![The 7 Trust Languages of Work ft. Minda Harts [Washday Woosah] - podcast episode cover](https://assets.metacast.app/images/episode/artwork/dbgtoT5s)
Trust isn't just nice to have, but it's good for business. There are tons of data that's from Edelman's Trust Barometer to Gallop Pole and they say that when trust is present, employees are twenty one percent more productive, fifty percent more of your employees are retained, and forty percent less burnout. So it's not just oh kumba yah, we trust each other, you know, let's do a trust fall.
It's more than that. It's actually good for the bottom line.
Hey ba fam, Welcome back to the Brown Mbision podcast. I have the pleasure of being alongside one of my favorite humans Men to Hearts today mend to Heart's welcome to Brown Ambition.
Mandy happy to be here. Thank you so much and equally one of my favorites humans as well.
So honored to me.
Thanks and a human that I don't ever get to see. Really, I think the last time I saw you, I was in LA for a hot minute. We happen to cross paths at a conference and I just really appreciated you taking the time to like, did we ever get coffee or what happen? I forget We talked about it, we intended.
To, we did, but we did get to sit together at lunchtime.
And we did okay, all blurring together. It doesn't matter. But Minda you know because you've been on the show before and I have gushed about you before. But for those who don't know, Minda Hearts is a trailblazer for me,
at least in the career professional advice author space. You wrote the one of the first or it's definitely one of the most popular black female written professional and career development books called The Memo, which if y'all don't have the Memo, I don't, I don't know what's wrong with you.
Please go get it.
But this is you're coming out with your fourth book this summer, Yes, and this one is this one's quite different. So your new book is called talk to Me Nice, Talk to Me Nice. The seven trust language is for a better workplace. So this isn't so much targeting to like well, you tell me, but it doesn't feel like
it's targeting like the worker. It's more like the institution, like how can we actually as company as workplaces, figure out how to better communicate with our staff our employees, but also like how we as the worker bees can communicate better with leadership?
Is that right? Yes?
Yes, and it's are you a leader and you've somehow we wrote a trust maybe not intentionally, but it's happened, and there's a communication breakdown.
How do you get that back with your staff? But also if you're.
An employee and you can't get what you need, how do you ask for it without losing your job?
Right?
So it's giving both parties the language they need to be able to communicate better and close that expectation gap.
So why this book, Now, that's a great question.
To be honest, I really didn't think I was going to write any more books. Mandy, the Memo right Within and You Were More Than Magic are three of my babies, and they were focused and centered around black and brown women and young women in the workplace or in their journeys to finding their voice. And I thought, you know what, I cracked the door open for others to write their books. And I felt like I did did my big one
with these books. And I just didn't like I needed to add any more to the conversation that I wanted others to take the baton and do that. And then two years ago I woke up at like three o'clock in the morning to use the bathroom. Right, I'm getting older, so I you know, I can't sometimes sleep.
Through the night, you know, you know, we know.
So I got up and.
I thought, and I had this like voice in my head saying, what if there were love languages for the workplace? What about the trust languages? And I just kind of wrote that in my notes and kind of set it to the side, and then I kept thinking about it and coming back to it. I'm like, yeah, you know, we expect trust in our romantic relationships, our platonic relationships. Why wouldn't we expect that in a place that will spend ninety thousand hours of our life at the workplace?
Is that real?
That? And so it's like, why wouldn't we want trust there too?
And so I just started kind of mulling over it, and I'm like, well, maybe maybe I have one more book in me. And I called this my crossover album because of course I still talk about some of the voices that aren't inside the workplace and how trust is being roaded. But trust is a universal issue, a global issue, and so I wanted to be able to tackle that a little bit differently in this book.
Yeah, listen, it's been five years since the summer of twenty twenty. I was in corporate America at the time. I think, like so many other workers, you get the emails from your CEO about how heartbroken they are, but what's happening in this country and you have these new commitments. Everyone's got a die director. You know, they've got their their statements on what's happening in the racial awakening and racial reckoning that we're going through, and they all make
these big, lofty promises and blah blah blahlah blah. Five years later, I know you couldn't have planned it, but the trust is broken in so many ways because we're just seeing this, like I mean, this complete about face in the other direction. Of course now with our new leadership and power. So I feel like this book is extremely timely. I'm just I'm wondering, like your perspective as a black woman or for black women who working in corporate today, like is there any going back? Like, can
we are we actually capable of trusting organizations again? Because there's so much cynicism, rightfully so, about the lip service that leaders pay to our community only to then turn around when it better suits them and go back on what they say. What their promises are, is that trust rebuildable?
Yeah, you know what, Mandy, I think the answer is yes. And that kind of is the thesis of talk to me nice. Is if trust can be built, it can be broken, and if it can be broken, it can be rebuilt.
Right.
But it takes an intentionality to be able to do that. And I think part of it is we just don't know how to ask for it. Because if you're my manager and you said all these wonderful things about how I am important in the workplace and this is inclusive, and then now you're saying something different and demonstrating something different, I don't know how to come to you and ask you, like, hey, what's going on? You know, can we have a conversation? You know, six months ago this was important and now
it seems like it's not. That might ruffle some feathers, right, and I can't go to you and say, you know, I don't trust you anymore. You know, it's just not going to pan out.
Well.
But I think that through the language of the trust languages to say, you know what, I would love to talk about what a little more transparency looks like. I noticed that this was a priority for the company, and I just want to understand that, you know, going forward, what does it look like?
Right? Can we have a conversation like that?
Right?
Built on transparency and transparency is one of the trust languages in my book. But transparency isn't about telling everything, giving all the information. Transparency is also saying I don't have all the answers right now, but as things arise, as you feel a concern, feel comfortable enough to approach me with questions, and if I have the answers, I'll provide them. And if I don't have them, I'll tell you that.
Right.
That would make me feel so much better as a black woman or anybody who feels like they're on the margins to say, Okay, maybe I could trust a little bit versus let's just sweep everything under the rug and there's nothing to see here.
Yeah, I mean, trust is a process, and usually we learn about the love languages.
Right. And I'm in.
A I've been married for eight years now and together with my partner for a lot of years, an embarrassing number. I don't know, it feels crazy. I'm like, I don't understand how I have an eight year marriage, aren't I twenty four?
I think doesn't make any sense.
But love languages, I think they are, like they're very.
And even gen Z talks about love languages and all that.
What do you think, like, are the seven workplace love languages? Are they similar? Are they different? I mean there's seven of them versus like, however many four or five?
Yeah?
Do they mirror the love languages?
Like?
Can you tell us a little bit about them without giving everything away in the book, because y'all got to.
Go get it.
Yes, please get it.
Tell me about the seven trust languages.
Okay, So for me and the five love languages, one of my languages is words of affirmation, right, and so one of the trust languages is acknowledgment because I think oftentimes what I found is people would come to me after a talk or in my DM and they would say, minda, I don't trust my manager, I don't trust HR, or I don't trust my colleagues, like you know.
They're backstabbers all the things.
And when I found is what people were really saying is what they weren't saying. Maybe they don't trust their manager or their colleagues, and that might be true, but what they were really saying is that a need that they have is not being met because that person isn't aware that you even need it. Right, So, for example, I would say, well, what you're really saying is you need more acknowledgment. If you were acknowledged for some of the work that you're doing, these projects that you keep.
You know, you've been traveling for twelve months out of the year and nobody has said anything. Now they're sending you on another assignment. You just need some acknowledgement. If you had a little more acknowledgment, would that provide a little more trust for you? And then we started to unpack what's actually underneath the trust. And if you know that acknowledgment is important to you, how do you ask
your manager or your colleague for it? Right in a way that they could probably give that to you, because nobody's going around the workplace with a crystal ball saying what does Mandy need for me to show trust?
Right? But I let sound like a couple therapy. If I know that, then I could know my coffee order.
But and wait, no, wrong topic.
Right, wrong topic? But I think we do act like that. Right, Well, you should know I've been working here for ten years. You don't know that I need to be acknowledged, Well, you know what, I have to manage like a fifty other people and one hundred other things. So no, I don't know that. But now if you tell me that, and now I know that that's what you need, then maybe I can provide that.
Right.
And so we're closing this expectation of trust. And I feel like through the seven trust language, so acknowledgment is one transparency is another.
Sensitivity.
I feel like sensitivity right now in our workplaces is so important because we are talking about certain things that are a little more taboo that we thought we could talk about even last year, that we're not able to bring up now, you know. And so what would it look like even if I sit on one side of the aisle?
I think about, you.
Know what if I say this thing to a group of people who I know they feel differently about my political choices, is that going to eat road.
Trust or enhance trust.
I'm going to practice the language of sensitivity to say, you know what, this isn't the time for me to wear my red hat to the function, right, you know so, because that's going to erode trust and vice versa. So I think if we're just a little more in tune and self aware about what people need to do their best work. Then we can have an environment where everybody can thrive and not just survive.
I don't want to interrupt the love languages. We've got sensitivity, transparency, I hope you have them written down. Transparent, appreciation, no acknowledgment, acknowledgment.
So you got three there.
Another one is security, and that's emotional, intellectual, and physical right. So it's not just psychological safety, but what about your intellectual property. When you're in a meeting and you say the big idea and then somebody takes it as their own right, you want to know that you could voice your concerns and not worry about somebody running off and saying that it's their own.
Another language is feedback. Right.
Oftentimes you might not trust somebody, but what is it that you really need?
Is it touch? Need more feedback? Right?
And feedback could provide a little more trust in that relationship. Another one follow through. Is it that you don't trust hr or do you need them to follow through? When you make a concern and then there's a conversation that's being had. I provide the information, they respond after they've had time to process it, and now we find a solution, we need a feedback loop. And then lastly is demonstration, and that's you know, the action. So for example, you
mentioned DEI being like a big topic of conversation. So many companies were like down for the cause, ten toes down, and now all of a sudden, they're like that Simpson meme where Homer's like moving back from the from the bushes and nobody wants to talk about it. But demonstration is saying, Okay, even though we know that politically we might not be able to say these things right now,
we're demonstrating that inclusion is still important here. You don't have to be a woman or LGBTQ or a person of color and worry because we're still committed to the things because we're demonstrating that each and every day, right and so again, demonstration is the action. So when I think about trust, it's a noun anaverb, and it's very important for us to be activating that each and every day. Trust is in a one time event, it's a culture, it's a lifestyle inside the workplace.
I'm digesting everything you said, and I'm wondering, could we add an eighth love language, and could it be money?
Could it be like aay me nice?
That's that acknowledgement, right, That's.
That's the acknowledgment. Okay.
I think a lot of people are feeling like, well, I would love to be like given feedback and all that, but I'd also like to be paid well. So that's under the acknowledgment umbrella. Okay, good, Just making sure.
Well listen, money is a love is my love language, my trust language, all the all the languages.
Money talks. You know.
Like one of the things about this type of book is I feel like it's incredible and it's such a great tool, but it can be challenging of both people on the sides of a conversation don't have the same framework.
To work from.
So what advice would you have for someone who's reading your book and let's just say they are, you know, they are having issues with higher ups or hr whoever, and they're wanting to come to the table and have a conversation using one of these trust languages, but they are getting resistance on the other side because that person is not as committed to having like a productive conversation.
How do you get this book in the hands of like all the managers and the senior level people, so that when we I'm putting myself in the in the shoes of an employee, come to them like they are prepared to have that kind of conversation.
Yeah, I mean, that's a great question.
And one of the things I was so intentional about with this book is providing tons of scripts so that the employee, even if the person on the other end doesn't even know what you're talking about, because you're probably not going to say, hey, my trust language, Bob is acknowledgment and sensitivity, because they're not going to know probably what you mean. But I have a framework in language that you could use to say, you know what, I've
been on this project for the last several months. What really helps me do my best work is when you provide me a little more feedback. Is that something we can partner on right now? That signals to that person They don't have to know what any of this means, but they do know what.
Feedback looks like, right, And then we get.
To provide examples of after I finish a sprint, it would be great to know did.
I hit expectations? Did I meet them?
Did I succeed them, whatever that might look like to you. And then this provides us a framework because now we can stop creating a narrative in our mind that may or may not be true about if this person is invested in our success or not. They might not just be thinking about that you need that, right. So, now that I've positioned myself to actually have a conversation that they're aware of, now we could sit back and say, Okay, now I'll know if I could trust them or not
if they're starting to provide me that feedback. And so my hope is that managers will get this book and read it, and even if their employees don't understand what trust languages are, you ask them what trust look like for you on the team, right, because.
I want to provide that for you.
It's less about trust issues and more of a communication solve right, because we don't know how to talk to each other and people are fearful to bring certain things up. So I'm hopeful that talk to me nice will create the necessary conversations to be able to talk about trust that in a way that it doesn't have to be scary, right, because I think sometimes when we put it on the table that trust might be broken. People don't want to accept that because that can look kind of negative or
sound kind of negative. But when we talk about what do we need to communicate better here and what do we need to make sure that everybody gets what they need to do their best work, I.
Feel like it's framing. I don't know if you.
I'm sure your listeners have heard. It's not what you say about how you say it. So if we package it up in a way that can kind of manage up to our leaders, then I feel like it's a it's a possibility, and we got to give it a shot. Like if people know what you need, then maybe they can provide it. But if we never say it, you know, closed mouths don't get fed, right.
And I love that you have those scripts in there. Yeah, especially at a time when it feels like people are running. My cousin, she's twenty six, twenty seven. She's like, I am using chat GPT to help me figure out what to say back to this person I'm texting. It's like a challenging her roommate or whatever. It's a challenging conversation.
But we need human we need that, we need the mendas and It's like, if y'all have an opportunity to get someone who has been giving professional workplace advice for how long have you been in this business?
Twenty fifteen? Oh my god, you know since I was five years old.
Yes, you were a child prodigy. That's right, because you're fifteen.
You've been doing it for so long, and I just love I think that this is the access to, you know, someone like you. It's how we get our message out there. It's how we give advice without actually being able to touch every single person. I mean, I want to talk a little bit about repairing broken trust and who is responsible for that. I guess it's a two part question, which I know everyone loves, especially me who can never remember anything, But I'm thinking about how do we repair
broken trust in the workplace? And then also the second part of that is like who's responsible? Like who really carries the responsibility of repairing that kind of trust? How do we make companies care about breaking our trust?
You know? Yeah?
Well, I'll say this trust isn't just nice to have, but it's good for business. There are tons of data that's from Edelman's Trust Barometer to Gallop poll and they say that when trust is present, employees are twenty one percent more productive, fifty percent more of your employees are retained, and forty percent less burnout. So it's not just oh, kumbayah, we trust each other, you know, let's do a trust fall. It's more than that. It's actually good for the bottom line.
So trust is good, you know, for everybody. So that should be part of our pillars and our values because that's going to benefit us in the long run. So for those people who are like, oh, we don't need trust, no, you absolutely do.
Like I'm paying you, So what are we even hearing to do? Like, just do your job, don't have to say it.
And the way that's your this is giving, like very I feel like this is going to be like catnip for all right. Media personalities who just love a snowflake moment, like, listen to this book. They want us to learn their their trust languages. Just do your job, like we know that to me is what's coming up.
And it will and.
People will say, well, why do I need to do all that? Right?
But the reality is when trust is broken, we can't do our best work. And when trust is broken, our mental health hangs in the balance, Right, and we're anxious and we're fearful, and again we don't feel secure in our roles and we're going to leave.
Right.
Fifty percent of people leave their workplaces because of their manager.
So think about that.
If our managers were equipped with the tools they need to be successful, then that helps them be the coach that their team needs them to be.
And so trust is a two way street, right.
Just like any of the main love languages that Gary Chapman put out into the world, nobody can give me words of affirmation if I don't articulate that that's what I need.
Right.
So with the workplace trust languages, your manager may need help knowing what you need because they're just not thinking about you day to day in that way and that you know, that's another issue. But if I empower myself and take it back and let them know what good looks like to me, I have a primary language, I have a secondary language, and I have a tertiary language.
Now, you don't always have to.
Use that particular language till they understand what you're talking about.
But if you can get under the hood.
And say, oh, actually, these are the things that I need, that's empowering, right, And you take back the narrative of I work in a low trust or a high trust environment. So I would love to say that our managers are responsible. HR is responsible, and as a you know, individual contributor and some degree we are responsible.
For how our careers move forward.
And I want to see us make trust great again because we all need it. If you live in Tokyo, you want trust. If you live in North Dakota, you want trust, right. And so that is something that we all understand. You may not understand what it's like to be a black woman in the workplace, but you sure know what it feels like when trust is on the floor, right,
And that's something we can all link arms with. And when we can talk about a universal word like trust, then we can solve for some of the other issues that I think people weren't ready to solve for.
I mean, obviously I do a lot of work with women of color, like through my career coaching practice, and there's many many who I can think about who come to me and they are just so burnt out, not by like over being overworked, but by having consistent and persistent, like chronic underappreciation from their workplace from you know, being sort of like kicked around, like moved around, whether it's like you're moving managers too frequently, there's not a lot
of investment, and they aren't even sure sometimes why they're unhappy at work. They're just like, I am miserable.
I need to get out of here.
And what I like about the concept of this book is not that I'm ever here to stop anyone from pursuing a new goal. I do a lot of like I do a lot of telling girls to quit. I love it. Sometimes you just have to get out of there, yes, but in this economy you can't always just quit and go on to the next thing right away. This is almost like it's a toolkit to say this can make it maybe more tolerable for you. It empowers us to take some action that can actually make things a little
better for us potentially. And I just hope that, like if you're listening to this podcast, ba fam, I hope that it doesn't feel like one more thing that we have to do, we have to carry because managers aren't trained and companies don't care about us. We got to care about ourselves. But like feel that empowerment that we can actually get more of what we need because we have the language that you know, a book like talk to Me nice is providing us.
Yeah, thank you Amandy for saying that, because I don't want us to feel the burden to have to do one more thing, but I wanted the one more thing to feel like we're empowered.
Right.
So, if we are in an environment where we're not able to leave right now, haven't had certain conversations, what would it look like to give ourself permission to have it?
Right?
So now we can say, Okay, maybe Gina is invested in my success. Maybe she isn't, But now that I've told her here's what I need to do my best work.
Perhaps they can now provide that to us.
Right.
And I don't think anybody shows up in the workplace to say, how can I row trust with so and so?
Today?
I don't feel like we're that delicious, you know, like pychets. I mean, there might be one or two that think that way, but for the most part, I think we just are moving at ninety thousand miles per hour. We're not thinking and considering people. And what this boils down to is how do we restore respect, humanity and dignity inside the workplace? Right? Even when we have to have difficult conversations, and I just think oftentimes we just don't
have the language. And so I'm hopeful that talk to me nice will provide language for the employee and the manager to be able to talk to each other without there let's avoid each other in the hallway when we see each other.
Or on zoom right. So that is my gift to the world.
The hopefully we can talk to each other a little bit nice when we know what words need to be said, or at least start to have them.
Those conversations you mentioned the first, secondary, and tertiary love languages, like, how do we figure out what our ideal workplace love languages? I think mine is all of them that you mentioned, but especially the money one.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Is it important to yea? How do you help readers understand what their primary language is?
I do?
And it was so fun to write this book. If anybody's read any of my other books, I really wear my heart on my sleeve about a lot of the experiences I had in the workplace as a black woman, and I feel like my other book's empowered, but I also feel like this one was more of a very much kind of a choose your own adventure, if you will, because I want people to understand what their primary languages are, but also not just theirs.
But the people that they work with. Right.
So I might be transparency girl, but somebody who's on my team, they might need me to be a little more sensitive to certain cultural moments in how I talk about certain things, right, or they might need more feedback from me. And so I also want to be able to equit myself so that I'm giving trust as I'm
hoping to receive trust. So I don't want people to read the book and think, oh, this is all about me, me, me, Yes, you are important, but I also want this to be a mechanism for you to have better relationships and conversations with your direct reports, your colleagues, right, and people in your life, so that you're also enhancing trusts versus evrouting trusts that you may not even be aware of. There's a ton of activities and quizzes and sort of graphs
for you to find out what that is. And so it was just again such a fun experience for me to write this book for people to drill down into what matters most to them in the workplace. And out of all the conversations I had, people were pretty much saying one of the seven things or a couple of these. And so I'm excited to find out and hear what people find out to be their trust language, because maybe
trust isn't the issue. You just need a little bit more of something, and somebody in the workplace needs to know you need.
That and also can get you quicker to clarity on what your next step can be. So, just like in any relationship, you know, are you capable of giving me what I need? You know some people are not, And so in that case, you have to make a decision like are you going to continue to stay someplace where you're not going to get what you need and the other person is not capable or not willing to make
those changes. And if that's the case, then maybe the best thing for you to do is to, you know, move on or request to be on a different team or at the very least, I know, the economy is so tough. Right now, take that information and just look at it objectively as a piece of data that you now have about what you need from your next role,
what you're looking for in your next manager. I could also see people using this to kind of suss out in an interview the language or like how receptive their manager or the senior leadership team would be to providing the kind of communication style that works for me.
Yeah, you hit it on the head.
I actually have a chapter that I talk about once you find out what you need in the workplace and what languages are most important to you, use those in your interview process. Right, ask those questions, because you don't want to find another manager that's not going to provide follow through for you when you know you need that
most Right, you're not going to be happy. And back to your point too, is they say that eight out of ten people will leave their job a job that they like for the most part, but because they don't want to have a difficult conversation about what the conflict might be. And so my hope is that we give ourselves that permission to say, let me at least have the conversation about what's necessary, so when I walk away, they can never say, well, I didn't know Menda.
Needed that for me. She never articulated that to me.
Right, I had a situation in my former life where I thought I was going to get this promotion they were quote unquote grooming me and all the things, and then they ended up bringing somebody from the outset in hiring them, and I was like devastated because I had this expectation that it was mine, and so I got enough courage to go have a conversation with the person
who made the decision. I said, you know, I'm really surprised by the choice when I thought that I had been taking over my manager's workload all of those things, and like, well, you never articulated that this is what you wanted.
And I'm like, girl, i've.
Been showing up early, I've been doing all the things. And part of that was on me because I hadn't articulated. I just kind of assumed, right, So I mean not to put them.
To the work, and it will be acknowledged.
That's what I thought, Right, But I had never had that conversation, and that gave me such a moment. I'll never let that happen again, right, I'll always be very clear and concise and have clarity about what it is I want so that nobody could say, oh, I didn't know that's what you wanted, right, And so when to your point, when we were like little inspector gadgets. We
need to get that information. And if you find that your manager can't provide you with follow through, then that's information that you can now think about and then say, okay, well let me see maybe I got six more months here at.
Least be out the conversation. Yeah, And that does something for us.
So now we know, we don't again, we don't have to create a narrative of if they are invested in our success or not.
Now we know, and hopefully we'll have a better outcome.
I love anything that offers an opportunity to zoom out, look at the bigger picture of your career and not take every poor communication, every poor management experience, every poor colleague experience like as the end of or like such a big deal. You know, it was a it was a blip. It was unfortunate with a negative experience. But in the grand scheme of things, like to not so that we don't have to take things to heart so much because I think, and it's not too at all,
because I feel big feelings, you know as well. But I just encounter so many women in my work who are internalizing and really taking it personal when they have these like points of friction or when they feel like they're not getting what they want, like that example that you came, that could really send someone spiraling into a depress.
You know, if they didn't have, you know, the courage like you did to confront the issue, get the clarity on what was happening, they could really internalize that into
I'm not good enough, I'm constantly overlooked. And then you start feeding into that narrative as black women women of color in the workplace of like we're overlooked, we're underpaid, no one acknowledges us da da da da dah and rewinding for a second, or like zooming out and saying that doesn't have to necessarily be the story of what's
happening right now, does that? You know, Like, I'm so empathetic of people who are going through situations like that, and just it all goes internal, do you know what I mean, instead of like being able to put it.
Out there and get clarity and comfort from that.
Absolutely, I mean, I'll be honest. I spiraled for about a month and created this narrative of.
They hate me, I have to leave. Yeah, you know, they don't appreciate me.
I did all the things and how I felt was real right, but I needed to also rooted in some facts, so let me go find out right.
And I had to push myself to be able to go have that kind of easy. It's not easy.
I'm glad to hear that's you're human. It took you a month.
It took me a month because I was like, wait a second, I need to know the answer. And I think to your point, sometimes we'll go on the rumination ride of our lives and create these moments or may not be true. And I think we also have to trust ourselves and talk to ourself nice. So I hope that people will also you start to think about what trusting themselves again looks like in their voice.
I want to take a quick break, Menda.
But when we come back, can we chat about the other fun stuff that you have going on? Yes, because you are a multi hyphen queen. Okay, we be right back, ba fam With more from Menda Hearts. She is the author of many books, but her most recent book, which is coming out this week. When y'all are listening to this podcast, go get it. It's called Talk to Me Nice. The Seven Trust Languages for a Better Workplace. We will be right back right ba, fam, I am back with
my favee Menda. Hearts making her stick around because I'm going to talk about what else you have going on. You've sort of carved out this career for your that's so multifaceted. You obviously you have yours, You do a lot of speaking, you do consulting, You are an author, but you're also a filmmaker. Can you talk to me about like when did that journey become and what has the filmmaking side of your career your business however you see it, like where that came from and how that's going.
Yeah, well, thank you for asking.
Life is really a box of chocolates because you just never know where it's going to take you, for like, for real, for real. And I've always loved movies. I used to write short stories when I was in grade school in junior high school, but I never thought that I could be a filmmaker or a storyteller in that way because I never seen anyone around me do it. But my mom would always have Turner Classic movies on, so I was like always watching these black and white movies and just.
Enthralled with them.
And so it was always something even as an adult that I really really enjoyed and studied. And then when I started writing books, maybe about a year after the memo came out, I started taking green writing classes at UCLA because I knew at some point I wanted to transition into telling different types of stories, but I wasn't sure what that even looks like. But I wanted to
perfect the craft. And you know they say, if you stay ready, you don't have to get ready, So I wanted to invest in myself in that way.
And then the.
Memo, years later, was optioned into a short film starring our all Cousins in our Head Kyla Pratt, and so that pushed me too to be like, you know what, it's time, Linda, It's time.
And so it slow down though, because I know that Kyla Pratt start. But the word optioned is like such because I am such a like a civilian. I'm not in the media, like the entertainment side of things, but I love reading the business, like the varieties, the Hollywood reporter, the deadlines, and for a book to be optioned, that's the dream. But what the hell does that mean? Like how do you find out that the memo is being optioned? And then how do you get that actually made into a film?
That's a great question.
So I wrote a bookook and somebody else named Felicia Butterfield, who some of you may know, shout out to Alisia. She created a production company called Seed Media, and she reached out to me, and we've been fans of each other's work, and she said.
What are you doing with the memo?
I would love to adapt it into a film. And so we met and.
Our people's met, our lawyers, and.
So we just said, yeah, we want to work together and we want the story to be told on a broader her lens.
And she had Kyla in mind.
And we actually met with Kyla at the Soho House of Los Angeles, and Kyla's like, yes, I want to do this, and it's just it's been a beautiful experience.
In this book.
The memo, first of all, tell people really quickly just what it's about for those who haven't read it. Also, while you're getting talked to me, nice, you need to go get the memo. It's a classic, yes, a perennial classic, but really quickly like it's a lot of your personal stories. So then the short film became like a piece of that right.
Yes, So the memo was basically like part memoir about my experience of being the only black woman in the workplace, and I talk about the highs and lows and then also how we redefine what success looks like for us inside the workplace.
And so that.
Book came out in twenty nineteen, and then it got optioned in twenty twenty four.
And we.
Only came out in twenty nineteen, twenty nineteen. So you haven't just written four books. You've written four books of like six years. I don't understand me, and you're like making movies.
I'm like, who I? Who am?
I thought you were a human, but I thought it turns out your AI.
Okay, even before before AI, I was turning these out. But so yeah, then it went so smooth. And the one thing I love about having my book the memo option is that most of the time, what people don't know is when you get your book option, you don't get to be part of the process. You're kind of iced out and whatever people want to make of it make of it, and you just kind of get to ride the wave with your head.
So do they pay you money to make your concept or take your material like, is that how it works? And then you sign a document that says you can do whatever you want with it.
So when you get it optioned, you don't actually make any money upfront. You would and because mine went to short film first, and then now we're in conversations with some of the networks to create a limited series or a movie out of it, and so that's when I would see some percentage. But right now it's just kind of like you're when you write a book. For those who know about the book process, you may not see anything.
For a little while, but yes, I know that is.
Very important to get the story out. And so the one thing I loved.
I had heard stories that oftentimes the author doesn't get to be part of the casting or in the writer's room, and Alicia from day one is like, I want you to be a part of it because I want you to feel safe that I'm telling the right story.
And so trust, trust language, trust, and shall demonstrate it.
She demonstrated it, and.
She was very sensitive to how I felt about the situation, and it was just great, And we did different screenings around the country, and we've been selected to various film festivals to show the memo and it's just been a really amazing ride. And it prompted me to say, you know what, it's time to because I had all of these scripts that I had been working on on my own outside of the memo and other story worse I did, and.
So I'm like, you know what, I'm going to do it.
And I just a girl. I'm a writer.
I'm just a writer. So let's do this because there's never going to be a right time. And so I just went for it. And I've always no matter what, I've always bett it on me and that's just the way I.
Live my life.
Yeah, I'm so fascinated by the short film industry because my younger brother, Alex has been on the podcast a couple of times, and he works in tech and he has for a while sales and all that kind of stuff. And I feel like, maybe a decade ago, one of his friends from college who had done my brother has like a past life. I tried to be a rapper. There's some music that that are very fun to watch now.
He probably took down off YouTube and his friend had this like cinematography business, and Alex slowly got more and more involved and then and this is incredible for me as his big sister, because as we were kids and I would like I would edit his Harry Potter.
Fan fiction.
And we would just like, you know, we were such nerds and we'd love to write. But he's in, you know, but storytelling, and I always thought it was amazing he would he finally had taken some stories and he learned by just like advising his friends cinematography business in Atlanta, just being an advisor, being a funder, you know, like he was funneling some of his hard earned cash from
his career in corporate to help fund the business. And then he's like, I'm going to take a shot at this, and he wrote a script.
And then he made a movie, Happen.
He made a short film Happen, and it's been premiering at these film festivals across the country. He's been to so many. And what's incredible to me is how much art is being created that a lot of us won't get to see because they are only seen in these festival circuits. You know, So how has that been for you, like, to be able to promote the film and want it
to be more places. I'm just wondering, what's that been like for you, like, do you have a favorite medium now, like you've written the books, now you're doing the short film circuit. But that can be really fulfilling, but also does it get frustrating not being able to get the art in front of more people.
Yeah, it is frustrating because but it's also empowering. And one of the things I realized even with the memo before the book came out, I started a blog and that was just a few people reading it every week, and eventually it grew and I feel like I'm back in my memo bag with my new short film. The distance between that it's up to me to start to drip that out and share that information. And I self
funded this project and I wrote, produced, and directed. I'd never done those things before, and yeah, so you know, it was very empowering to say, wow, I actually feel like putting this body of work out for people to see felt even more fulfilling than some of the previous work I've done, because to start to create something and take it to the finish line, have other people say this is a good story, we want to work on it too, it just felt so fulfilling. I often say
that success is not a solo sport. And when I wrote my book, obviously I wrote it, but I had editors that helped, you know, at the publisher. But in this case, success really was not a solo sport.
Right, because yeah, that's what my brother says. He loves the team of it all.
Oh, it takes so many, It takes so many.
And when I first started the journey, I thought, Okay, well, if I write a good story, then that'll do its thing right, and then I'll find the right actresses and they'll do their thing. But then as I got through the process, I'm like, wait a second. From the PA to the colorists, to the editor, to the cinemata, everybody's roles matter and the success of this film and it's the entire ecosystem. And it's taught me so much about trust and admitting when you.
Don't know something.
And so it's just been an incredibly humbling experiperience in gratifying and I hope that the audience will be able to see the distance.
Between Yeah, where can we is it? Are you getting into festivals now?
So literally, as we're recording, I got my first notification that we got accepted to our first festival.
Yes, I know, now that that's very exciting.
Yes, yes, so it's very exciting.
You're like, Okay, someone gets to see it, because there could have been a chance that nobody saw it in that medium. But I'm excited, and so that allows us to be able to put out a trailer for others to see it soon. So stay tuned and hopefully you'll see more of my writing come across to your bigger screen.
So the memo, then you're in potential talks to have that turned into like an actual series.
Yes, we are having conversations currently with some networks to talk about what that could look like. And so you know that's also an exciting, you know, learning experience as well.
You just want to just tell everybody you just never know.
You have to plant the seed and you never know how it's going to to harvest.
Yeah, that's absolutely true. I'm so proud of you too. I mean, you didn't you you are in La? Did you grow up in La?
I'm from California, but I grew up in Chicago and then I came okay, came back to LA as a much more seasoned adult.
The best kind of adult.
A little more money in my pocket, right, Yeah.
Yes, living your best life.
You got your fur baby, yes, my fur baby Romans.
Also, I'm so sorry, I know you're you just you posted about one of your puppies passing away, right, yes, yes so but.
Yeah you know those are my babies and uh so it's mommy has to keep working so she can give the fur babies their their best life.
I wish I was a pet, so it's such a nice life. A pet of a mommy with only for children would be the best. Yes, I did want to ask, like, just acknowledge that you didn't grow up in the film industry, but that, just like my brother we had, we were so far from that.
Atlanta was not even on Hollywood's radar. I don't think when we are coming up. So how do you write? How do you advise.
People or give any advice to someone who's potentially thinking about breaking in to that space and learning more about it?
Yeah, well, I think empowering yourself. There's a lot more tools I think available to us now.
Podcasts.
I listened to two podcasts called The Town and Script Notes, and that talks a lot about the film industry. I read a ton of books about it. I go to different seminars and then when you have the opportunity, just make it right. Because I don't know Martin Scorsese, but I was able to make a film right, and you may not know Tyler.
A black woman, you can make a film.
So you just find your tribe, just like anything, and if you build it, they will come.
I love it all right.
So they've got a script kicking around right now, ba fam, do something with it, and maybe you just need to find a friend who knows a little bit about something. They're doing movies on iPhone cameras now, like, come on, y'all, it's totally doable. Well, you're such an inspiration to me, and I wish you so much success with the book. I hope it is one of the fourth not the final, because I don't think you're ever going to let yourself
fully stop because you're just a creator. But thanks for making Brown Ambision a part of your little press tour for this book. And I hope you'll come back again and join us, and I hope I can see you again in person sometime soon.
Need too, and thank you for always seeing me. It means so much.
Oh, likewise, thank you Menda.
All right, pa fam, please go pick up her book Talk to Me Nice, The Seven trust Languages of the for a Better Workplace by Menda Hearts. Also, go check out the Right Win, Go check out the memo. We're going to put a link to your website if y'all want to follow along, see where her short films are going to be premiered, and just follow more of your journey. Right BYEBA fan.
Take care,