Episode 277 w/ Dr. Liz Cavallaro and Lt Col Bree Fram

Jennifer Brown:

The last thing I want to do is judge anyone’s journey, as long as you’re trying and as long as you’re seeking to have the metal heated up, if you will, of your system, as long as you’re seeking the flame, going to the edge. That to me is really all I expect because that’s what I challenge myself with every day, is to go to that edge and spend some time there. If it’s too hot going back and restoring and returning to it because I think that’s where we … the growth mindset is practiced on the edge. That’s where we really create those new pathways and where we get smarter and wiser and better at what we do.

Doug Foresta:

The Will to Change is hosted by Jennifer Brown. Jennifer is an award-winning entrepreneur, dynamic speaker, bestselling author, and leadership expert on how organizations must evolve their cultures towards the new more inclusive workplace reality. She’s a passionate inclusion and equity advocate committed to helping leaders foster healthier and therefore more productive workplaces, ultimately driving innovation and business results. Informed by nearly two decades of consulting to Fortune 500 companies, she and her team advise top companies on building cultures of belonging in times of great upheaval and uncertainty.

And now, onto the episode. Welcome to The Will to Change. This is Doug Foresta. Today’s episode was originally recorded for the Forged in Fire podcast and features a conversation between Jennifer and host Dr. Liz Cavalero and Lieutenant Colonel Bree Fram. And Jennifer discusses the benefits of having to forge your own path, the need to have challenging conversations. You’ll also discover some of the positive aspects of adversity and the importance of role models, all this and more. And now, we’re going to jump right into the conversation.

Lieutenant Colonel Bree Fram:

We want to get started by going back to the beginning and really talking about your journey and what made you into the leader you are today. You said on another podcast the Productive Flourishing Podcast that you feel you carry an identity that has been a source of challenge, but the overcoming of it, the learning from it and the way that it transformed your leadership is a profound experience that gave you a voice and a reason to get up every day. And though in other writing you said you may not have seen it as a positive at the time, you’re coming out experience engendered a sense of agency. I want to know if that began from a sense of coming out to yourself.

What was that journey for you where it went from, I’m different to this is who I really am, and accepting that in yourself and in that work, did it build some qualities in you that you still leverage to this day?

Jennifer Brown:

What a question. I love it. Okay. Well, coming out to yourself first, what enables us to be … to accept those parts of ourselves, those truths about ourselves? Who are the people around us? What are the messages that we’re getting about? Who we really are? How do we find role models? I remember in my college years being very, I think open-minded and curious about where my heart was leading me, romantically this is, but I was also … tied to that was my awakening, as a woman and really my first kind of feminism, if you will, waking up to systemic oppression actually. And I remember that as being the first step to my coming out process because it opened my eyes all of a sudden to the inequities in the world and where I sat in the system.

And that was really a rude awakening, I will say. It was counter to everything I’d ever been exposed to, everything that I think I’d been raised to participate in. This was in college, and it just hit me like a lightning bolt. I never was the same again after that. I questioned everything. I began to dress differently. I scrutinized the ways that I was participating in kind of the traditional structure of being cisgender female, although we really didn’t have that word or use that word then. This was 1991, I would say, but just rebelling against it all. And I think for me, the pendulum needs to swing really far, I think because that’s how you test yourself.

That’s how you figure out where is my threshold. And you do need to push on everything you learn, especially when you’re that young, I think you need to push really hard to the extreme and then feel what that feels like and then come back and say, “Well, what was true about that? Where is my comfortable place? Where is my natural, authentic place?” And I held that, but along with this awakening political self, I think, that really wanted to challenge the system. I think that that was birthed in that moment. And then, it was sort of this logical progression to say, I’m allowed to love who I love and I’m allowed to live the life that I want to live.

Because the books say so, right? The academics and everybody I was reading, I said, “Oh, and there are other women that have chosen this path and other humans that have chosen this path.” And I didn’t know anyone in the LGBTQ community like anyone, but luckily, and I think this was pre-internet, ’91. I don’t know, we didn’t have a lot to draw on, but I did get a hold of custom copies of books and things like that and I guess movies. I don’t really remember that at all, but I think the truth sort of sprung out of me and the respect for myself, for my heart, for my desire, for my want to affiliate with a community, my want to identify with a very brave and courageous movement.

I would come to really then understand and sort of enter this community that had many, many long history before me since then and sort of jump into the stream and discover my activism, and I was in a place that there weren’t any LGBTQ people really that I knew, maybe one or two and no classes on it and nothing like that. So I had to cope with it, but it felt very much like I was coming home, very much like that and I’ve never really shifted since then, honestly. When I came out I was 22 and I’ve never looked back. I have found a home in the community. I found the people that would, I guess, reflect back to me, myself. As diverse as we are in so many ways in the LGBTQ plus community, there was so much that was shared and so much that I could be proud of even in those early days.

Yeah, and then, there were the coming out process of the conversations, of the parents and all that was very uncomfortable. Everybody has to go through that, but I love your question because honestly, the most important piece is to continue to love yourself. And I never felt less than when I embraced this part of my identity. In fact, I felt very independent. I felt strong, I felt empowered. I felt that agency because it was such a liberation for me as a woman to realize that I could cast off all of the scripts and all of the plans and all of the, I guess, role models that I hadn’t really been able to relate to and really, really forge my own path.

And I think that’s so important for every human to … in a way, to depart from what is pre-ordained for you and to be forced to leave that and to forge out on your own. It’s something that I wish for everyone because there’s no other way to hear your own truth, unless you separate yourself from a lot of that stuff and go your own way. So lucky me. I was very, very blessed and I was blessed to come out safely, never be in any danger. And I think relatively now looking back, protected in many ways by my other identities of privilege, that kind of provided that … as I think of it, like a plush carpet under me that held me.

I know that many, many, many others are not as fortunate. So we get into that a little bit later in what I’m doing about that if you’d like.

Lieutenant Colonel Bree Fram:

Absolutely, we will.

Dr. Liz Cavalero:

It’s interesting you laid out so many of the wonderful parts of the experience of first, coming out to self and then to others, and that allowance to be authentic and that sense of coming home and liberation, but that also, there are those uncomfortable pieces of it, and particularly those conversations and interactions with others. And we like to think about those moments of adversity and explore those for not only the difficulty, but also the growth opportunity and what it is that you learned and were able to develop as a part of that, that folds into who you are today as a leader.

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah, it’s true. Well, I think for those of us who are people-pleasers, which I definitely am, those conversations are really extra difficult because you know you’re letting someone down, you know that you’re challenging their comfort, you know that you’re really actually sort of risking the relationship. So the strength it takes to face that and to declare the truth and to hold all that person’s doubts and fear, fear for you, potentially. I mean, I know that I absolutely had to hold that for my parents, for example, a total lack of familiarity/fear. I mean just abject fear for me, for my safety, for my life. And it’s a weird thing to feel so kind of excited and getting excitement of youth to have this discovery about yourself.

And feel there’s a bit of a weight lifted off of you, but then to go through conversation after conversation that are so difficult to put the weight back on you. So I was very conscious of this, and I think when you’re young also, you don’t know what’s yours and you don’t know what’s other people’s and years of therapy help you understand like this is not mine to carry, but when you’re young, you don’t know that. And you hold the hopes and dreams of many generations in your family, so many of us. And you’re breaking that and you are saying, I know best and I know what I’m doing, trust me, but I think coping with that is difficult.

So I think what I learned, to answer your question, is I think the ability to actually hold another’s experience. Hold that. It’s not maybe agree, disagree, but I think wisdom is the ability to hold what you believe and hold what others believe and do so gently and with kindness, understanding all the context that informs others’ beliefs and values. Now, when I do DEI, this is so at play around being able to not spending a ton of energy agreeing, disagreeing, fighting, resisting, fighting the resistance of others, but really the understanding of the context that they’re bringing, right? And the seeking of the universal, the seeking of the way in and the understanding that might be shared.

And I think building that bridge is something that is so core to my work now and not letting it also though blow me off course and really maintaining your voice as the center and the north star and maintaining that and following that no matter what, so that will … in your early days you’re tested, how much do you believe this? How much are you committed to this? Are you really going to go the distance? Are you going to give up? How can you possibly know yourself? I mean, I think the testing we get and how can you be so sure and all of the doubt and the cynicism and the skepticism and everything.

I must have known something deeply that was unassailable, but I think rather than be defeated by what we hear, I think it’s so much more interesting to try to understand and be curious about it and then, meet someone where they’re at and also, stand by what we believe and we know to be true about ourselves. So lots of courage, lots of resilience, lots of ability to bend and yet, stay in the discomfort and stay in that discomfort with others, is gosh, what I do every single day.

Lieutenant Colonel Bree Fram:

You hit on something in there that goes back to what I said about agency and how you described your coming out process that you create that sense of self that stands alone from how society may have defined you, and what an empowering action that is, to stand there and say, this is me, this is who I am. And then, to use that to figure out how you navigate with the rest of the world and understand the perceptions of those around you. One thing I found interesting about the way you described your coming out process, particularly for someone of our generation, is that it sounds like you never really had that experience of being in the closet.

It was at about the same time you found yourself that you also were ready to be out to the world. What we’ve found with a lot of LGBTQ leaders is that there are some pretty formative experiences that happen from time spent in the closet, whether it’s the way you sense the world around you, and then utilize those skills to build ways to communicate or distract others from what might actually be seen, but your experience is much more reflective of what we see today’s youth go through, where they’re ready, they can come out, they can be themselves from hopefully the beginning of their careers, if not even younger in their childhood.

And I think that’s amazing and wonderful and where we should be, but we wonder sometimes is there something we lose or is there something that everyone faces? There’s going to be that adversity in our lives, in our careers that help develop those same communication skills that are so valuable. So how I’ll turn it to you is how did your desire and your ability to communicate and connect come about? What was it in your experiences that gave you this uncanny ability to communicate in so many ways with so many different audiences?

Jennifer Brown:

Well, I grew up on the stage, so I think that there’s some clue there around performance and the bravery it takes to get on the stage time after time after time, whether that’s auditioning, whether that’s performing, dealing with the fear and excitement, blended, which is literally coming out. It’s like fear and excitement is … I think that’s what’s going on, right?

Lieutenant Colonel Bree Fram:

That’s a fabulous description of it.

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah and as a performer, you’re always on that edge. You get used to it, yes, but I grew up in a musical family and I was performing all the time and I loved it, but I won’t say that I was never fearful. I mean, I did some things that I looked back and I can’t believe I had the courage to do it. Somehow, I enjoyed … it was like the good kind of fear. It was the good kind of adrenaline. I felt challenged by it in a good way, in a stimulating way. It felt like home to be challenged in that way. So I think that that forged in me the … gosh, I don’t even know what the word is for it. Perhaps adventure seeking. Perhaps seeking the fire and perhaps loving the pressure because performers love to be under the gun. We love the spotlight.

We love to be challenged to be present in a moment that’s unpredictable or it is predictable because we have a script and we have a set and we have our score in the musical sense, but sort of being open to the unexpected because you never know how the audience is going to react or if it’s at all improvisational, you roll with it and it’s the yes and of improv, right? So the yes and of coming out is the okay, this is uncomfortable, and what’s really going on right now? What’s energizing? How am I growing? How am I honing my craft? How am I becoming stronger in this moment? What am I learning about myself? And then the approval piece, I mean, performers love approval.

We love to have the audience sort of erupt in adulation. So this was definitely something different. It was not met with adulation, that’s for sure, but I think I had the strength and the flexibility to weather it. I don’t know. I mean, I think for performers are some of the toughest people ever.

Lieutenant Colonel Bree Fram:

There’s a great concept in metallurgy, the concept of tempering a material where you actually have to raise the temperature of it to make it stronger. And it’s very similar to what you’re talking about. You turn up the heat and sometimes that works to make an individual or an organization stronger, but if you turn it up too much, they break. So finding that point, that edge that you danced on, I think is an incredibly valuable skill.

Jennifer Brown:

I want to add, the question you asked about the generations, I’m really stuck on that because the process of fighting for who you are and having to fight through the norms and the lack of resources and the isolation, and I remember I just really didn’t have any … I moved to Boston after college, I didn’t have any friends in the community, was living in this straight friend group and was miserable. I knew I had to find my people, and I actually clipped out a little … it was the newspaper back then. So I clipped out a little ad for a bisexual discussion group that was happening in a community center, and I showed up not knowing anyone there, and that became my first group of friends, ever in the community.

So I think that, your question of not having to go through that, I haven’t thought about it that way, but I do wonder, there’s something really unmistakable and invaluable about having to differentiate yourself from others having to pull away, as I was talking about before, from the script that you’ve been given, having to weather and risk relationships that you count on. And actually, Bree, I was going to say that I was actually closeted in certain environments. So when I was in my twenties, I pursued operatic vocal training in New York, and I was out to my friends, and certainly there were a lot of queer people in music school, but in the casting world, I was very worried that … because I physically would be cast as the love interest, the young sister, daughter, the bride, that was my voice type.

So I was typecast in these roles and I was very worried that people would know who I am, that I wouldn’t be cast, that it would hurt my career. I didn’t have any role models either. So I did kind of dance with that and then, in the corporate world, I did also have to … one day came when I’d left singing, and I remember I was working for an insurance company and no diversity of any kind on Wall Street, and I just got so fed up with my team not knowing who I am, that I took a picture of my partner, Michelle, who’s still my partner, 25 years ago and I marched into my boss’s office and I said, “I want you to know this very important person to me.”

And I am kind of a rip the bandaid off sort of person, but I endured them not knowing for a really long time. And what helped me was finding the workplace advocacy community that I had fallen into in my 20s and 30s of all these incredible brave queer people who were trying to change their company’s culture. This was long, long, long ago, but they were the pioneers. I mean, they were really sticking their neck out every day, and they had become my friends and I was so … I felt I needed to measure up to that courage. I mean, the bar was that, people who were bringing this message to their senior leaders, people who were the first.

I knew back then, I had trans friends who were the first to transition in an entire industry that I was beyond panels with and moderating conversations with them. I felt so inspired and so accountable. So when you, I think, mature with this community of brave people, you have to ask yourself, why not me? And where am I out of alignment in the life that I’m living? How am I not living louder and how am I not challenging the environments around me? Where am I still scared? So anyway, it’s just been a really interesting journey to be in corporate as I’ve been, just performance and then corporate and really leaning on the community because I knew I was part of this vast, strong community of people that were really breaking barriers.

I never could have done it without knowing that all those folks had shown so much bravery in their lives and being sort of lifted up by that. So your question of what does it create in us when we have to fight in the closet and when we have to fight our way out of it, what does it grow in us? What does it ignite in us? And it ignites this commitment to ourselves that is tested and has been tested, but that prevails. And that’s a huge victory. It’s an enormous … it’s a power that … it’s a light that you ignite in yourself that never goes out. And it’s a belief in yourself. It is literally … if I could describe it, it’s a faith in the rightness of you and the beauty of you.

I think LGBTQ people, if we can deal with our stuff, it’s a big if. We can be so powerful, so persuasive, so empathetic, so perceptive. I think we can be such gifted leaders, precisely because of these struggles and the survival that it took to be us. And there’s something very beautiful out of that. I don’t know, I really credit coming out with a lot of my courage and resilience and character, and I don’t know if I ever would’ve been the person I am now if that had not been who I was, because I think what would’ve happened is I would’ve succumbed and continued to be in a narrative, that I never would’ve challenged, that I never would’ve looked at critically, that I would never have had to be so self-reliant.

And especially for women, self-reliance is the whole game. I mean, literally that was what I learned in my feminism class. It’s like, because the problem is we define ourselves in relation to others. That’s how we are raised and as such, we never get a chance to define ourselves independent of all that noise, independent of the narrative we’re supposed to participate in and I got to do that. And what I discovered in the process is what I would do for a living and what would make me happiest and unfettered by all of those … not all expectations, but a lot of it. So it was liberating. For me, it was just intoxicating to step away from that.

To realize I had that agency and I want that for everyone so badly. And I know that’s a lot to ask, but I do think about my straight friends, particularly women, and I see some struggle there that would’ve been absolutely where I would’ve been. So what a gift. Good stuff.

Dr. Liz Cavalero:

Jennifer, we wholeheartedly agree in that gift and some of the amazing qualities that can arise. And another theme that really stood out to me in that is just your continual evolution, transformation. I mean, you’ve clearly shown such a growth mindset, and as that relates to your DEI work, you talked about, from a performance aspect, how is the audience going to react and how do I connect? And you talked earlier about seeing the universal and that it’s about more than agree to disagree, but figure out where are we going to connect on some universal shared idea? And I think a part of that, especially in your recent book, is kind of a willingness to admit that you don’t always know and you yourself have faltered.

And this grace that you show to others who are at all different places in the journey of coming to a place, towards being more inclusive. And even those who are really, really early in that journey, who may not be where we want them to be or hope for them to be, but finding a way to meet them where they are and show grace and then find a way into that conversation to hopefully move forward together has been such a theme, I think, in your work, and we’re just curious about how that developed for you and how you came to this place where sometimes you just have to put it all out on the table, including sometimes calling yourself on the carpet for where you’ve failed, which when I read the book was the thing that stood out most and it was such a welcoming thing to read. So how did that develop for you?

Jennifer Brown:

Well, I had some pretty tough parents, I have to say, have some tough parents. Pretty critical, pretty perfectionistic. Like I shared, I was raised to perform. So the pressure I was under to be everything was intense and part of the liberation that I was speaking about in separation is a separation from that and the grace, the permission to give ourselves to stumble, to not know, to wander. I absolutely wandered, once I kind of cut the cord on the whole, “Hey, not going your way,” and I don’t know where I’m going but I’m not going that way, right? I’m going another way and it’s going to be awkward, it’s going to meander

It’s going to not certainly make me a lot of money. I’m going to struggle in an existential way with who am I, what am I meant to do? What is my purpose? How am I going to make a living, for somebody who, I have a ton of interests and I can be okay at a bunch of things and kind of make it work. So my 20s and 30s were really confusing times where I didn’t feel … I had so much energy, so much want to matter, so much smarts I think, and dedication and discipline, but confused about where to apply it. So I think that the emancipation from the need to be this perfect lead, this life was huge for me. Then, over time, boy being LGBTQ keeps you very humble because literally we are constantly told that we’re less than.

And so I think that kind of tension of the world says this about me, but I know that I have a light, I know that I have a contribution. I think that keeps you extremely … you have to be very confident, but you also have to be hugely humble in the world, I think too, as you are coping with all of that and forgive yourself and love yourself, and that means loving all the imperfections. But how did it grow, continue to grow? I think having many relationships and failing at those romantic relationships teaches you a lot and continuing to flex through, I had to leave singing and embark on something. I didn’t know where it would go.

I literally lost everything that I’d been working for. And yet somebody scooped me up and said, you probably would be great at these other things, why don’t you give them a try? And humbly entering new spaces and hoping that I could find a home there that I was just constantly kind of seeking and starting … willing to start at the bottom again and again and again. Professionally, I kept kind of having to reinvent, and that means that you have to jump back in to a completely unfamiliar world and begin to make friends, begin to learn, begin to say yes to everything so you could learn. And that takes a ton of humility to reinvent.

To leave something that you’re so skilled at, like music was for me and begin at the bottom again and was again, scary and exciting and exhilarating, just like we keep saying, the fear and the excitement. Then, so as I progressed into that arena of my life, which I’m kind of still in, building a business, it’s not for the faint of heart. I’ve had a business for 20 years and I’ve made so many mistakes and it has humbled me to my knees, to my knees. Fear of going out of business, hiring the wrong people, trusting the wrong folks, being sort of exposed as someone who had felt the fear and built the business anyway, not really having done it before, relying on other people for expertise, digging deep financially, spiritually, all those things.

I mean, because what I built was absolutely more than a business. It was my name, it’s my message. There’s a ton of trust that I’ve had to have in building it. Anyway, so the humility of rising again over and over again through economic downturns, through losing most of my team through just the constant challenge, I think you have to really want it, you have to really believe in it, and you also have to get … dust yourself off and just get back in, and I think that the ego endures a lot of blows when you own a business. The other thing it shows you is how you’re so incomplete as a leader every single day. Every single day you’re reminded because you’re trying to do this thing that there’s no script for.

You are trying to hold teams together, hire the right people, get the clients, make it all work, lots of plates spinning and feeling very acutely aware of the fact that you can’t be all things to all people. So I think too, the permission to acknowledge, that you may have some gifts in certain areas, but no founder is a complete package. It’s just impossible. And to be able to say to yourself, this is true and I’m going to give myself grace, and I’m also going to admit and talk about where I’m not competent, where I’m not confident, where I’m not going to be able to do something well or easily or where something’s going to exhaust me when I do it.

And building … as I have tried to build to my weaknesses, to compliment my strengths so that I could … of course, we all as humans want to spend time with our gifts and in our gifts. I mean, that is our happiest place. It is our place, our zone of genius, if you will. So I’ve kind of always been trying to steer towards that so that I can feel good. It feels great to say, “Hey, I can do that, and it’s comfortable for me. It may not be comfortable for you.” Yeah, so I think that the humility, where does the humility come from? Then, I think it continues in the DE and I space as the space has changed, it’s been really incredible to … how do I describe this, recognize my … for a while I was such an activist for LGBTQ identity and felt very aligned and identified with a marginalized experience and defended that and explained it and educated about it.

And it taught me so much about how to create change, but in the last four or five years, what I’ve realized is that is one piece of my identity, but there’s other pieces that entitle me in the world’s view, not to me, but the world views me as benefiting from certain things, and I have benefited from certain things. So the humility of being able to describe yourself publicly and say, “ere are all these pieces of who I am. Here’s some things that have been much easier for me” And to your point in the book, I try to go into, it might have been hard then, but now, I’m so kind of actualized in many ways and I now can really talk more openly.

I know that the conversation about privilege scares a lot of people to have, but I’ve been challenging myself lately to speak about it, to name it, to talk about it, to contextualize my sexual orientation in my privileged identities and explain to people these all can exist. They do exist in us, and that I’m going to go first. I’m going to show how that is done and whatever somebody can use against me within what I share, I often find that they don’t because I am, again, trying to show how I’m growing, show how I’m evolving, be more public about that. I’m trying to tell the truth, not hide anything. And also, not kind of cast myself in the … Kenji Yoshino says not to play the pain Olympics.

Everyone sort of chuckles about the oppression hierarchy. I agree with that, but I do think it’s fascinating to think about that we all sit … even within this community that’s LGBTQ plus. We sit in different places of privilege. That doesn’t weaken what I’m here to say. I think it strengthens it because what I’m doing with it, I think is transformative, so that’s what I hope I show particularly … particularly I think honestly, those who identify as White and straight and male that I spend so much time, space holding with and teaching, I’m hoping that the way I’m describing identity is a way that they can relate to and maybe practice because I do believe that’s how we’re going to bridge this work to people that have not heretofore been able to really see themselves in it.

Which takes me way back to my roots and the way that I grew up where I didn’t know a single person that wasn’t White until college. Pretty much I can say that, or a single LGBTQ person that I knew. So coming back to that as an audience to influence knowing what I know now. I sailed away from the shore and into the seas. I came back and it’s funny because it’s all coming around and now, I’m here back with my … I guess the people I grew up with and the people that I was born of, but that I went on a long, long journey from. Now, I’m back and I feel I can be the most effective change agent with them, most of all.

Lieutenant Colonel Bree Fram:

So if we had all day, we could not possibly explore the thousand different directions that the topics you just covered could take us, because there is so much there about leadership in business and so many things about the way you developed, but I do want to expand just a little bit more on the aspect of leveraging privilege. We talked about that right at the beginning, and you covered it quite a bit just now. So often those of us that are in the LGBTQ community, think about who are our allies, who’s going to stand at our side. When we recognize the privilege that some of us may have and that there are stratas of that privilege within our community.

And there are other communities that are marginalized in different ways, how do we leverage the privilege that we as individuals have to make sure that everyone is benefiting from the societal changes that we want to see? As leaders, how do we use that to help everyone? And why is that so prevalent among LGBTQ leaders to want to make the world better for everyone?

Jennifer Brown:

That’s a good question. Well, we want to leave it better than we found it. We want to … I know, speaking for me, I want to save people heartache. I mean, your question is still with me, which is what are the ways that the closet forms us and shapes us? At the same time, I can say, I want to accelerate people’s journey to authenticity. So that is it. That is what I want to be a part of, because that was such a long and confusing road for me, and there were so many competing voices and so many other agendas and so many ways in which I didn’t listen to myself and I didn’t even know myself, and I was blown here and there off course.

I was living somebody else’s wants and dreams for me and I know how painful that can be. It’s existentially painful because you know something isn’t right. So I want so much my work to shorten the journey to truth for people. And really, whatever it is, I might give clarity, confidence, inspiration, kick in the butt, role model, whatever it is. Then, I think back to your question about privilege, how can we use it every day? I do. I use it very consciously that I can make room for others. I know where a seat has been given to me at the table. When you look at where have you been able to be because of how you look or how comfortable people are with you or your gender expression or how you speak, or it’s like where you went to school, it’s all that stuff.

I think when it comes to gender and sexual orientation, there are certain of us that may not challenge others so much and their biases, we may not kick up that microaggression. We may not have to deal with that. So as you go through the world, I think that this is headwinds and tailwinds. I had a lot of tailwinds and I’m very aware of what those are. And I’m still, by the way, recognizing and realizing what some of those are too, because I think it’s a lifelong process of the water … identifying the water you swim in, the things that have made life easier. They become apparent over time as you look at them. So what I try to teach leaders is explain the tremendous assets that you can avail yourself of, that you have availed yourself of.

How would you then make those available to others? And that doesn’t mean less for you, which is a battle that I’m constantly fighting. Just because we make more room for some does not mean less for you, it’s one plus one equals three, which I think requires a bit of a leap of faith because the math doesn’t math to some folks, right? It’s sort of this scarcity thing. If we can get to this place where we believe that one plus one does equals three, four, five and that we’re all enriched through the sharing of power of influence, that’s what I really hope people grasp and begin to develop skill in that.

The ability to see themselves in a system and say, “Oh, I’ve benefited in these ways. Now, that I’m at this place and I have relative influence, how do I pull myself out, make room for others, pull others up, shine that light, make sure this person is seen, heard, included, valued, recognized, sponsored, mentored.” I mean, I think of it in the organizational context. So much comes down to who knows your name, who supports you, who’s vouching for you. Who is pulling up that seat for you. So we all I believe could be doing a heck of a lot more to make sure we’re making room for those whose identities have not been included.

We all know who those are and if we’re in the LGBTQ community, I think we’re very conscious of this. I’m not saying we don’t have challenges of our own and biases of our own, but I think we have a deeper level of awareness, of the hierarchy, the systems, and sort of who tends to rise to the top? So many of us, because we have been trapped in those systems. So we’ve had to step out of them, look at them, be critical of them, say, “Okay, this is what’s broken. This is what’s inequitable.” So we’ve had to form a point of view about it. So, I think we all can be tremendous role models about what this looks like in practice.

I think we can really role model the speaking of all of the identities. We can role model how … yes, if we’re tremendously successful in a given system, how we can delineate between, “Oh, I worked hard for this,” and we aren’t afraid to say, “And here were the tailwinds that helped me do this, or here were the challenges that I didn’t face.” And I think if we can speak like that, and I don’t know, this is feeling like a pipe dream sometimes because every time I describe this, I get a lot of skepticism from leaders who say, I could never admit that. I could never talk about that. I’m going to get crucified if I open myself up in this way.

And that’s the sad part about the days we’re in, that we are so not trusting of each other. There is no flexibility for the self-discovery and then, the storytelling and the disclosure around some of these things that are so true for all of us, and we think we’re hiding. We’re probably not doing a very good job of hiding them, but it’s such a fraught space. And I don’t think we can all learn if we feel fear. To fear to the extent that we can’t make a move without being destroyed. Really, what my wish is, is that we extend the space and grace that was extended to us at some point in our young lives and that none of us gets on our high horse and says, how did you not know that or how could you say that or how could you make that mistake?

How could you? How could you? How dare you? I think that we’re in this moment of sort of a, how dare you. I mean, the punishment energy is so strong, and I don’t think people learn from that place. So I think this all needs to be done really gently and really delicately because these are … going back to when coming out process and holding space for people to have their reactions, to struggle with what you’re telling them, but still having faith that some kind of bridge will be built with you and that you will both be changed by the interaction, not just the other, but that you’ll both be impacted. And I think that within the most satisfying engagements I’ve ever had, I feel changed.

Because I was able to kind of stay in a space and endure the discomfort and come out the other side with someone and there’s nothing like it, so long answer.

Dr. Liz Cavalero:

You’ve really expressed that willingness and desire to continually be changed, be transformed, and I think you’ve also highlighted that you’re operating in a space both within the LGBTQ community and in the DEI work where that continual, lifelong learning journey is part of the fabric of how this community approaches their work and their life. What is it about being part of that developmental community? I mean, you’ve talked a bit about the deep friendships and bonds that are formed in your communities and practice and learning from each other, of course. What is it that keeps that fire lit to keep learning and challenging yourselves and each other?

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah, I think we really do it in a unique way. Well, part of it is the strength in the community to know you’re the Trojan horse with the army. I always think of myself that way, that I’m at the castle walls and the gates can open and I can bring this tremendous knowledge and strength and resilience and honestly optimism, because when you can be in a community that is like attacked and you can come with love, that’s really deep. I mean, that is just some seriously deep humans, and it’s a beautiful … and I’m not just saying that just the LGTQ community does it. I mean, there are many, many communities that have been under attack that have this beautiful hope and resilience and positivity and faith in humankind, which is just, it’s inspiring to see and to be a part of.

So why do we keep learning as a community? So I do think when you’re tested all the time, Bree the heat, right? The heat is on.

Lieutenant Colonel Bree Fram:

Turn it up.

Jennifer Brown:

Right, and it’s on more than ever right now. So it tests you. So, I think your resilience … I love the question, your resilience continues to build and be shaped because of the external environment. By the way, because of our internal, I think we still deal with a lot of internalized homophobia too. All of us, I can say all of us in some way. So we’ve got that from the inside. We’ve got this coming from the outside. The heat is turned up, and that causes the alchemy of the individual. It causes the evolution and the changing of the shape. I think too, what I love about us is we’re questioning those norms all the time.

We aren’t satisfied with just adopting. I think that we are still going our own way, and even when we’re discovering our gender identity, say and our … and I won’t even say the evolution of our gender identity. I’ll say the discovery in the peeling of the onion continues. I mean, I can’t tell you how many folks still are in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, coming out to themselves, again, in a new way about something new and truer, even truer. By the way, coming out to ourselves about, “Oh, by the way, and I’m neurodiverse and, and, and and.” So the discovery of self keeps going throughout all of our lives that never ever stops.

I think this community in particular looks at that in the face, is really brave about it, and I think we know the stakes are high. We know that for some of us, this is life or death. Those stakes mean you care. They mean that you’re invested. They mean that it matters. I also think we just … the legacy that we as a community care so much about, I mean, deeply want to protect, build up younger people. We have tensions in our community too. We have biases amongst each other too. I think the older generation is really tested, being tested with the expanding understanding of gender identity, for example. And there’s some not so pretty stuff that comes out sometimes and things that I hear I know in the community that I’m shocked by.

And yet, we’re all still human and we’re all still evolving, even within a community, it does not solve … being in the community doesn’t magically wave a wand and make you the inclusive human, which I think also is such a fascinating thing that I think is important to keep in mind, which is you can have these experiences that are very much outsiders, that are very much stigmatized, that are very much terrifying in some ways and very isolating, but you can also have your own work to do. And I think being in this community shows you the work that you need to do, a lot, because I think this community is really trying to evolve and mature and fix the wrongs of the past within the community.

I think we have been trans exclusionary. We have been racist. We have been sexist. We have been ableist. All of those things are in every community. So the work we got to do starts with ourselves and nobody better to do it because we’ve had to really look inward and be extremely courageous. So I do think that’s … I’ve never really described it, but we’re very close to the fire in our community, and we cope with a lot of really deep things in ourselves and others and in our families, and we fight for who we are and what we believe in. We’ve been extremely strategic around organizational change, which I’m so especially proud of, like the corporate equality index 25 years ago when I was starting this work, we had an index that measured companies.

I don’t know, still don’t think there’s anything quite like it, which holds companies feet to the fire to do better by us. We developed it. We decided what does better look like? What does equity look like for this community? Then, somehow we sort of structured it in such a way that we created a competition between these massive institutions to do better, which is just incredible. What a story. So we’ve been really strategic in the battles that we fought and won, and when we lose those battles, we band together, but I would like to see our community do its own work much more deeply and be more inclusive, and I would give that as homework for us.

Lieutenant Colonel Bree Fram:

Well, Jennifer, we could absolutely talk with you all day, but I think we’ve got time maybe for two more real quick questions. And we’ve talked about the concept of revision a lot. I wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about the revision in your latest work. What was it that changed in you or that you learned and you saw in yourself in just a short couple of years that said, “I need to revise these major points about what it means to be an inclusive leader today,” and to do that work you were just talking about to be an inclusive community and to do better for all of us. How did you change in just the past couple of years?

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah. Well, the last couple of years have been, yeah, as we all know. Really, it started honestly around the election and I think the collective awakening that many of us had to step forward more boldly than we ever had and that obligation and also the recognition, the depth of my understanding of this topic just went super deep. I think relatively, comparatively, I was dancing on the surface of it. I think we all kind of plunged into this really tough analysis of the self as an ally, I will say, even though I had never really identified with my ally identity, I’d say. The Women’s March of 2017, I’ll never forget learning that it was dominated by White women and just the fact that these other marches were going on for women of color because they didn’t feel comfortable in this march.

That things needed to be created separately because of psychological safety and comfort and exclusion. It really hit me hard, and it made me go deep on … here I thought this one identity that I carry, or two identities that I carry, were enough to give me entrance into this to give me the moral authority to teach on this, to understand it, to guide other people, but I really realized then that I didn’t really have a deep understanding of my Whiteness or my cisgender identity. I think that all started then, and over the course of then 2017 to now, I’ve written I think three books or four total, I think that first one was in 2017.

I began to put myself out there. I began to speak a lot. I began to teach and hear the questions from the audience over and over and over again, and particularly in the last couple of years, I’ve probably done my keynote 200 times and gotten so much sharing, so much bravery in my audience, just disclosing things to me when I create the container that are so humbling and so … such an important reminder of the pain that’s out there of the work yet to be done, of all the isms that are still occurring for people, has made me honestly feel that there’s an obligation to continue to share these stories. So the revision, the second edition of the book is more specific. It is more hard hitting.

I think there is a stronger call to action. I think I am more complex and I’m able to kind of, I think describe … I sort of found new corners within my soul and within who I am and I’ve been excavating those and bringing that to the book and saying, “Hey, what about you? Where are you excavating? Where are you continuing to go beyond what you know about yourself and what you know about others? How are you tasking yourself with digging deeper? So I just grew a quantum leap as a teacher and sort of more resourced, more confident in my voice as a writer and more bold, because I think there was a day not too long ago when we couldn’t say the words White and Black in the teaching. I mean, that wasn’t that long ago when I was told I couldn’t … or using the word privilege is still something that trips my clients up.

Sometimes we’ll be reviewing my talking points and my slides and they’ll say, “We really, really do not want to go there.” And that’s when you know it’s the good stuff, right? That’s when you know like, “Oh, yes, okay.” So maybe that needs to be more of what I write about.

Lieutenant Colonel Bree Fram:

As soon as it’s … we’ll need our lawyers to take a look at this, you’re like, where we need to hit.

Jennifer Brown:

Then, I have to say, “Don’t worry. I will not let the conversation go off the rails,” and the expertise I have now is that I know what I’m doing. I know where things are going to go. I know what’s going to happen. I know what people are thinking, and I think teaching so, so much, you get to this point where it’s the 10,000 hours of mastery, it’s 20,000 hours in some of our cases, yours as well. You just know. You just know. You also know if anybody can take this conversation forward, I know where it needs to go, and you can trust me to do that. So I feel I’m carrying that, and it’s a very delicate, very special thing to carry that and then, to carry the learners along on a journey.

So I hope the second edition also has a ton of heart and a ton of compassion. I am told that people read it and feel seen, and they feel it’s accessible. They don’t feel shamed, which also, by the way, tells me a lot about the state of how people are looking at this topic. And again, being able to hold that, so why do you feel shame? Well, who has shamed you? What has shamed you? How might you feel empowered instead of shame? What would enable you to get out of shame and into action? All of those things are fascinating as a teacher to think about, how would I enable that and sort of chart that course and then, sort of shepherd people in that journey.

So I hope that I retained … it’s harder hitting, but that it retained all the heart that I wanted to have and all of the love and kindness for learners at all levels, because the last thing I want to do is judge anyone’s journey. As long as you’re trying and as long as you’re seeking to have the metal heated up, if you will, of your system, as long as you’re seeking the flame, like going to the edge, that to me is really all I expect because that’s what I challenge myself with every day, is to go to that edge and spend some time there. If it’s too hot, going back and restoring and returning to it, because I think that’s where we … the growth mindset is practiced on the edge. That’s where we really create those new pathways and where we get smarter and wiser and better at what we do.

Dr. Liz Cavalero:

So Jennifer, speaking of taking the conversation forward, we want to close by giving you the opportunity to bring that call to action to this platform. So what was it that made you want to participate in this project, and what is it that you’re hoping to see out of this work?

Jennifer Brown:

What do I hope for in this project? I mean, voice is being elevated in these kinds of conversations. They just never get old. They’re so important. There’s someone out there that needs to hear every single story, every single combination of identities because there’s still so much loneliness, so much hopelessness, so much isolation, and so many folks who sort of diminish their light before they have a chance to really illuminate with it. And so my hope is I know you all are bringing storytellers and you’d be ask beautiful questions and you want to go deep and bring that out. I think that’s what we need so much more of.

In institutions, what I hope for is institutions are changed by hearing all of those truths. I do believe we have the ability to change systems, nudge them, push them, challenge them, break them if necessary, win people over, create aha moments. All of that we have within our power. So I know you agree that the more we can elevate those voices and shine that light and enable all of us to be seen, not to … feel seen, yes, but to be seen and to be heard, and to be incorporated and to be valued and included in the building of the future systems. We’ve got to be at that table to do that and to participate in that. And I think that’s a combination of how hard we push, but also it’s whether we are pulled.

And when I speak to leaders and institutions, I say, “How are you pulling?” Because you can’t just expect all of us to be out at work and be about our different diversities and really take that leap of faith, which requires so much trust that if I leap, the net will appear but you cannot then expect some people to do that, but then not have crafted a beautiful net and done your work. So, that cooperation and collaboration between institution and person is so, so important. And I love that, I have studied both and I care … I think both are so important to create lasting change.

So go back and let’s dust off some of our change management books and our organizational change systems and really understand how can an individual create so much momentum through their courage that we can change systems and never let them go back to the harms of the past. I don’t think anybody wants to go there, but we’ve got to fight to keep that door open and to keep pushing through it, because clearly, it wants to close.

Lieutenant Colonel Bree Fram:

Well, Jennifer Brown, thank you so much for joining us, for practicing what you preach for elevating the voices of others and for continuing to pull. It has been an honor and a pleasure to speak with you. We hope to do so again sometime because this was fantastic.

Jennifer Brown:

Thank you so much for having me. Hi, this is Jennifer. Did you know that we offer a full transcript of every podcast episode on my website over at jenniferbrownspeaks.com? You can also subscribe so that you get notified every time a new episode goes live. Head over there now to read my latest thoughts on diversity, inclusion and the future of work and discover how we can all be champions of change by bringing our collective voices together and standing up for ourselves and each other.

Doug Foresta:

You’ve been listening to The Will to Change, Uncovering True Stories of Diversity and Inclusion with Jennifer Brown. If you’ve enjoyed the episode, please subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. To learn more about Jennifer Brown, visit jenniferbrownspeaks.com. Thank you for listening and we’ll be back next time with a new episode.