Speaker 1: Hey, hey ba fam, Welcome to Hallibak th Rowback Monday,
Speaker 1: where we take older episodes of the show and make
Speaker 1: them new again because we have got some gems in
Speaker 1: the vault. Y'all, so a couple of years ago, this
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite conversations ever. I got to
Speaker 1: interview the Great Deepa Perusha Thamman, who is the author
Speaker 1: of The First, The Few, The Only, How women of
Speaker 1: color can redefine power in corporate America. Listen in if
Speaker 1: you want a crash course on how to set boundaries
Speaker 1: at work, listen to your body so you don't get
Speaker 1: burned out, and how to play the corporate game as
Speaker 1: you change it. I am obsessed with this episode. I
Speaker 1: hope that you guys enjoy this throwback. Check it out
Speaker 1: and let us know what you think. Don't forget to
Speaker 1: leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or slide into
Speaker 1: our DMS. We are on Instagram at Brand Ambition Podcast.
Speaker 1: Hey hey va fam, it is Mandra back with another
Speaker 1: episode of Round Ambition. Today's guest, y'all, is incretatively special.
Speaker 1: I had the opportunity to speak with Today's guests last week,
Speaker 1: and I knew from that conversation that I was like,
Speaker 1: you have to be on Brown Ambition. And this is
Speaker 1: how quickly I made it happen. Okay, within one week,
Speaker 1: I have her on the show, and I am so
Speaker 1: excited to bring today's guest to you. Her name is
Speaker 1: Deepa Pershathaman. She is I don't even You're going to
Speaker 1: have to bear with me because this woman's accolades and
Speaker 1: titles are just they go on for miles and miles
Speaker 1: and miles. And I'm going to fight my own imposter
Speaker 1: syndrome and explain a little bit to y'all about who
Speaker 1: my new friend, Depa is. Okay. Not only is Deepa
Speaker 1: the co founder of her own company called Information, which
Speaker 1: provides brave, safe space for professional women of color to
Speaker 1: advance in their careers, she is also a Women in
Speaker 1: Public Policy program leader in Practice at Harvard Kennedy's School.
Speaker 1: You may have heard of it. Prior to that, Deepa
Speaker 1: spent more than twenty years in corporate America at Deloitte,
Speaker 1: and she was the first Indian American woman to make
Speaker 1: partner in the company's history history and with Deepa's deep
Speaker 1: knowledge of what it means to be one of the first,
Speaker 1: one of the few, one of the Only. She wrote
Speaker 1: a beautiful book which you guys have to go pick up.
Speaker 1: It just was released earlier this month. Go find her
Speaker 1: new book. It's called The First, the Only. How Women
Speaker 1: of Color can redefine power in Corporate America. Like I said,
Speaker 1: it's out right now. Go to the show notes, you
Speaker 1: can download your copy, you can pick up the book.
Speaker 1: We have to support. I'm telling you, when women of
Speaker 1: color publish books, I think it is all of our
Speaker 1: duty to go and purchase them so that other women
Speaker 1: of color can get book deals.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So, in this book, which is so unique, Deepa chronicles
Speaker 1: over five hundred interviews with women of color, women who
Speaker 1: were not just people of color in corporate America, but
Speaker 1: their own version of the First, the Fuse, or the
Speaker 1: onlies in corporate America. And Deepa in her book talks
Speaker 1: about why it's finally time to stop glamorizing women of
Speaker 1: color leaders in corporate America. Thank you for that, and
Speaker 1: how we can start dismantling those outdated power structure so
Speaker 1: that only a few of us seem to be able
Speaker 1: to make it, and how that few can become many instead.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for letting me brag on
Speaker 1: you DIPA. I know, thank you for having me uncomfortable
Speaker 1: to listen to your own bio. But I was like,
Speaker 1: you're going to listen to it? Oh, but you did it,
Speaker 1: you survived. Thank you so much for joining Brown Ambition.
Speaker 3: I'm so excited to chat with you.
Speaker 2: I just feel like we have so many things to
Speaker 2: talk about right.
Speaker 1: Now, so let's jump into it. First few only different
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you and I intimately as well
Speaker 1: as our audience, knows what that is like, knows how
Speaker 1: isolating it can feel. But I love and you know
Speaker 1: where I think you and I have in common. One
Speaker 1: of the many things is that we were able to
Speaker 1: thrive in corporate America in spite of being one of
Speaker 1: the few you know, first only difference in our world.
Speaker 1: And I know, I feel like what was so isolating
Speaker 1: was that within your company there weren't many people who
Speaker 1: look like you to turn to. But as soon as
Speaker 1: I sort of opened up to meeting the first few
Speaker 1: only difference outside of my company and you know, started
Speaker 1: to open myself up to building those relationships, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: it feels like I'm alone, but I'm not alone. How
Speaker 1: important is it to you? And like in your messaging
Speaker 1: in the book for women of color, for us to
Speaker 1: like find support among one another.
Speaker 2: I think it's game changing. It's probably the most important
Speaker 2: thing we can do. And my own story is similar
Speaker 2: to yours. So I spent three years knowing it was
Speaker 2: time to leave, and we can come back to all
Speaker 2: the reasons why. But I knew it was time to leave,
Speaker 2: and I struggled as a first. I struggled because I
Speaker 2: felt like if I left, it would represent not only
Speaker 2: potentially badly on me and my own challenges, and mine
Speaker 2: were health related, so it wasn't even you know, a
Speaker 2: capability issue in that sort of sense. But I also
Speaker 2: worried that it would reflect on other women of color
Speaker 2: coming after me. So I sat in my seat knowing
Speaker 2: I wanted to leave, and probably being unhappy for a
Speaker 2: little while just for that reason.
Speaker 3: And so in an.
Speaker 2: Attempt to figure out what to do, I started meeting
Speaker 2: with women of color, because to your point, there weren't
Speaker 2: a lot in my company. There were hardly any ahead
Speaker 2: of me, and so it started one on one, eventually
Speaker 2: turned into two person three person dinners, and then at
Speaker 2: one point my now business partner who was then my
Speaker 2: coach and I did about a dozen dinners across the
Speaker 2: country where I met three hundred senior women of color, and.
Speaker 3: That was game changing.
Speaker 2: That was liberation because we would get in these rooms,
Speaker 2: I thought for an hour or two to network, and
Speaker 2: I'm not exaggerating, six seven, eight hours later we were
Speaker 2: still you know, drinking wine, having chocolate, talking because we
Speaker 2: had all the same stories, but we had never met
Speaker 2: each other to talk about it, and so many of us,
Speaker 2: to your point, were isolated. So for me, that gave
Speaker 2: me almost permission to go back and leave my role
Speaker 2: and also started, you know, the book and the work
Speaker 2: that I do now. But I think a lot of
Speaker 2: us are isolated, and we think so much of what's
Speaker 2: happening to us is us right, or it's our you know,
Speaker 2: deficiencies or our insecurities. And what we realized from meeting
Speaker 2: others is it's not us, it's the system. And that
Speaker 2: I cannot tell you a freeing that is so so important.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm wondering why I wasn't invited to any of
Speaker 1: these dinners. I'm incredibly jealous me next time.
Speaker 3: Yes, it was, honestly, it's a great question. Was it
Speaker 3: was word of mouth?
Speaker 2: It was like friends of friends or through LinkedIn, And
Speaker 2: that's the other challenge, by the way, like there isn't
Speaker 2: a roster you can it's sometimes hard to find each
Speaker 2: other and so and we're also taught not to reach
Speaker 2: out to people, right that if you don't know people,
Speaker 2: everyone's busy and you don't want to bother them.
Speaker 3: And I think the last.
Speaker 2: Few years have shown us we need community and it's
Speaker 2: okay to reach out to people you don't know and
Speaker 2: to make new friends.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a thousand percent. And I'm I'm the work that
Speaker 1: you do with information, it was sort of it was
Speaker 1: also I feel like for you, or maybe I'm just
Speaker 1: speaking for myself, but it was an answer to that
Speaker 1: lack that need, you know, can I build what I feel?
Speaker 1: I feel like I could I would have loved to
Speaker 1: have had while I was coming out moving through the things.
Speaker 2: I mean, Information was really kind of an outgrowth of
Speaker 2: the dinners where we would end the dinners, you know
Speaker 2: again literally in the parking lots at three o'clock in
Speaker 2: the morning, and then women would say this is the
Speaker 2: best thing I've been to, like, when are you doing
Speaker 2: this again? Obviously, the business model and the whole plan had,
Speaker 2: you know, turned on its head with COVID and George
Speaker 2: Light's murder really changed how we talk about race at
Speaker 2: work and all of that together, so we to rethink
Speaker 2: how that would what that would look like is at
Speaker 2: one point we thought it might be just dinners, right,
Speaker 2: like some sort of sequence of coming back, and it's
Speaker 2: all gone virtual online and it's a very different format.
Speaker 2: But it came out of that need to want to
Speaker 2: continue the discussions and really bring together women so that
Speaker 2: we're not struggling in the ways that we're struggling and
Speaker 2: isolated and facing a lot of the trauma I think
Speaker 2: on our own, which we shouldn't have to do, but
Speaker 2: we haven't had space to talk about that before.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And I mean obviously you work with companies.
Speaker 1: I mean that's part of your work is helping companies
Speaker 1: figure out how to do how to make how to
Speaker 1: change those systems that can make it so difficult for
Speaker 1: women like us to thrive. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's also for me. It's about showing
Speaker 1: that sometimes companies like we put too much expectation on
Speaker 1: them to get it right in a way like, of
Speaker 1: course they have the resources and you want women to succeed,
Speaker 1: So here's what you should do. But I love about
Speaker 1: information and just your own work. Was what if we
Speaker 1: our own spaces and we find our own places where
Speaker 1: we can feel safe. For me, it was also really
Speaker 1: liberating to start doing that on my own, and I
Speaker 1: don't think if I hadn't. Just like you, sometimes you
Speaker 1: just can't wait for them to get it right because
Speaker 1: some of us, like time is not necessarily something that
Speaker 1: we have an abundance, especially when you're when you're trying
Speaker 1: to move through your career. I feel like it's going
Speaker 1: to take companies years and years and years. If they
Speaker 1: just started in twenty twenty woo, it's going to take
Speaker 1: them on a long time to start getting it right.
Speaker 1: So in the meantime, it's about like, how can I
Speaker 1: find resources like information or my own you know, coaching
Speaker 1: program or whatever program may be close to you, But
Speaker 1: where can you find community, like your community of peers
Speaker 1: to lean on for support so that you don't get
Speaker 1: burnt out, exhausted and leave.
Speaker 2: I also think companies sometimes, you know, I feel like
Speaker 2: we're in a moment and I don't think all companies
Speaker 2: are the same, right, There is a lot there are
Speaker 2: a lot of companies in you and i've talked about
Speaker 2: this doing performative work where they're not even really able
Speaker 2: to do the hard liftings. They don't know what that is.
Speaker 2: But I think other companies want to do better. But
Speaker 2: I mean same sort of situation. They don't really know
Speaker 2: what to do. And so I think that's why a
Speaker 2: lot of us are solving it outside of the structures
Speaker 2: and the systems because we know for them to catch up.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying they can't ever do it, but it's
Speaker 2: not a safe space right now. They don't know how
Speaker 2: to hold the space. They don't know how to have
Speaker 2: the conversations. And in some cases what we're talking about
Speaker 2: is directly in the face of the things that they
Speaker 2: worry about, right like we are talking about things like racism,
Speaker 2: and from a legal perspective, a lot of the structures
Speaker 2: and a lot of the system has been set up
Speaker 2: to protect the company, and so it's.
Speaker 3: Just they don't know what to do.
Speaker 2: So we need a lot of the processes and a
Speaker 2: lot of the culture to change. And so I think
Speaker 2: while we're waiting, folks like you and I are trying
Speaker 2: to figure it out and trying to provide the support
Speaker 2: and hopefully the companies will catch up, but in case
Speaker 2: they don't, we also have resources and ways of doing it.
Speaker 1: Can we talk a little bit about, like if you
Speaker 1: could pinpoint I don't know one or two examples of
Speaker 1: processes at companies that are creating these situations where more
Speaker 1: women of color are not reaching the upper echelons at
Speaker 1: their companies. Like what would some of those be that
Speaker 1: you would love to see just dismantled?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, the biggest one is just the reporting
Speaker 2: processes for racism. So I have a you know, I
Speaker 2: talked to a number of women and this is the
Speaker 2: most shocking part so them. I talked to a number
Speaker 2: of different women on all levels, but the most senior
Speaker 2: women kept telling me the same stories over and over again.
Speaker 2: So a lot of them felt like they had been
Speaker 2: taught I will, you know, maybe compromise on certain things.
Speaker 2: I will maybe show up a certain way, I will
Speaker 2: maybe conform, but once I get to the seat, I'll
Speaker 2: do it differently. And the challenge was a lot of
Speaker 2: those women, once they got to the senior seats, they
Speaker 2: found less ability to do it their way because there
Speaker 2: was more pressure to kind of get along and toe
Speaker 2: the line and do what the company was expecting them
Speaker 2: to do. And the place where I found it the
Speaker 2: most shocking was literally in reporting racism. So there's about
Speaker 2: eight women that I spoke with again VP level and above,
Speaker 2: who told me they ended up leaving their industries, leaving
Speaker 2: their companies because they reported a case of incident of racism,
Speaker 2: whether it was them or someone they witnessed, and the
Speaker 2: company didn't appreciate them doing that, even though they're for
Speaker 2: all of the protocols, even though they followed the rules,
Speaker 2: because a company all of a sudden felt like they
Speaker 2: were liable right or they were legally could be held responsible.
Speaker 2: So it was almost as if the woman who was
Speaker 2: trying to tell her truth and improved the culture all
Speaker 2: of a sudden became kind of the lightning rod or
Speaker 2: the problem, and it was story after story after story.
Speaker 2: So I think at the highest level, at the simplest level,
Speaker 2: I think we need new processes and new ways we
Speaker 2: report racism. The reporting doesn't work. And also the people
Speaker 2: sitting in the seats taking in the stories, what I
Speaker 2: found is a lot of them are white leaders and
Speaker 2: they don't necessarily understand racism. So there's a lot of
Speaker 2: back and forth with that, it's not that bad, and
Speaker 2: I don't really know what you're talking about. And so
Speaker 2: sometimes in those cases, what I'm hearing is we need
Speaker 2: outside folks to do that work. We need outside representatives,
Speaker 2: we need outside investigators until companies can kind of catch up,
Speaker 2: put the right people in the seats and understand what
Speaker 2: to do. So it's not a legal liable issue. It's
Speaker 2: a different sort of conversation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really doesn't feel safe to go to HR
Speaker 1: anymore at all. It hasn't for a long time. There's
Speaker 1: this lack of trust. And if companies think, okay, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty happened, and you have a bunch of town halls
Speaker 1: or group webinars or group zooms where you kind of
Speaker 1: let you just like color, people of color, tell us
Speaker 1: how you're feeling. If you've got you know, senior leaders
Speaker 1: who are attending those calls and for half an hour
Speaker 1: listening to people, and then oh, it doesn't seem that bad.
Speaker 1: People here seem to you know, but they don't trust
Speaker 1: you enough to actually tell the truth in that half
Speaker 1: hour zoom session. The trust isn't there. And I think
Speaker 1: that you've touched on that, you know, a a in
Speaker 1: a way that I'm just like, oh, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: You know what if we take that reporting structure outside
Speaker 1: of the company and we say, you don't have to
Speaker 1: trust your manager or HR to handle your complaint, We're
Speaker 1: gonna give it to this third party, and then maybe
Speaker 1: it's even anonymized in some way. I don't know, but
Speaker 1: make us feel safer putting our next out there, because
Speaker 1: it's it's not a lot of upside, as you as
Speaker 1: you've seen in your work, not a lot of upside
Speaker 1: being the squeaky wheel sometimes. And you may think when
Speaker 1: you get to a more senior level, like you said,
Speaker 1: it gets easier, like your voice has more weight. But
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think back now. Once I got to
Speaker 1: like the senior director level and I was on track
Speaker 1: to become a VP, the expectation immediately. I remember when
Speaker 1: I was I asked my manager at the time, my
Speaker 1: boss's boss, like, so I want to become a VP's
Speaker 1: what do I what do I gotta do? Tell me
Speaker 1: how it works. And one of the you know, one
Speaker 1: of the I forget how many parts of the plan
Speaker 1: to get me on the VP track. One of them
Speaker 1: was demonstrating that I could work with the other department
Speaker 1: heads and creating projects, and one by one it was
Speaker 1: a white dude after a white dude, and learning how
Speaker 1: to deal with those personalities and work in those rooms
Speaker 1: and to feel like in order for me to get ahead,
Speaker 1: they had to endorse me, you know, it made it
Speaker 1: even more challenging, like this is not my target audience,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And I had found my
Speaker 1: safe space, and I had and I had gotten very
Speaker 1: far in my in my corner of the company. But
Speaker 1: when I had to start reaching outward to those other
Speaker 1: department heads, it was it was then when I was
Speaker 1: like feeling that sense of do I belong here? Do
Speaker 1: I want to be here? Is this really where I want?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And then we get to the feelings of guilt, like
Speaker 1: you said, when you are the only one and it's
Speaker 1: time and you realize it's time for you to move on.
Speaker 1: So can you talk about that when we realize it's
Speaker 1: no longer where we want to be? How do you
Speaker 1: what kind of advice do you have for women who
Speaker 1: are thinking, well, shoot, if it's not me, who's going
Speaker 1: to be here to champion? You know, women of color
Speaker 1: here represent us?
Speaker 2: I think the most surprising thing I found in all
Speaker 2: the women and I continue to work with is our
Speaker 2: sense of responsibility, and it's deep and it's there for
Speaker 2: women who even may think it's not there. And responsibility
Speaker 2: to our communities, to our families. You know, I interviewed
Speaker 2: a lot of immigrant women, for example, and I mean,
Speaker 2: my parents are immigrants to this country, and the story
Speaker 2: of sacrifice, right and how much my parents gave up
Speaker 2: was like a constant topic of conversation. So that sense
Speaker 2: of responsibility is different for different groups, but it's really ingrained,
Speaker 2: I think for a lot of the women of color
Speaker 2: I interviewed, and so a lot of them will realize
Speaker 2: I think somewhat, you know, halfway through, let's just call
Speaker 2: it halfway through, that this is maybe not a culture
Speaker 2: that I can thrive in, This is not maybe working
Speaker 2: for me. But I got to continue pushing. And a
Speaker 2: lot of women of color, I think, struggle because we've
Speaker 2: one been told to be grateful for the opportunity, and
Speaker 2: so we're confused. I think, to your point, we feel guilty.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of us feel like our work
Speaker 2: is getting to the seat and opening it up for others,
Speaker 2: and you know, what does that really mean for us personally,
Speaker 2: and a lot of us have been taught to sacrifice,
Speaker 2: and so I think it's all really difficult for me.
Speaker 2: It came down to I had known for a while
Speaker 2: that the lifestyle that I had was not conducive for me.
Speaker 2: So I started to get sick. That's kind of a
Speaker 2: very long story short and I don't mean, you know,
Speaker 2: small small things. I mean every week it was like
Speaker 2: a new symptom, to the point that I was probably
Speaker 2: dealing with twenty or thirty symptoms. I'd been to fourteen doctors.
Speaker 2: I tell a story in the book, I've been to
Speaker 2: fourteen doctors, and they all agreed there was something wrong
Speaker 2: with me. You know, some of them related it to
Speaker 2: age I turned forty, like maybe that's what had happened.
Speaker 2: But they agreed something was happening. And I was at
Speaker 2: my fourteenth doctor and she looked at me and she said,
Speaker 2: we can keep running tests, or I can tell you
Speaker 2: what I think you already know. And when I tell
Speaker 2: the story, I always say like I had brought my
Speaker 2: suitcase to the appointment.
Speaker 3: Because I was a doctor.
Speaker 2: I saw when I traveled, because I lived on a plane.
Speaker 2: I did three cities a week in the nature of
Speaker 2: the job that I had, and so she's already judging me, like,
Speaker 2: why is this woman bringing her suitcase to a doctor's appointment?
Speaker 2: And she said, I really think your job is making
Speaker 2: you ill. I think your job is killing you. I
Speaker 2: think you need to really do something else. My fourteenth
Speaker 2: doctor and you know doctor I saw when I traveled,
Speaker 2: and she asked me three life change of questions that
Speaker 2: were profound, I think for anybody, but I think especially
Speaker 2: for women of color. She said, what would you do
Speaker 2: if you didn't do a big job like this? Her
Speaker 2: second question to me was do you feel like you
Speaker 2: have to do a big job to be worthy? And
Speaker 2: her third question was don't you see your worthy being you?
Speaker 2: And I think part of my struggle was I'd been
Speaker 2: taught that, you know, some of my worthiness, a lot
Speaker 2: of my worthiness came from performing, came from doing more,
Speaker 2: came from showing up, came from succeeding. That was a
Speaker 2: lot of what I had been taught, I think, especially
Speaker 2: from my immigrant family. And it was a real struggle
Speaker 2: to walk away from that life, to walk away from
Speaker 2: the security of what that brought, and to really question
Speaker 2: this is something I still want to do and the
Speaker 2: most shocking thing of all of the women I spoke
Speaker 2: with is I think a lot of us are sick
Speaker 2: in ways that we don't talk about. So two out
Speaker 2: of three women of color I interviewed were sick with
Speaker 2: these what I call mysterious symptoms, right, so, stomach pains,
Speaker 2: skin rashes, headaches, fertility issues, adrena fatigue, and I have
Speaker 2: a long list, but they're these things that I think
Speaker 2: are these growing symptoms, but things that doctors can dismiss
Speaker 2: and tell us they're not that big a deal, but
Speaker 2: they really affect us, and a lot of what I believe,
Speaker 2: and I talk to a number of doctors, I think
Speaker 2: it comes from not being seen and heard in systems,
Speaker 2: not really feeling supported, and to your point, from adapting
Speaker 2: and fitting in and staying longer than we should. So
Speaker 2: I think these are really important conversations we have to have,
Speaker 2: like when do you stay and when do you go?
Speaker 2: When is a culture not working for you? And when
Speaker 2: is it causing more.
Speaker 3: Trauma or harm?
Speaker 2: And when is it okay to give yourself permission to
Speaker 2: walk away? I think those are real big questions for
Speaker 2: women of color.
Speaker 1: Ah, God, I can't imagine how terrifying that must be
Speaker 1: to feel like all these the physical manifestation of that isolation,
Speaker 1: and you know the fact that our work really can
Speaker 1: make us ill. I remember my mom. My mom had suffered.
Speaker 1: You know, she was a single mom for a long
Speaker 1: time and it was always very stressful. She you know,
Speaker 1: the end of her career came from like an illness
Speaker 1: that was really tied to mental strain, and it was like, okay,
Speaker 1: twenty years of you grinding out to make things work
Speaker 1: and your body has revolted. So it's not even a
Speaker 1: matter of sometimes just it's about our physical safety too
Speaker 1: as much as our mental safety. To recognize that. All right,
Speaker 1: I am loving this conversation with our incredible guests. Deep
Speaker 1: up per shot them on. I'm going to take a
Speaker 1: quick break. I will be right back with Deepa. And
Speaker 1: by the way, do not forget to check out her website.
Speaker 1: It's deepaperu dot com. Check the show notes for a
Speaker 1: link to get her book and find out all about information.
Speaker 1: We will be right back. All right, ba fam, I
Speaker 1: am back with my guests today. Deep up per shot
Speaker 1: them on. Here we go, let's get back to our conversation.
Speaker 1: I feel like one of the things that has to
Speaker 1: happen too to make you feel safe, excuse me, And
Speaker 1: a decision to leave is even to recognize I mean
Speaker 1: leaving for you as entrepreneurship and writing a book and
Speaker 1: all of that, and hopefully a really long vacation hopefully
Speaker 1: took some time off to us.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, as as I spent eight months in BEBT,
Speaker 2: so my symptoms actually grew to a point where I
Speaker 2: couldn't listen anymore. It sounds like similar to your mother,
Speaker 2: where my body was just screaming like get out, it's
Speaker 2: time because I wasn't listening right, it was my entire
Speaker 2: identity and it took me a long time to leave
Speaker 2: because of that sense of responsibility. But yeah, I did
Speaker 2: take a break.
Speaker 1: And it was hard for me as her daughter to
Speaker 1: even see her like that and to even for my
Speaker 1: own mind like mom is not okay, but she's always okay.
Speaker 1: We always just pushed through. It was really challenging. That's
Speaker 1: like a whole other topic for another show. Yes, but absolutely,
Speaker 1: but even to hear stories from women who are experiencing
Speaker 1: a joyful work environment, who are thriving, and to see
Speaker 1: that there are opportunities elsewhere, it does not have to
Speaker 1: be this way. Everywhere and that there's examples, and that's
Speaker 1: where it comes back to, like getting to know other people,
Speaker 1: other women, especially you know, in your industry, who are
Speaker 1: working places and look for the ones who are happy
Speaker 1: and thriving and see how you can get there because
Speaker 1: it may it may not be you, it may be
Speaker 1: the culture that you're in, but you can rescue yourself,
Speaker 1: you know, and get yourself out of it. And I
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, our mutual friend now I can
Speaker 1: call her friend, Rachika Tolshian. She was on the show
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago, and she and I were
Speaker 1: talking about how, you know, it is that perception that
Speaker 1: I have to just grin and bear it. You know
Speaker 1: that this is what it's going to be, so let's
Speaker 1: just get used to it. But no, no, you can
Speaker 1: get out and there's other places. It may not be entrepreneurship,
Speaker 1: like it's not for everyone, but like, what are the signs,
Speaker 1: you know, if you were going back into corporate America. Now,
Speaker 1: I know that you're not on that path right now,
Speaker 1: but if you were, what would you be looking for,
Speaker 1: you know, signs that this is a safe space for me. Yeah.
Speaker 2: One of my pieces of advice is to reach out
Speaker 2: to people. I mean similar to what we did for
Speaker 2: the dinners, where we just called called people or message
Speaker 2: people on LinkedIn. I think it's okay, and we're seeing
Speaker 2: more women. If I'm seeing more women of color, do
Speaker 2: this to just reach out to people at the company
Speaker 2: at their level below more senior and just say is
Speaker 2: this a woman of color friendly place? And people often
Speaker 2: ask me like, well, people tell them. I think now
Speaker 2: people will you know, like don't come here right now,
Speaker 2: or that department is notorious, So ask like ask, you know,
Speaker 2: ask your sisters. I think we'll share more. I also
Speaker 2: think looking at you know, traditional places like glassdoor and
Speaker 2: other places where there reviews and there's more online information
Speaker 2: than there has ever been before, and I think that's
Speaker 2: okay to ask as well.
Speaker 3: I think also talking about.
Speaker 2: The resources you need to be successful. I mean, if
Speaker 2: we're talking about senior women, you could ask for things
Speaker 2: like coaches and external support. So negotiate those things as
Speaker 2: you kind of land your deal, because if you know,
Speaker 2: like a culture, you're going to be one of the
Speaker 2: only I think that's an okay thing to say. I need,
Speaker 2: you know, I just want to make sure I'm supported
Speaker 2: and I have what I need to succeed. I also
Speaker 2: think this is a little bit of you know, when
Speaker 2: I first wrote the book, it's funny like the title
Speaker 2: wis day or Go, And people tell me you can't
Speaker 2: be telling everyone to go, although two years later maybe
Speaker 2: I can, right. I think we are a place where
Speaker 2: everyone's asking, you know, what do they really want to do?
Speaker 2: What's the space that work takes up in our life?
Speaker 2: And I think it's okay to say that certain companies
Speaker 2: are not conducive or supportive for women of color, just period,
Speaker 2: end of sentence.
Speaker 3: They are not.
Speaker 2: And so many of the women of color are going
Speaker 2: and creating their own companies that I know, because they're
Speaker 2: trying to create different cultures that are friendly for us.
Speaker 2: And so I also think that is a real thing.
Speaker 2: And so it's a little bit of making sure not
Speaker 2: only the companies friendly, but the department and the person
Speaker 2: you're going to be working for is also to your point, right,
Speaker 2: you kind of share this in your own story, like
Speaker 2: that person really influences your day to day and how
Speaker 2: it feels, and so asking questions about that person is
Speaker 2: also something that can be helpful and insightful and important
Speaker 2: to do too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I accidentally want a little baby viral on TikTok
Speaker 1: because I shared a video and it was like three
Speaker 1: questions you should ask during an interview, And it was
Speaker 1: meant to be kind of jokey about how companies will
Speaker 1: they'll do things like make June teenth a company holiday,
Speaker 1: and they'll appoint a head of inclusion of diversity. But
Speaker 1: if you ask them so, how many women of color
Speaker 1: are at the VP level or above? And then things
Speaker 1: get really quiet and awkward, and I started, I really
Speaker 1: didn't start incorporating that into the questions I asked in
Speaker 1: my last year of corporate America, who knows? Maybe I'll
Speaker 1: go back who knows? But and I encourage women to
Speaker 1: ask that, And some of the responses, where can you
Speaker 1: ask that? Is this even seen as an okay question?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, you know, the fact that we're asking,
Speaker 1: And if you're coming in at at a senior level
Speaker 1: like that VP or above, I mean the fact that
Speaker 1: you were asking. I feel like recruiters should know that.
Speaker 1: You know, it's going to become as important. I feel
Speaker 1: like to have stats to share on how successful diverse
Speaker 1: employees are. It's going to become as important to have
Speaker 1: those stats as it is to have unlimited PTO and
Speaker 1: free lunch.
Speaker 2: I can't really agree. I just did a conversation. You know,
Speaker 2: I get called by recruiters all the time, and I
Speaker 2: usually pass them to other people because, like you, I
Speaker 2: am not looking at the moment.
Speaker 3: But that was one of my questions.
Speaker 2: I said, before I refer another woman of color, can
Speaker 2: you tell me how many you know senior women of color?
Speaker 2: Or can you tell me these three questions? Right?
Speaker 3: How many there are?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: Where does the chief inclusion officer report into? I mean
Speaker 2: it sounds like similar questions. You ask, like you know,
Speaker 2: you know what is what is the entry level?
Speaker 3: And what you know?
Speaker 2: I asked a question about mid level, and the recruiters said,
Speaker 2: I can't answer any of those questions.
Speaker 3: Those are good questions.
Speaker 2: Well, I said, I'm not going to give you another
Speaker 2: woman of color's name unless you can come back to
Speaker 2: me with those answers. You know, that could be just
Speaker 2: maybe you didn't ask. But if the company doesn't have
Speaker 2: that information, then I don't know that I'm going to
Speaker 2: refer a friend or a sister like that makes no
Speaker 2: sense either. So I think those are all real things.
Speaker 2: I think the other part I want to just say
Speaker 2: is there's also you know, I have a line in
Speaker 2: the book, and I've really spent a lot of time.
Speaker 3: So I spent eight months off.
Speaker 2: Really figuring out if I could go back, Like if
Speaker 2: I was healthy, did I want that to be my identity?
Speaker 3: There's a lot tied.
Speaker 2: Into like being a partner was my entire identity, and
Speaker 2: I'd sacrificed a lot to get to that seat. But
Speaker 2: I realized I probably if I was going to go back,
Speaker 2: would do the job differently. And I think that's also
Speaker 2: really important to talk about that. I think there are
Speaker 2: ways that we can also perform in roles and to
Speaker 2: your point, ask more questions, do more things. I wouldn't
Speaker 2: probably go back and do that job and give it
Speaker 2: as much of myself as I had. I would have
Speaker 2: set clearer boundaries. I would have maybe not conformed on
Speaker 2: certain behavior we're early on, it didn't feel like a
Speaker 2: big deal, you know. Maybe again for me, it was
Speaker 2: a lot of just personal time and how much I sacrificed,
Speaker 2: and you know, how my priorities and how I prioritize things,
Speaker 2: I might make bigger boundaries, and I think had I
Speaker 2: started that early, it wouldn't have been such a surprise
Speaker 2: to do it later, but it is a hard thing
Speaker 2: to do to just show up at a senior level
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, then you're setting boundaries. So
Speaker 2: I think this is a little bit of teaching all
Speaker 2: of us to do it earlier. And to your point,
Speaker 2: if you know early on you can't do that, then
Speaker 2: maybe that's not the right place to go because you
Speaker 2: know you're being set up for sacrifice early on. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and it's maybe not even a question of and
Speaker 1: this is harder for a recruiter to answer, but okay,
Speaker 1: so if you have a bunch of women of color
Speaker 1: at the VP level above, how many of those women
Speaker 1: are happy? And that's not a question you can really
Speaker 1: get from a recruiter. You have to talk to other women.
Speaker 1: And I think, well, I have a couple of thoughts,
Speaker 1: but I feel like even reaching out if you see
Speaker 1: women of color, you know, thank goodness for LinkedIn, even
Speaker 1: just reaching out and saying, hey, I'm actually considering a
Speaker 1: role at your company. I would love to have a
Speaker 1: chat for fifteen minutes, just ask about your experience and
Speaker 1: try to get some candid insights into how women there
Speaker 1: are doing and are they happy? Because I think what
Speaker 1: I think is beautiful about you know, up and coming
Speaker 1: career women is that we are not as accepting of
Speaker 1: that cut throat sacrifice everything, you know, claw and scratch
Speaker 1: away the top lifestyle. We want a softer life. We
Speaker 1: want success and wealth, and we don't want to have
Speaker 1: to sacrifice our mental, physical health, our family, our interests,
Speaker 1: our passions, you know what I mean. And I think
Speaker 1: for those of us who have kind of seen it,
Speaker 1: I mean you certainly too. I mean you look back
Speaker 1: even now and you say for a twenty year career,
Speaker 1: like okay, I would go back and do things differently.
Speaker 1: I would hope for women approaching their career today that
Speaker 1: they could listen to that advice, take it, but not
Speaker 1: think that they have to settle for less, that they
Speaker 1: have to not go for those top positions. It's just
Speaker 1: going for them, but recognizing and putting those boundaries in
Speaker 1: place so that you don't have to sacrifice yourself necessarily
Speaker 1: along the way to get there.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of you know what I found.
Speaker 2: You know, I talk about personal power. That's what the
Speaker 2: book is about.
Speaker 1: It.
Speaker 2: It is all these women who said, I don't want
Speaker 2: that kind of power. I want to do it differently,
Speaker 2: but we've not been taught always how to do it differently.
Speaker 2: And some of this is realizing for ourselves what our
Speaker 2: boundaries are. What do we need to be healthy and happy?
Speaker 2: Like what is it that we want and we need?
Speaker 2: And we've never I think, been given permission to ask
Speaker 2: those questions of ourselves sometimes.
Speaker 3: And we haven't. Really we don't know how to do that.
Speaker 2: So it's really I think, in some cases, before you
Speaker 2: go into your next job, before you go into your
Speaker 2: next thing, sitting down and making a list like what
Speaker 2: made you happy in your last job, what don't you want?
Speaker 2: What do you want more of? What is truly going
Speaker 2: to make you thrive? And then you know, finding ways
Speaker 2: to ask those questions in a really different way during
Speaker 2: the interview. But this is so much of I think
Speaker 2: us knowing what we need and want and then finding
Speaker 2: ways to make sure we get what we need and
Speaker 2: want and then it's okay to need and want things.
Speaker 2: I mean mean, that's really where we have to start,
Speaker 2: because I think a lot of the women that I interviewed,
Speaker 2: we're not taught that, you know, We're just taught to
Speaker 2: push through and and survive and do more and work
Speaker 2: four times as hard as right comes up so many times.
Speaker 2: But I think it's a different Like we're asking you questions.
Speaker 2: We don't want to just keep doing that. It's not
Speaker 2: good for us and it's not good for the next generation.
Speaker 2: So how do we start to do power differently? How
Speaker 2: do we start to set boundaries now so that we
Speaker 2: can change work so that we get more to the many, right,
Speaker 2: not just the fuse that. I think that's really what
Speaker 2: the work is right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm kind of chuckling in my head right now
Speaker 1: because my baby cousin lives with me. She's my she's
Speaker 1: my mother's helper, she's my just everything. She was my
Speaker 1: assistant for a hot minute. Not a great one, but anyway,
Speaker 1: So but she got, she got because she knows me
Speaker 1: too well anyway. But she just got a new job
Speaker 1: as an executive assistant to a mom and pop fashion
Speaker 1: label in our area. And I remember she's only done
Speaker 1: the job for two weeks. And over the weekend she
Speaker 1: came to me and she had these big scary eyes
Speaker 1: and she's like, Mandy, is this what it's like? My
Speaker 1: boss just texted me. It's eight o'clock on a Saturday.
Speaker 1: He texted me. He texted me, I don't want to
Speaker 1: take text on the weekends. And I was said, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, but you don't respond to that text
Speaker 1: until eight thirty am on Monday, which is usually when
Speaker 1: she gets into work. And I was just like really
Speaker 1: intense with her, like if you give me your phone,
Speaker 1: do not respond to that text. And I was like
Speaker 1: this this, and I was She was like, calm down,
Speaker 1: but I was like, this is this is when it happens.
Speaker 1: This is when you stop, you know, you don't put
Speaker 1: a barrier in your way, and then two years from
Speaker 1: now you're like, he's he's showing up on your front door,
Speaker 1: you know, with a work emergency and you don't know
Speaker 1: how your life became this way. But yeah, I'm good
Speaker 1: for her generation, you know, the Generation Z or whatever
Speaker 1: she is, allennial who are kind of starting to get
Speaker 1: in it, starting to get it. But I think we
Speaker 1: still need one another to like check each other when
Speaker 1: we when we start to forget, you know, what's really
Speaker 1: important and what really matters. Yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: Because I did.
Speaker 2: I did talk to I call them less tenured women.
Speaker 2: I did talk to that generation. It's interesting. I think
Speaker 2: they know more than we knew like that that they
Speaker 2: want a different life and that they want to set
Speaker 2: those boundaries. What's interesting is they don't know to your point,
Speaker 2: if they can, and so I think more of us
Speaker 2: need to say, yeah, don't answer that phone, you know,
Speaker 2: don't text back right now, Wait till monday. It's okay.
Speaker 2: I think they want to do it differently, but they
Speaker 2: need the encouragement and the permission to do it differently.
Speaker 2: So it's still there. I don't think they're fully there
Speaker 2: where they're not going to respond. I think they know
Speaker 2: maybe there's a different choice, but we need to help
Speaker 2: them or remind them or you know, implore upon them.
Speaker 2: Don't respond a Saturday night, Wait till monday. So what
Speaker 2: you did is what we need to do more of.
Speaker 1: And mentorship, like I mean, I think that that is
Speaker 1: such a missing piece from so many companies, is when
Speaker 1: you spend a lot of time trying to recruit more
Speaker 1: diverse talent, but then who's kind of taking them under
Speaker 1: their wing and helping show them a healthy way of
Speaker 1: succeeding in a healthy way of moving through the company,
Speaker 1: and what sort of systems do you have in place
Speaker 1: to support them. That is a huge missing piece and
Speaker 1: I think some companies, maybe few and far between, are
Speaker 1: are doing it. But if you're at a place where
Speaker 1: maybe you feel like you don't have that kind of support,
Speaker 1: then take it on yourself to find those support systems,
Speaker 1: to find those programs. Like Dipa said, oh man, I
Speaker 1: used to love making my company pay for like executive
Speaker 1: leadership seminars and coaching and all kinds of stuff. They'll
Speaker 1: say yes, especially if they're like, oh, I don't have
Speaker 1: to do this myself. I can just give you five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars and problem solved, you know, let them spend
Speaker 1: their money on it. That's how I feel.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I also think we can be peersty you know, coaches
Speaker 2: and peers for each other. I think that's also part
Speaker 2: of the magic and what we're seeing. So, you know,
Speaker 2: information is only a year old, and I may have
Speaker 2: shared this when we chatted, but just a quarter into
Speaker 2: our programming, we found that twenty five percent of our
Speaker 2: women ask for bigger jobs or more money or left
Speaker 2: their roles as a result of seeing others kind of
Speaker 2: stand in their power. And it wasn't anything magical that
Speaker 2: Ron and I were teaching. It was just they saw
Speaker 2: each other do it. And they're like, well, if she
Speaker 2: can do it, then I'm going to do it. And
Speaker 2: there's something to that. And because we're so isolated, because
Speaker 2: we're one of the onlies in our companies, we don't
Speaker 2: get to see other examples and other women of color
Speaker 2: asking their worth and standing in their space and all
Speaker 2: of those things. And so I think it's also to
Speaker 2: your point. I think we need each other to just
Speaker 2: just to be reminded of that too.
Speaker 1: Hell's yeah, well, where can people find out more about you,
Speaker 1: Deepa and find out about information and the book and
Speaker 1: all that good stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so my website's probably the best place because everything's there,
Speaker 2: so Deepa peru d e E p A p U
Speaker 2: r u dot com, the information about the book and
Speaker 2: the wait list for information. We interview all women, not
Speaker 2: that we are, you know, trying to sort through, but
Speaker 2: we just want to make sure that the women that
Speaker 2: we have part of the community know how to hold
Speaker 2: space for each other and can make space for others.
Speaker 2: And so we will set up a time to meet
Speaker 2: you and from there move you forward. If this is
Speaker 2: something you're.
Speaker 1: Interested in exciting, I love it.
Speaker 3: Deepa.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining Brown Ambition and thank
Speaker 1: you for all of the incredible work you're doing. I'm
Speaker 1: so happy that you were able to rescue yourself and
Speaker 1: get to a healthier place and share your many gifts
Speaker 1: and talents with us, because clearly we've all been dying
Speaker 1: for a voice like yours, and I'm just so happy
Speaker 1: that you've shared it with Brown Ambition.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you for having me, and thank you
Speaker 2: for the space you hold. We need more people to
Speaker 2: have conversations like.
Speaker 3: This, so thank you.
Speaker 1: All Right, ba fam? Was that a great throwback or what?
Speaker 1: It was? Such a fun trip down memory lane? Now
Speaker 1: make sure to check us out. We air Brown Ambition
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Submit a question you could
Speaker 1: be answered during our baqas on Friday. You can hit
Speaker 1: us up at Brian Ambisson Podcasts on Instagram or email
Speaker 1: us Brandambisson Podcast at gmail dot com, tag us, share
Speaker 1: the show and tell a friend to tell a friend.
Speaker 1: Until next time, by ba Fam