy, so heads down
Speaker 1: getting to the seat, and then once we were in
Speaker 1: the seat right, just trying to make a go of it,
Speaker 1: that so many of us were alienated and just alone
Speaker 1: in our spaces. We were literally the first few of
Speaker 1: the only the name of the title of the book,
Speaker 1: like the only woman of color right in a department,
Speaker 1: definitely the only one in the C suite. So there's
Speaker 1: just a sense of alienation, this sense of conforming, giving
Speaker 1: up so many parts of yourself just to fit into
Speaker 1: these spaces. There was a sense these women had shared
Speaker 1: that they would once they got to the seat, they
Speaker 1: thought they would do it their way. They would get
Speaker 1: to the seat, and there was even more pressure to
Speaker 1: behave and perform like right and to tow the line
Speaker 1: at that senior level. So that was surprising. That was
Speaker 1: probably the most surprising in those dinners, like how much
Speaker 1: they had had sacrificed, right and how powerless they felt,
Speaker 1: Like these are some of the most powerful women in
Speaker 1: America and they were feeling powerless. I think that was
Speaker 1: surprising to me. I think the other thing, and you
Speaker 1: brought it up with the healthcare example, I think most
Speaker 1: of us have been taught to believe and again I
Speaker 1: do think this is a little bit different based on
Speaker 1: who you are and how you've grown up and wear.
Speaker 1: But I think most of us were taught to believe
Speaker 1: that corporate America is a meritocracy, that if you show
Speaker 1: up like you know, you work hard, it'll be okay.
Speaker 1: And I think what you're saying with your healthcare example,
Speaker 1: and what I'm saying with corporate America very loud and
Speaker 1: proud now, is corporate America is not a meritocracy. The
Speaker 1: healthcare system is not a meritocracy. It shows up differently
Speaker 1: for different groups, and we need to talk about that
Speaker 1: if we're going to change it. Right. So I think
Speaker 1: there was like a cracking open of this is not
Speaker 1: just me, this is happening to twenty other women in
Speaker 1: you know, in twelve cities. There is something different here?
Speaker 1: And why why were we like? Why was that the
Speaker 1: first time we could talk about it? You could just
Speaker 1: see shoulders dropping in the room, right, You could just
Speaker 1: see all the things we had been taught, like we
Speaker 1: had taught been taught leadership doesn't look like us, and
Speaker 1: here we were being leaders and there's such imposter syndrome,
Speaker 1: such confusion that comes with that. So I think, honestly,
Speaker 1: it was just a real awakening that it wasn't me
Speaker 1: like up till that point. I think part of why
Speaker 1: I got sick was I was thinking this is all me, Like,
Speaker 1: what else do I need to do? What do I
Speaker 1: need to try? Differently? Why am I getting sick? Why
Speaker 1: can't I hack it? Well, no, I can't hack it
Speaker 1: because it's too much, right, And I had gone way
Speaker 1: past my bounds and I didn't know it. And seeing
Speaker 1: the other women and seeing what they had gone through,
Speaker 1: I think allowed me to realize it's not me, you know.
Speaker 1: But we also, again, we value busy in in this country, right,
Speaker 1: We value saying, oh how is your day? Oh my god,
Speaker 1: my calendar is overloaded, and you know, I haven't had
Speaker 1: a moment to have lunch, and that is, like to
Speaker 1: your earlier point, that is something that is celebrated, that
Speaker 1: is rewarded. How much of yourself can you squeeze out?
Speaker 1: How much can I extract? Right? And what little can
Speaker 1: you survive and exist on right with what is essentially
Speaker 1: with what is left? And I think that oftentimes too.
Speaker 1: You know, how do you feel like we are having
Speaker 1: conversations about burnout? You know there's a lot of books
Speaker 1: and things like that about burnout, but what do you
Speaker 1: think that they are missing, particularly as it pertains to
Speaker 1: women of color. Yeah, I think the big conversation and
Speaker 1: this is probably not going to be a grand away
Speaker 1: thing to your audience, right, but I think it isn't
Speaker 1: a lot of other circles is. I think what's happening
Speaker 1: is a lot of us are finally having the conversation
Speaker 1: about race at work in a different way. Again. Up
Speaker 1: till now, most of us have been taught, especially in corporates,
Speaker 1: right that don't talk about it. You don't talk about it,
Speaker 1: and it's a neutral you know, you come in and
Speaker 1: it's all going to be okay, right, Like that doesn't happen,
Speaker 1: and if it happens, it's happening once or twice. It's
Speaker 1: not happening everywhere right there. There's maybe a little bit
Speaker 1: of acceptance that happens in small pockets, but not universally.
Speaker 1: I think the fact that we're talking about it and
Speaker 1: that we're allowing ourselves to know what happened to us.
Speaker 1: I interviewed a lot of psychologists, and what they're saying
Speaker 1: is when you allow yourself to feel the racism, when
Speaker 1: you allow yourself to acknowledge the racism, you start to
Speaker 1: feel it in your body. And that's what's happening to
Speaker 1: a lot of us. So until we process it, until
Speaker 1: we let it go, until we do some matic healing
Speaker 1: or all the other things that these doctors talked about,
Speaker 1: you're going to hold it in your body. And I
Speaker 1: think that's what's also happening is these last couple of years,
Speaker 1: there's a difference from denial to acknowledgement. An acknowledgement is
Speaker 1: almost harder until you process it, because now we're willing
Speaker 1: to say, yes, it's actually unfair, Yes it's actually racist,
Speaker 1: Yes it's actually all the things we were told to ignore,
Speaker 1: we're actually true. And that is hard. So I think
Speaker 1: we're just in a different part of the acknowledgement process
Speaker 1: to be honest. You know, it's so interesting. My mother
Speaker 1: is a yogi and owns a yoga studio on Long
Speaker 1: Island in New York. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: she has always told me, particularly about my work as
Speaker 1: it's centered around politics and justice, right, is that I
Speaker 1: need to be very mindful about how I take on
Speaker 1: these issues because I take them on on a cellular level. Yes,
Speaker 1: And she would say, She's like, you are taking this
Speaker 1: on on a cellular level, and it is going to
Speaker 1: attack you a like a virus, right, It is going
Speaker 1: to nap into your system, and this is what is
Speaker 1: going to drain you. And if you're going to do
Speaker 1: this work, you need to put what are the what
Speaker 1: are the mechanisms that you were putting in place in
Speaker 1: order to keep yourself well, in order to almost you know,
Speaker 1: be present, but be able to disconnect. So what are
Speaker 1: some of the things that you have learned deepa and
Speaker 1: and that you offer to women that are on this
Speaker 1: ladder or in this jungle gym trying to you know,
Speaker 1: make it to the next level and make it to
Speaker 1: the next space, and doing so by but keeping their
Speaker 1: entirety of their self intact. Yeah, I think. I think
Speaker 1: the big shift that I've made is almost some of
Speaker 1: what your mom is suggesting to you, like I think
Speaker 1: getting sick. So, first of all, I do think getting
Speaker 1: lime disease for me was a gift because it made
Speaker 1: me slow down, It made me really look at my
Speaker 1: life differently and made me ask different questions. It's almost
Speaker 1: been a guide to reinvent my life. I also met
Speaker 1: a lot of spiritual practitioners because lime disease is so
Speaker 1: I'm misunderstood and there's not a lot of like, take
Speaker 1: this medicine, it gets fixed. So I've just I've sought
Speaker 1: out very alternative healers and a lot of things I
Speaker 1: would have never done before. So it's been in that way,
Speaker 1: very awakening. What I have found is that most of
Speaker 1: us come to an understanding that the system doesn't work
Speaker 1: for us when we encounter a big life situation. Right,
Speaker 1: so you know, something happens to us personally or we
Speaker 1: bounce against the system not working, and then it makes
Speaker 1: us really question who we are. That's a moment where
Speaker 1: you can do a lot of work, whether it's journaling, writing,
Speaker 1: walking in nature, getting quiet with yourself. But the way
Speaker 1: I talk about it in the book, is you need
Speaker 1: to do the power. You need to find the power
Speaker 1: of me and then the power of Wei. So you
Speaker 1: need to kind of figure out for yourself. We've taken
Speaker 1: in a lot of messages that don't work for us
Speaker 1: as black and brown women. Right, We're not powerful, We're
Speaker 1: not this, We're not that. I think, you know, even
Speaker 1: if we are trying to be conscious of it. We
Speaker 1: have to go through a process or we let go
Speaker 1: of the stuff that doesn't work for us. I call
Speaker 1: that shedding shed messages that don't work for you, and
Speaker 1: it is active reprogramming, you know. Raw. My business partner
Speaker 1: calls that you have to know almost take out the
Speaker 1: indoctrination that is there and part of everything we do
Speaker 1: and let that go. Once you do that, the second
Speaker 1: part of it is you have to find we, like
Speaker 1: so the power of Wei. So I think those dinners
Speaker 1: were the hour of we because it is hard to
Speaker 1: change structures, it's hard to do the work that you
Speaker 1: do if you don't have community. You can't do it
Speaker 1: by yourself because it's soul depleting, right, and so it
Speaker 1: is really figuring out. I think what I tell women
Speaker 1: is you have to figure out for yourself, what do
Speaker 1: you believe, what do you want your life to be,
Speaker 1: what is important to you? What are your boundaries? Because
Speaker 1: corporate America asks you to conform on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: So what are you not willing to give up? Draw
Speaker 1: your boundaries? That's the me work. And then find your
Speaker 1: sisters because this is going to be hard, and when
Speaker 1: the things happen, you need each other on group chat
Speaker 1: or speed dial or whatever it is. Because we tend
Speaker 1: to hold on those negative comments, all that negative four
Speaker 1: times as long as the positive. That's what the research
Speaker 1: and the science shows us. So we need ways that
Speaker 1: we can let that go. And so I think those
Speaker 1: are the first steps. I mean, there's a lot. It's
Speaker 1: a big question to answer in two or three. But
Speaker 1: for me, it was really finding a lot of alternative healing.
Speaker 1: It was writing, It was taking the eight months off.
Speaker 1: It was realizing my identity was not my work and
Speaker 1: then I'm a human outside of what I do. Which
Speaker 1: our big things to let go of when you've sacrificed
Speaker 1: so much to rise in structures like that rewarded I was.
Speaker 1: I was known by my first name in a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand personal organization like there's a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to call it celebrity, but almost like
Speaker 1: cachet or identity that comes with that. And I had
Speaker 1: to realize that that was not my life and I
Speaker 1: could let it go and still be me, but I
Speaker 1: had to figure out who he was for for a minute.
Speaker 1: You know, right now, all eyes are going to be
Speaker 1: on the Supreme Court nominee yes, uh uh Katangi Brown
Speaker 1: Jackson is going to, you know, god willing be the
Speaker 1: first black woman to be on the Supreme Court. They
Speaker 1: are already attacks which we knew were coming about her
Speaker 1: qualifications and whether or not she's going to be up
Speaker 1: to the task because this, you know, the assumption is
Speaker 1: by virtue of being a black woman, apparently you're not. Um.
Speaker 1: You know what? What what are some of the things
Speaker 1: that you think, you know will carry into this space
Speaker 1: that we will actually see by virtue of watching her
Speaker 1: confirmation that you know you have understood and the research
Speaker 1: that you all have done in the reports that have
Speaker 1: come up. What do you see as some parallels that
Speaker 1: we may see play out in mainstream media. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love that question only because I've actually really thought about
Speaker 1: it a lot. I think that there's a story throughout
Speaker 1: the book, right that these trailblazers, who I call trailing,
Speaker 1: we don't talk about the shadow side of trailblazing. We
Speaker 1: don't talk about all the struggle, all the strife, all
Speaker 1: the extra all the questions that it brings. Right. I
Speaker 1: tell a story where I opened in the book of
Speaker 1: how I made Partner, and one of my best friends
Speaker 1: asked me, you know, or made a comment that I
Speaker 1: was a two fur that I checked two boxes and
Speaker 1: that's why I was promoted quickly, and it was devastating.
Speaker 1: There's like a lot of that that comes with the role.
Speaker 1: I think what's different and I'm what I'm hopeful with
Speaker 1: a new justice being confirmed is that she sets a
Speaker 1: new example because she is not you know, her job
Speaker 1: can't and I say this, and I believe this to
Speaker 1: be true, me even correct me. She can't be take
Speaker 1: out of that job, right, so she can be in
Speaker 1: full voice, she can do her like. Part of what
Speaker 1: I'm saying is I think most of us are not
Speaker 1: able to do ourselves fully in these structures, and so
Speaker 1: I mean even even Vice President Harris, I don't think
Speaker 1: it's fully able to do her because she's you know,
Speaker 1: up for the next role, and so I think it'll
Speaker 1: be one of the few examples where she is not
Speaker 1: worried about how she comes across. She can completely show up,
Speaker 1: you know, god willing and how she wants to show up,
Speaker 1: and I think that is going to be game changing
Speaker 1: for all the rest of us. It gives me chills
Speaker 1: just to talk about it, because I think she can
Speaker 1: literally be in full voice, and I unfortunately think we
Speaker 1: have very few examples of women of color who sit
Speaker 1: in the seat in full voice, because there's such backlash
Speaker 1: or ramifications and retribution when we when we do. And
Speaker 1: so I think that's what's different and what's special and
Speaker 1: what I'm hopeful about. But I also you know, I've
Speaker 1: had this conversation. I was just having it with a
Speaker 1: journalist who was asking me this question, how do we
Speaker 1: make sure that she's not tokenized? How do we make
Speaker 1: sure that she is able to be her full self
Speaker 1: and that gets the full support, And that's where I
Speaker 1: think we as a community also have to support her
Speaker 1: right and encourage her, and she is going to have
Speaker 1: a lot of rocks thrown at her, and I think
Speaker 1: we just have to be there in whatever ways we can,
Speaker 1: even if it's from Afar, just giving her as much
Speaker 1: support as possible, because I think those are real questions
Speaker 1: that I don't think, you know, a white male justice
Speaker 1: would have to go through right now, right in the
Speaker 1: same sorts of ways. It's a completely different experience that
Speaker 1: I don't think people appreciate and it takes its toll.
Speaker 1: So I hope she has her circle of sisters right
Speaker 1: that she can call a FI woman. I pray that
Speaker 1: she does. Last question for you, is that coming out
Speaker 1: of this experience, not only did you write The First,
Speaker 1: the Few, and the Only, but you also started a
Speaker 1: company Information around it. Can you tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about that? And for folks who are interested in
Speaker 1: learning more, absolutely so. Information is a community. It's a safe, brave,
Speaker 1: and new space for professional women of color. And we
Speaker 1: do a lot of what we did in the Dinners,
Speaker 1: but we do it virtually at least at this point
Speaker 1: and online, and so we hold safe space. We have
Speaker 1: conversations around advancement. We talk about what it's like to
Speaker 1: feel like a token, I mean all the things. We
Speaker 1: had an amazing conversation a few months ago about what
Speaker 1: it meant to be a woman of color because some
Speaker 1: of my Latin sisters raised that they don't necessarily the
Speaker 1: term women of color, you know, felt uncomfortable to them,
Speaker 1: you know, because they're white passing. And so we as
Speaker 1: a group of two hundred women of color, had a
Speaker 1: conversation about what does it mean, what are we, what
Speaker 1: are our shared experiences, and what's different. I don't know
Speaker 1: other spaces where we have conversations like that, So I
Speaker 1: think it's really powerful for us to find our voice,
Speaker 1: find what our commonalities are, find what our challenges are.
Speaker 1: We also found that twenty five percent of our women,
Speaker 1: just a quarter into our existence, we're pretty new where
Speaker 1: you're in a few months old, a quarter in twenty
Speaker 1: five percent of our women ask for bigger jobs, more pay,
Speaker 1: or left the roles they were in. They said as
Speaker 1: a result of just being in community, because they said,
Speaker 1: other women right asking for more. So it's not anything
Speaker 1: magical that Raw and I are teaching. But once you
Speaker 1: see me ask for more, you're like, I'm going to
Speaker 1: ask for more, and then the next person's going to
Speaker 1: ask for more. So I think we're being each other's
Speaker 1: um guides on what our boundaries are and what our
Speaker 1: worth is, and what it's like to leave spaces that
Speaker 1: don't don't want to see us and don't want to
Speaker 1: make space for us. I think that's different. I also
Speaker 1: think as women of color, we have such amazing lived experiences,
Speaker 1: right that that don't get valued in the workplace, right,
Speaker 1: those of lived experiences get downplayed. We look at P
Speaker 1: and L, we looked at with global experience, and we
Speaker 1: look at this like checklist of things that are important.
Speaker 1: And as women of color, we have such lived experiences.
Speaker 1: So we're coming together and talking about those things. So
Speaker 1: that's what the community is about. You know, how we
Speaker 1: have power, how we're special, how you know in twenty fifty,
Speaker 1: when when the world continues to be diverse, like I
Speaker 1: actually think we have, I call to them superpowers in
Speaker 1: ways that we can lead that. I think that I
Speaker 1: think corporate and other industries absolutely need, other sectors need
Speaker 1: UM and so I feel like we're the voice of
Speaker 1: the future in that sort of way. UM. Yes, we're
Speaker 1: always looking for members, We're always looking for new people.
Speaker 1: So you can find all that information on my website,
Speaker 1: so Deepa Peru pureu dot com and there's information about
Speaker 1: the book, but also information about information the company and
Speaker 1: how you sign up and our next big initiative that
Speaker 1: we are just in the process of announcing. I'll just
Speaker 1: kind of sick flag it here is we're about to
Speaker 1: place one hundred women of color on boards and so
Speaker 1: that's our next initiative, but not just place in men
Speaker 1: traditional sort of way. We actually want to change the
Speaker 1: criteria that we use to place women of color. So
Speaker 1: we're doing that with Richard Branson's B team and so
Speaker 1: that'll be a big announcement that comes out in the
Speaker 1: next few weeks. Well, I can't tell you it has
Speaker 1: been a pleasure. I'm so happy that we were able
Speaker 1: to make this happen. Folks. The name of the book
Speaker 1: is the first, the few, the only, how women of
Speaker 1: color can redefine power in corporate America. DEEPA. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for making the time to join Woke AP
Speaker 1: and we hope to have you back again. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for having me and having these conversations. That
Speaker 1: is it for me today, Folks on woka app as
Speaker 1: always Power to the people and to all the people. Power,
Speaker 1: get woke and stay woke as fuck.