As a Communication & Inclusion Trainer, Alissa guides people in addressing awkward situations, helping them quickly adjust to things out of their control.
In a recent training, when she had to demonstrate that kind of adaptability because of technical glitches, she realized what a gift it ended up becoming for her and for the participants.
Humans are biased. We're designed to identify people who are different from us, people we have things in common with, and people who pose a threat to our safety - emotional & physical.
It's easier for our brain to make a decision about a person when we allow our bias to control it. But how many times have you misjudged someone you met, for better or for worse? When we rely on our bias to make decisions about a person's potential as a friend, foe, or neutral, we seriously limit the potential of the relationship.
I added the pronouns (she, her) to my profile name on LinkedIn a couple of weeks ago, and left a comment on a friend's post shortly afterward.
That was the first time my name came up with the pronouns, and someone I love promptly responded with "lose the pronouns" in his response to my comment.
I was annoyed, why would he care what my title says? It felt insulting, critical, like a condescending comment you'd expect from your older brother when you were teenagers. I was being judged.
Jason Greer can be a chameleon when necessary. When Jason Greer and his co-author Phil Dixon began the journey of writing their book, Bias, Racism, and the Brain, Jason didn't consider how writing the stories of racism in his life would impact his internal messages, and how they would affect the simmering of those experiences under the surface of his life.
She was miserable in those first few months of her senior year of high school, studying abroad in the United States, thousands of miles from her home and family in Brazil. It’s not because she didn’t fit in, or she wasn’t making friends. What made her miserable was that she was working so hard in academics and sports, and not meeting her own expectations of achievement.
Being Jewish was always part of his identity, but it didn't seem particularly meaningful until that moment. He and his sisters started to ask questions, and learned more about the incident and the events that took place afterward. It was those stories that shifted Alan's perspective about hate, about racism, and about bigotry of every kind.
Mark Bowden’s TEDxToronto in 2013 had a huge impact on how I think about authenticity. As I was laboring over my book, Your Stories Don’t Define You, I realized the influence that talk has had on me over the past 5 years in my work with coaching clients. When I encourage people to step out of their comfort zones to discover their hidden talents and joy, I often refer to Mark’s work.
