Redefining Power

week in March of our Women Power Week. I wanted to bring you conversations and books and inspiration and important news from a woman's perspective, as you get that usually with me, but I wanted to make a conscious effort over the course of this week while I'm away on vacation, to bring you some really thoughtful conversations, particularly this one. I'm so happy to welcome to the show for the very first time Deepa Porta Shafman, who is the author of the First, The Few, and the Only, How Women

of Color Can Redefine Power in Corporate America. Deepa and I will get into a conversation that I think is you know a similar story that many of us who have worked, whether you've worked in the nonprofit spere, if you've worked for government, if you have worked in corporate America, have experienced the emotional and physical fatigue of microaggressions that don't seem so micro when you were facing utter and

complete burnout. Deepa found herself as one of the very few and only woman of color in the C suite in her company, and Deepa was working, you know, ridiculous hours, traveling a majority of the year, living outside of a suitcase, and all of a sudden, she started to feel incredibly unwell. She'll tell the story about how when she was off from work, she was sleeping fourteen hour days, that the exhaustion,

the way that she was looking and feeling. She would go through fifteen doctors before she would get a diagnosis. That was that had gone overlooked because we tell women that when you hit a certain age, oh it's your forties,

Oh it's this, Oh it's that. We don't take into consideration the physical effects of burnout, the physical effects of what it is like spending your entire professional life contorting yourself into a pretzel to fit in to other people's expectations and ideas about how you should show up and how you should present. There is a unspoken of weight that women of color, and I would argue LGBTQ women, women from most marginalized communities face right that we don't

talk about. We're just told to kind of keep your head down and keep working and not having to deal with the job that you will hire to deal with, and then all of the misogyny, the racism, right, the homophobia in some cases the transphobia on top of that. And I'll tell you this. I tell you it's a little bit of a story before I introduce the conversation

with Deepa. So, I, you know, had been working and have always worked in political and policy spaces, and you know, by virtue of being raised as one of the only one right in a white suburb out east on Long Island, I was used to what it was like to be in a classroom and be the only black person right.

That had been my norm. I was used to being on sports team and in spaces where I was the only person, only person of color, and recognizing, you know, I put an un know an unneeded burden on myself as a young person because I decided that I would see myself as an ambassador right that I may be the only black person that some of these families, some of these kids, ever come into contact with. So I felt the pressure of having to be this model black person so that somehow, in my mind, I would stop

them later down the road from being racist. Think about that think about being in middle school and recognizing that you are the sole black person that many people around you are ever going to come into contact with, and that you feel the burden of forming and acting in such a way so that somehow you're going to be able to shift their thinking about other black people, because in their mind they'll say, oh, but I knew Danielle folks. The fact that I even thought that, the fact that

I even did that for so long is ridiculous. And that's what I talk about when I say the burden right of having to show up, be perfect, right, navigate microaggressions of people telling me that, oh, you know, your writing is not that great. And I would say, to these white men who would critique me, where was the last place that you were published? Please show me, because I'm published in a variety of outlets. So how dare you come to me and say that my writing isn't

up to your part? I said, well, it seemed to have worked for Cosmo, seemed to have worked for the Center for American Progress, it seemed to have worked for Vogue. I'm confused about why it doesn't work for you, right, So deep an Eye we'll talk about you know, a lot of the ways in which one we are forced into this minimal view, this crouching that women do to not really be seen or to just fit in, and how that begins to break us down emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

And so what does it look like to create a network, right, a community of women that can be of support to one another, so that you don't feel alone and you don't feel crazy, like you're the only one that is navigating the obstacles that are put in place by whiteness and patriarchy, right, and that we are dealing with so many things at one time when other people, white men, to just get to show up at work and perform, right, or white women, Okay, they get to show up at

work and perform, but then they're still right the misogyny. Well, if you're a woman of color, you're dealing with the misogyny, you're dealing with the patriarchy, you're dealing with the racism.

You know, it's enough to drive people crazy. So deep Up writes this, Women of color comprise one of the fastest growing segments in the corporate workforce, yet often we are underrepresented among the first few or only ones in a department or company for too long, corporate structures, social zeitgeist, and cultural conditioning have left us feeling exhausted and downtrodden, believing that in order to quote fit in and be successful,

we must hide or change who we are. As a former senior partner at a large global services firm, Deepa Portoshatman experience these feelings of isolation and burnout. She met with hundreds of other women of color across industries and cultural backgrounds, eager to hear about their unique and shared experiences. In In doing so, she has come to understand our collective setbacks and the path forward in achieving our goals. Business, she writes, must evolve, and women of color have the

potential to lead that transformation. We must begin by pushing back against toxic messaging, including the things we tell ourselves, while embracing the valuable cultural viewpoints and experiences that give

us unique perspectives at work. By fully realizing our own strengths, we can build collective power and use it to confront microaggressions, outdated norms, and work place misconceptions, create cultures we're belonging is never conditional, and rework corporations to be genuinely inclusive to all, the first, the few, the only is a roadmap for us to make a profound impact within and outside our organizations while ensuring that our words are heard,

our lived experiences are respected, and our contributions are finally valued. Folks, if you are a veteran in the workforce, if you are new to the workforce and a woman of color, this book is for you. If you are a white woman or a white man, but you are in a managing position, a position of power, this book is for you.

We can't create cultures and environments that are inclusive without identifying that there is a problem to begin with, and what we are each doing to either perpetuate the wrongs that we see or ignore them so that there's no opportunity for change or expansion. Deepa gives in this book some really thoughtful advice as well as shares her own experience about being the only one and how it almost

cost her her life, her well being, her health. And this is why you know, on wok F I try and talk about wellness, you know, as often as I can. And it's four reasons like this that we are all managing and dealing with so much and on top of that. If you are a person of color, if you are a queer person or a person from a marginalized community, you are dealing with the fuckery on top of fuckery every day. Right. It is exhausting, and you need to build up your reserve right as you go to battle

each and every day. It's why I meditate, go walking, build community with friends that are like minded and caring, that can hold some of the pains and strains that I deal with on a regular basis. We all need that. I can remember, you know a friend many many years ago, it's said, to deal with this world, you need a team, right if you can afford to hire that team in terms of a personal trainer, a meditation guru, a you know, a bodywork person, a therapist. You need a team. Getting

through this life, particularly now ain't fucking easy. So Deepa offers in her book, folks, a pathway, a guideline for us, and also some wonderful essays that allow us to realize that we are not alone. So coming up next my conversation with the brilliant Deepa Portashatman, I hope that you enjoy, folks. I am very excited to welcome to wok F a daily for the very first time author of the book, The First, the Few, the Only, How women of Color

can redefine power in Corporate America. Deepa Pershathaman, thank you so much for joining woke F and for writing a book that you know. Mind you. I want to say that this may be one of the first to really examine what it is like to be a woman of color in in corporate America. To be a woman of color in any workplace and professional setting is a space

where you're doing multiple jobs. You're doing the one that you were hired for, uh, and then a lot of the behind the scenes work to you know, unpack white supremacy, to back you know, uh, misogyny, to do all of these things as the first So talk to us about how this book came to be and what experiences you have had that led you to the creation of this book. Yes, thank you so first of all, thank you for having me. Yes, I want to believe it's one of the first books,

but it's not the first book. There's out you know, of course, other books out there, and I want to give them their due because my sisters also need attention for the books that they have done like Menda Hearts right has been a pioneer this work, and so I love her work. But yes, it does feel like this is one of the first books that has this many stories. Right, So I interviewed over five hundred women of color. Was very intentional in the term women of color, and we

can unpack that as well. But it started because of my own journey. So I was a partner in a very large firm, Deloitte. I was one of our first partner. I made partner young and candidly. Being a first I didn't see role models that look like me, and there weren't a lot of women of color in front of me, whether it was the company or other clients, and so there was always a struggle of belonging and fitting in. It also kind of came in how I grew up.

I grew up in a white town, and so navigating spaces and schools and universities that, you know, where I didn't feel like I belonged and I was making it up as I go. We also didn't talk about race at home, which might be different from some of your listeners. Like being of Indian descent, my parents were immigrants to this country, so there was a lot of if you just work hard, it'll all work itself out, and I would navigate spaces and no, that's not the case. But

there was no place to have that conversation. And so as I was struggling, I struggled for three years and whether or not I wanted to quit my job or leave my job. I was in a very senior role, highly visible, all eyes on me, you know, at the height of my career, and it was a combination of questions around purpose and then getting really sick in all candle like burnt out. Probably traumatize that we can unpack as well. And I started meeting with women of color.

Very long answer, very sure. I started meeting with women of color. It started one on one, then two person, then three person, and then with my now business, we ended up doing twelve dinners across the country where we gathered twenty or thirty women of color each, all senior women, because I was looking for at a senior level, where

does one go we would get in these rooms? I thought for one or two hours, six or seven hours later, we were still in the rooms talking about the microaggressions, the racism, the being a first what it's like to the extra work. I call it the job and the job, all of these topics, and none of these women had talked about it before because we all were navigating on our own. So I knew right then it was special. I knew right then that there was something to be

talked about. It was freeing to me, it was freeing to them, And so that became the basis for the book and also for the company that we started that's also about safe space for women of color. Deep But that's amazing, And I want to go back to a point that you made about getting sick and feeling this burnout, you know, in coming from your Indian family who basically said, you know, just work hard, right, just work hard, put

your head down, and get the job done. They must have been very excited about the fact that you were so young, right, and being promoted in this major, you know, corporation that is very well known. But did you how did you experience your burnout? Were you feeling like you weren't up to the task because your parents had said just work hard, and you were working hard. How did you experience your burnout? Yeah, it was I think that

was some of it. Where there was always a high lesson or a big lesson in my family of just work harder and do more, and performance and productivity were super important, which is I think now I understand better as a lot of white supremacy, indoctrination, do more and all of that. But it's very immigrant, you know, very strong and immigrant families. And I did talk to a

lot of different groups just to share with you. What was interesting is some of the black women had a different perspective, a small segment, but with everyone else there was a common thread of just work harder and it'll be okay, I'm peanut buttering a little bit of you know, the conversations over five hundred, but there were some patterns amongst types of women and where they came from, how many you know, how many decades they were here if

they were immigrants, So there is some there is some grouping. But yes, I do think that was it. I also, you know, I was rewarded for sacrificing my health. I mean, I am now at a point in my life where I can tell you I know that success has to come with health. Like I don't think those two ideas are different. But when I was in corporate America and

I think it's true for a lot of workplaces. I got more money, I got raises, I got promotions as a result of sacrificing my personal life and probably sacrificing my health. And so it's a big question for me. I mean, ultimately, for me, it became unquestionable. So I was at my fifteenth doctor. I had, you know, all

kinds of growing symptoms over two or three years. I just sold the biggest project of my career, had just gotten married, I tell the story in the book, And all of these things were coming to a head, and I was getting progressively and progressively sicker and sicker. And so I'm sitting in the doctor's office and she's looking at me, and she has run hundreds of tests, and she's agreeing there's something wrong with me. But we can't

find the smoking gun, as I call it. And she said, we can run more tests, or I can just tell you what you already know. Your job is killing you. And the stress, the travel. So if you remember, my job was living out of a suitcase. I did three cities a week sometimes, so I even my own bed. I didn't eat well, right. I was very much performance oriented, And so she asked me three life changing questions, and I write about this. She said, what would you do if you didn't do a big job like this? Do

you feel number two? Do you feel like you have to do a big job like this to feel you know, to feel powerful? And three don't you see value in just being you? And I just felt seen through. I literally like a moment of reckoning. And so I left that doctor and really had to ask myself some hard questions. I ended up, you know, my fifteenth doctor with a sixteenth doctor with a with a line, a late stage line diagnosis that had probably been triggered during the stress.

And the symptoms were pretty strong, pretty severe. I had i'd pins and needles, it up on bed rest for almost eight months, so it was a pretty severe case. Oh my god, I had a deep pushing through that. Yeah, And I will share one last thing and then it happy to answer more questions. But what's interesting is the number one, hands down, most glaring thing from these five hundred women that I interviewed is that almost all of them, so two and three women I interviewed was sick similar

to me. So some sort of undiagnosable illness, so not like cancer or some sort of clear, you know, you can see a doctor and hopefully get a treatment sort of illness, but more skin rashes, stomach pains, heart palpitations, fertility issues, you know, rashes, all kinds of these what we call mysterious illnesses or disorders that I've now spoken to enough doctors. I think it's trauma and stress related. And we've never really had conversation in space for that.

What happens when you're not seen and heard in structures, right, and what happens when you constantly edit yourself and let go of parts of yourself. Well, this is what happens. I believe it shows up in your body if you don't listen. And I'm a great example of what happened. You know. It's so interesting because also, you know, what we know to be true about Western medicine in particular, is that we don't really interrogate the differences between men

and women. We don't interrogate the differences between people of color. I remember going into a doctor, and I've told this story on WOKE a f before, where I'd gone in for a regular physical many moons ago. I was when I was living in Washington, DC, gone in for a regular physical comes back, my white blood cell count is low, and my general practitioner was was alarmed by the numbers while I head into hematologists to come and find out that, yes,

your white blood cell count is low. But if we're comparing you to white Europeans, to white Europeans, then yes it seems low. If I'm comparing you to other black people, yes it is normal. And so here's what you need to understand about how you are being measured, right, And he and he, you know, a great doctor, and he was just like, I'm going to monitor you for the next three months just to make sure that you know,

all is actually well. But I just want to start off this conversation with saying, just how we are measuring you is not even right, you know. So then for women, particularly women of color, to go into the medical industrial complex where we are our voices are ignored, right, um our feelings and our physical feelings are are oftentimes ignored. How do you how did you even get I mean, I guess you know, was it that you had another

woman doctor or like, how how were you able? And it took fifteen, right, it took fifteen to get super clear? Why story is not dissimilar than and it's I think most acute as you're saying for black women that that's also true in the health in the health space, right. Um, I was told so many times you turn forty, this is what happens when you turn forty, and I'm like, this is not forty. I have mono. I have you know? I had shingles. I'd all literally everything. Every two weeks.

I was in some sort of you know, spin on being sick. I don't I knew it wasn't normal. So many white male doctors told me it was just forty, and I just wouldn't take that for an answer. I honestly felt like I was unplugged, is what I'd call it, or dying, like my battery was not recharging. I got lucky, so I left that doctor's office that I mentioned to you where she asked me those three questions, and I went back to my hotel room and I started crying,

and I called a senior manager on my project. That senior manager happened to have a dad who was a rheumatologist, and she said, my dad is like doctor House, I believe you have lyme disease. I'm just telling you from all the things he talks about he's got like a six month waiting list, but I'm going to make a call. I want you to go see him. Just please go see him. I'm pretty sure this is what it is. And she made the call and he's the one that diagnosed it and got me on a path to wellness.

So it was I believe in interventions like the universe intervening, and so yeah, I listened. Yeah, I was desperate. I was desperate enough to she had offered once or twice before, and I was like, it's you know, I want to see another doctor. I'm sure it's not that. He sounded a little bit scary to me. And at that point I just said I'll take whatever help the universe is bringing me because I can't. I can't solve this anymore.

I honestly couldn't keep going. I had just had been maybe two years married at that point, and I remember saying to my husband, I'm sorry that we got married, Like this is not the life you signed up for. I had no energy. I would just sit on the couch when I got home on the weekends and sleep for like fourteen hours a day because I was trying to catch up on my sleep. So it was a really severe situation. But I think a lot of us

ignore how we're feeling. And I think had I maybe had more tools earlier, I would have insisted, you know, as a symptom started mounting like that, none of this is normal, let's talk about it. Let's understand that, you know, and it's it's very true. And I think, you know, one of the things that you know, I believe that the pandemic has illuminated is a conversation about how we work and rest. And what we saw right in twenty twenty were over two million women being forced out of

the workforce because they are now homeschooling. Right they were now homeschooling young children and trying also to hold on to a job. And so we got to see, you know, the reality, the lived reality and experience of what it's like to be a work a working mother and how by virtue of not creating space and not really understanding or caring about how your employees are actually working, these

women had to leave the workforce. In these dinners that you that you began that would turn into your book, what were some of the common themes that came out that allowed you to see oh, this is a bigger problem. Like if I'm feeling this way, I know that other people must be feeling this way. But now you're going through these series of dinners, what are some of the things that were illuminated for you? I think for me,

and this is true for a lot of us. So again, these women were high performing right like VP level and above women. I think most of us had been navigating on our own. We were so busy, so heads down getting to the seat, and then once we were in the seat right, just trying to make a go of it, that so many of us were alienated and just alone in our spaces. We were literally the first few of the only the name of the title of the book, like the only woman of color right in a department,

definitely the only one in the C suite. So there's just a sense of alienation, this sense of conforming, giving up so many parts of yourself just to fit into these spaces. There was a sense these women had shared that they would once they got to the seat, they thought they would do it their way. They would get to the seat, and there was even more pressure to behave and perform like right and to tow the line

at that senior level. So that was surprising. That was probably the most surprising in those dinners, like how much they had had sacrificed, right and how powerless they felt, Like these are some of the most powerful women in America and they were feeling powerless. I think that was

surprising to me. I think the other thing, and you brought it up with the healthcare example, I think most of us have been taught to believe and again I do think this is a little bit different based on who you are and how you've grown up and wear. But I think most of us were taught to believe that corporate America is a meritocracy, that if you show up like you know, you work hard, it'll be okay.

And I think what you're saying with your healthcare example, and what I'm saying with corporate America very loud and proud now, is corporate America is not a meritocracy. The healthcare system is not a meritocracy. It shows up differently for different groups, and we need to talk about that if we're going to change it. Right. So I think there was like a cracking open of this is not just me, this is happening to twenty other women in you know, in twelve cities. There is something different here?

And why why were we like? Why was that the first time we could talk about it? You could just see shoulders dropping in the room, right, You could just see all the things we had been taught, like we had taught been taught leadership doesn't look like us, and here we were being leaders and there's such imposter syndrome, such confusion that comes with that. So I think, honestly, it was just a real awakening that it wasn't me

like up till that point. I think part of why I got sick was I was thinking this is all me, Like, what else do I need to do? What do I need to try? Differently? Why am I getting sick? Why can't I hack it? Well, no, I can't hack it because it's too much, right, And I had gone way past my bounds and I didn't know it. And seeing the other women and seeing what they had gone through, I think allowed me to realize it's not me, you know. But we also, again, we value busy in in this country, right,

We value saying, oh how is your day? Oh my god, my calendar is overloaded, and you know, I haven't had a moment to have lunch, and that is, like to your earlier point, that is something that is celebrated, that is rewarded. How much of yourself can you squeeze out? How much can I extract? Right? And what little can you survive and exist on right with what is essentially with what is left? And I think that oftentimes too. You know, how do you feel like we are having

conversations about burnout? You know there's a lot of books and things like that about burnout, but what do you think that they are missing, particularly as it pertains to women of color. Yeah, I think the big conversation and this is probably not going to be a grand away thing to your audience, right, but I think it isn't a lot of other circles is. I think what's happening is a lot of us are finally having the conversation

about race at work in a different way. Again. Up till now, most of us have been taught, especially in corporates, right that don't talk about it. You don't talk about it, and it's a neutral you know, you come in and it's all going to be okay, right, Like that doesn't happen, and if it happens, it's happening once or twice. It's not happening everywhere right there. There's maybe a little bit of acceptance that happens in small pockets, but not universally.

I think the fact that we're talking about it and that we're allowing ourselves to know what happened to us. I interviewed a lot of psychologists, and what they're saying is when you allow yourself to feel the racism, when you allow yourself to acknowledge the racism, you start to feel it in your body. And that's what's happening to a lot of us. So until we process it, until we let it go, until we do some matic healing or all the other things that these doctors talked about,

you're going to hold it in your body. And I think that's what's also happening is these last couple of years, there's a difference from denial to acknowledgement. An acknowledgement is almost harder until you process it, because now we're willing to say, yes, it's actually unfair, Yes it's actually racist, Yes it's actually all the things we were told to ignore, we're actually true. And that is hard. So I think we're just in a different part of the acknowledgement process

to be honest. You know, it's so interesting. My mother is a yogi and owns a yoga studio on Long Island in New York. And one of the things that she has always told me, particularly about my work as it's centered around politics and justice, right, is that I need to be very mindful about how I take on

these issues because I take them on on a cellular level. Yes, And she would say, She's like, you are taking this on on a cellular level, and it is going to attack you a like a virus, right, It is going to nap into your system, and this is what is going to drain you. And if you're going to do this work, you need to put what are the what are the mechanisms that you were putting in place in order to keep yourself well, in order to almost you know,

be present, but be able to disconnect. So what are some of the things that you have learned deepa and and that you offer to women that are on this ladder or in this jungle gym trying to you know, make it to the next level and make it to the next space, and doing so by but keeping their entirety of their self intact. Yeah, I think. I think the big shift that I've made is almost some of what your mom is suggesting to you, like I think

getting sick. So, first of all, I do think getting lime disease for me was a gift because it made me slow down, It made me really look at my life differently and made me ask different questions. It's almost been a guide to reinvent my life. I also met a lot of spiritual practitioners because lime disease is so I'm misunderstood and there's not a lot of like, take this medicine, it gets fixed. So I've just I've sought out very alternative healers and a lot of things I

would have never done before. So it's been in that way, very awakening. What I have found is that most of us come to an understanding that the system doesn't work for us when we encounter a big life situation. Right, so you know, something happens to us personally or we bounce against the system not working, and then it makes us really question who we are. That's a moment where you can do a lot of work, whether it's journaling, writing,

walking in nature, getting quiet with yourself. But the way I talk about it in the book, is you need to do the power. You need to find the power of me and then the power of Wei. So you need to kind of figure out for yourself. We've taken in a lot of messages that don't work for us as black and brown women. Right, We're not powerful, We're not this, We're not that. I think, you know, even if we are trying to be conscious of it. We have to go through a process or we let go

of the stuff that doesn't work for us. I call that shedding shed messages that don't work for you, and it is active reprogramming, you know. Raw. My business partner calls that you have to know almost take out the indoctrination that is there and part of everything we do and let that go. Once you do that, the second part of it is you have to find we, like so the power of Wei. So I think those dinners were the hour of we because it is hard to change structures, it's hard to do the work that you

do if you don't have community. You can't do it by yourself because it's soul depleting, right, and so it is really figuring out. I think what I tell women is you have to figure out for yourself, what do you believe, what do you want your life to be, what is important to you? What are your boundaries? Because corporate America asks you to conform on a daily basis, So what are you not willing to give up? Draw

your boundaries? That's the me work. And then find your sisters because this is going to be hard, and when the things happen, you need each other on group chat or speed dial or whatever it is. Because we tend to hold on those negative comments, all that negative four times as long as the positive. That's what the research and the science shows us. So we need ways that we can let that go. And so I think those are the first steps. I mean, there's a lot. It's

a big question to answer in two or three. But for me, it was really finding a lot of alternative healing. It was writing, It was taking the eight months off. It was realizing my identity was not my work and then I'm a human outside of what I do. Which our big things to let go of when you've sacrificed so much to rise in structures like that rewarded I was.

I was known by my first name in a hundred thousand personal organization like there's a lot of you know, I don't want to call it celebrity, but almost like cachet or identity that comes with that. And I had to realize that that was not my life and I could let it go and still be me, but I had to figure out who he was for for a minute. You know, right now, all eyes are going to be on the Supreme Court nominee yes, uh uh Katangi Brown Jackson is going to, you know, god willing be the

first black woman to be on the Supreme Court. They are already attacks which we knew were coming about her qualifications and whether or not she's going to be up to the task because this, you know, the assumption is by virtue of being a black woman, apparently you're not. Um.

You know what? What what are some of the things that you think, you know will carry into this space that we will actually see by virtue of watching her confirmation that you know you have understood and the research that you all have done in the reports that have come up. What do you see as some parallels that we may see play out in mainstream media. Yeah, I love that question only because I've actually really thought about

it a lot. I think that there's a story throughout the book, right that these trailblazers, who I call trailing, we don't talk about the shadow side of trailblazing. We don't talk about all the struggle, all the strife, all

the extra all the questions that it brings. Right. I tell a story where I opened in the book of how I made Partner, and one of my best friends asked me, you know, or made a comment that I was a two fur that I checked two boxes and that's why I was promoted quickly, and it was devastating. There's like a lot of that that comes with the role.

I think what's different and I'm what I'm hopeful with a new justice being confirmed is that she sets a new example because she is not you know, her job can't and I say this, and I believe this to be true, me even correct me. She can't be take out of that job, right, so she can be in

full voice, she can do her like. Part of what I'm saying is I think most of us are not able to do ourselves fully in these structures, and so I mean even even Vice President Harris, I don't think it's fully able to do her because she's you know, up for the next role, and so I think it'll be one of the few examples where she is not worried about how she comes across. She can completely show up, you know, god willing and how she wants to show up, and I think that is going to be game changing

for all the rest of us. It gives me chills just to talk about it, because I think she can literally be in full voice, and I unfortunately think we have very few examples of women of color who sit in the seat in full voice, because there's such backlash or ramifications and retribution when we when we do. And so I think that's what's different and what's special and what I'm hopeful about. But I also you know, I've

had this conversation. I was just having it with a journalist who was asking me this question, how do we

make sure that she's not tokenized? How do we make sure that she is able to be her full self and that gets the full support, And that's where I think we as a community also have to support her right and encourage her, and she is going to have a lot of rocks thrown at her, and I think we just have to be there in whatever ways we can, even if it's from Afar, just giving her as much support as possible, because I think those are real questions that I don't think, you know, a white male justice

would have to go through right now, right in the same sorts of ways. It's a completely different experience that I don't think people appreciate and it takes its toll. So I hope she has her circle of sisters right that she can call a FI woman. I pray that she does. Last question for you, is that coming out of this experience, not only did you write The First, the Few, and the Only, but you also started a company Information around it. Can you tell us a little

bit about that? And for folks who are interested in learning more, absolutely so. Information is a community. It's a safe, brave, and new space for professional women of color. And we do a lot of what we did in the Dinners, but we do it virtually at least at this point and online, and so we hold safe space. We have conversations around advancement. We talk about what it's like to

feel like a token, I mean all the things. We had an amazing conversation a few months ago about what it meant to be a woman of color because some of my Latin sisters raised that they don't necessarily the term women of color, you know, felt uncomfortable to them, you know, because they're white passing. And so we as a group of two hundred women of color, had a conversation about what does it mean, what are we, what

are our shared experiences, and what's different. I don't know other spaces where we have conversations like that, So I think it's really powerful for us to find our voice, find what our commonalities are, find what our challenges are. We also found that twenty five percent of our women, just a quarter into our existence, we're pretty new where you're in a few months old, a quarter in twenty five percent of our women ask for bigger jobs, more pay,

or left the roles they were in. They said as a result of just being in community, because they said, other women right asking for more. So it's not anything magical that Raw and I are teaching. But once you see me ask for more, you're like, I'm going to ask for more, and then the next person's going to ask for more. So I think we're being each other's um guides on what our boundaries are and what our worth is, and what it's like to leave spaces that don't don't want to see us and don't want to

make space for us. I think that's different. I also think as women of color, we have such amazing lived experiences, right that that don't get valued in the workplace, right, those of lived experiences get downplayed. We look at P and L, we looked at with global experience, and we look at this like checklist of things that are important. And as women of color, we have such lived experiences. So we're coming together and talking about those things. So

that's what the community is about. You know, how we have power, how we're special, how you know in twenty fifty, when when the world continues to be diverse, like I actually think we have, I call to them superpowers in ways that we can lead that. I think that I think corporate and other industries absolutely need, other sectors need UM and so I feel like we're the voice of the future in that sort of way. UM. Yes, we're always looking for members, We're always looking for new people.

So you can find all that information on my website, so Deepa Peru pureu dot com and there's information about the book, but also information about information the company and how you sign up and our next big initiative that we are just in the process of announcing. I'll just kind of sick flag it here is we're about to place one hundred women of color on boards and so that's our next initiative, but not just place in men traditional sort of way. We actually want to change the

criteria that we use to place women of color. So we're doing that with Richard Branson's B team and so that'll be a big announcement that comes out in the next few weeks. Well, I can't tell you it has been a pleasure. I'm so happy that we were able to make this happen. Folks. The name of the book is the first, the few, the only, how women of color can redefine power in corporate America. DEEPA. Thank you so much for making the time to join Woke AP and we hope to have you back again. Thank you

so much for having me and having these conversations. That is it for me today, Folks on woka app as always Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.