Tiny Leaps, Big Changes

Here's a question...when was the last time you considered your unconcious biases?

Have you ever? It's okay if not..most of us haven't.

But here's something interesting to note..whether we take the time to examine them or not...they do affect us. Every single day.

Maybe in small ways, getting passed over for a promotion, being spoken down to by your peers, or...in the case of my guest today...getting your work overlooked.

Or maybe you've been the perpetrator. Choosing the cross the street at night when you see a person of color coming towards you. Or subconsciously discounting what a female colleague has to say.

No matter how it affects you...it does affect you. And it can cause huge problems in your life and in larger society.

That's why for the next 2 episodes, we're going to take about how to end it. And the answer?

Well...you already know the answer...because this is Tiny Leaps, Big Changes.

My guest today is Jessica Nordell.

Jessica Nordell is a science writer, award-winning author, and speaker known for blending rigorous science with compassionate humanity. Her first book, The End of Bias: A Beginning, won the Nautilus Award and was shortlisted for the Columbia Journalism/Lukas Prize for Excellence in Nonfiction, the NYPL Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, the Royal Society Science Book Prize, and the National Association of Science Writers Book Prize. The End of Bias was also named a Best Book of the Year by the World Economic Forum, Greater Good, AARP, and Inc. and is currently being used by organizations from newsrooms to NBA teams to healthcare organizations to solve some of their biggest cultural challenges.

This is the first of a two part conversation on bias so, if you are interested in this topic, be sure to tune in tomorrow to catch the 2nd part.

Instagram: https://instagram.com/tinyleaps

The End of Bias: Website

Who We Are To Each Other: https://jessicanordell.substack.com/

Instagram: https://instagram.com/tinyleaps

With the start of a new year, many of us set big goals and try to focus on specific things in an effort to feel in control of our lives. While habits, routines, and life hacks can be helpful in achieving these goals, they are not enough to truly create lasting change. In this episode, we will explore the concept of the Fresh Start Effect and the importance of identifying an outcome and working towards it with direction in order to gain a sense of control in our lives. We will also discuss the challenges of maintaining motivation and offer strategies for making lasting change.

In this episode:

In this episode we get real about the question of having enough time...

Instagram: https://instagram.com/tinyleaps

Around this time of year, when we’re all caught up with the mad rush of gift giving, holiday attending, and sitting in traffic, it becomes extremely easy to lose track of our own self care. This can lead to major issues such as a weakened immune system, increased anxiety, and decreased performance at work or school.

What is self care?

Self-care is the practice of taking care of one's own physical, mental, and emotional well-being. This can include activities such as exercising, eating well, getting enough sleep, practicing mindfulness, and engaging in leisure activities. The concept of self-care has been around for centuries, but it has gained popularity in recent years as more people have become aware of the importance of taking care of themselves.

Today, self-care is largely viewed as an essential, but secondary practice across genders and cultures.

But it really should become a primary practice…

The benefits of incorporating self-care into your daily routine

Self-care can provide numerous benefits from a productivity and self-actualization perspective. Such as

Overall, self-care is essential for achieving productivity and self-actualization. By taking care of yourself, you can improve your physical and mental health, increase your motivation and productivity, enhance your creativity and problem-solving abilities, and improve your relationships and connections with others.

Incorporating Self-Care into Your Daily Routine

To ensure that self-care is a regular part of your daily routine, you can follow some simple steps:

Stats about racism

The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee

In The Sum of Us, Heather McGhee explores the history of racism in America and offers solutions for building an inclusive society. McGhee begins by recounting how America was founded on principles of racial inequality, which have been perpetuated through policies and cultural norms. She argues that racism has always been used to divide and conquer the American people, and that it benefits no one in the long run.

Resources:

Idea: In order to shift a collective culture that reinforces unconscious bias across the board, we surprisingly may need to place a larger spotlight on our individual differences within communities.

The End of Bias: A Beginning (Jessica Nordell)

These passages are from Chapter 10: Unbreaking Culture

Passages:

Transforming the minds, hearts, and habits of individuals i one way to change bias. Another, as we’ve seen, is to change processes, structures, and the culture of organizations. The two, of course, are intertwined: individuals create the processes, structures, and organizational culture, and these in turn shape individuals’ thoughts and actions. But we are also the product of our larger culture – the broader environment in which we live. Change can additionally begin from this third starting point.

In a set of experiments by Abdelatif Er-Rafiy and Markus Brauer, researchers created large posters with photographs of people of Arab origin. The posters had the person’s name, age, and a distinct personality trait such as “Optimistic” or “Stingy”. Finally, each poster had the words “What makes us the same is that we are all different” as part of the campaign.

Researcher’s then measured an individual’s unconscious bias towards people of Arab origin after seeing the posters and found that they acted in a less biased way. Jessica goes on the highlight that the findings suggest that unconscious bias towards racial, cultural, or ethnic groups require one to view those groups as one body over which one can apply their beliefs or view. The idea of “all black people are…” or “every Muslim is…”. But when the idea of individuals within these groups are highlighted, it becomes more difficult to make sweeping assumptions about the whole group.

This is Interesting Because:

How productive were you today? Do you know? Did you track it? What method did you use? A to-do list? A pomodoro timer? I’d bet you were really really productive. I bet you got a lot of things done and checked off all those little boxes right? So here’s a different question…did any of it matter? Sure, you were productive…but for what purpose? To what end?

I think many of us forget to ask that last question in our day to day lives and work. As a society, we’ve been so focused on how to be productive that we’ve developed an endless stream of strategies and tools to make it easier. This exploded further in 2020 and the following years as the pandemic created a national and global shift towards fully remote or hybrid work. A shift that, I hate to break it to you, isn’t going to go away.

Resources

https://www.etymonline.com/word/productivity

https://www.zarvana.com/new-productivity-definition-that-wont-burn-you-out/

https://www.oecd.org/sdd/productivity-stats/40526851.pdf

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/a-brief-history-of-productivity

https://prezi.com/d7swdmdturqy/us-economy-in-1600s/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z49g-A2AQI

When you think of a cult, you might conjure some very specific imagery. Groups of people dressed in white, huddled around a charismatic, long-haired leader. Glasses of red fruit punch, mixed with other things, in the background. And a general sense of impending doom as the leader shares their celestial or holy visions with the crowd. 

This idea of a cult may have been popular in the 70s and 80s but the modern cult is more sophisticated, often choosing to weave cult-like practices into more acceptable industries such as self-help or entrepreneurship. In fact, you may be being influenced by cult indoctrination techniques right now, without even knowing it…but in order to talk about that, we first need to look at cults more generally and the practices that cause their followers to behave the way they do.  

From Jonestown to NXIVM, cults have caused massive damage to their victims and destroyed the lives of everyone they’ve come into contact with. So much so that, through various podcasts, documentaries, and exposes, they have become a pop culture phenomenon. A kind of lens for us to view the world from a slightly darker perspective.  Inevitably, once the interest in cults hit, each of us asks the same questions…how did this happen? 

Why do these people fall for such obvious lies? Why do they follow someone who is often cruel to them? And why do they become cruel themselves? The answers to these questions can be found in the psychology of indoctrination. Indoctrination is defined as “the process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically.”   

YouTube: https://youtu.be/sIvnrvpwyuE

Resources: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Reform_and_the_Psychology_of_Totalism 

https://www.verywellmind.com/understanding-and-using-the-law-of-attraction-3144808 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKqQ1CyneWw&ab_channel=FactFile

Download the app: https://connectwithspark.com/tlbc

Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and billionaires like them are treated in society as geniuses deserving of their massive wealth. After all, they created it by their own ability to identify an opportunity, gather resources, and bend reality itself through sheer willpower and an unwillingness to give up. Their hard work earned them that fortune, and they use it to better society by creating new jobs, solving big problems, and giving back through philanthropy. To deprive those who are successful of their hard earned wealth through taxation would dis-incentivize them, and society at large, from bringing their genius to the world. This is a commonly held belief in the United States but…what if it isn’t true?

YouTube: https://youtu.be/xdJuGox034E

Resources:

https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/personal-finance/your-odds-of-becoming-a-millionaire/

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Personal_responsibility

https://www.gotquestions.org/personal-responsibility.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internalized_oppression