Inclusion in Business Facebook Live Conversation Recording

thank you for figuring it out though i have no idea how i figured it out i just it we're good because it was not working for me yeah okay we are definitely live now hi everyone um yeah thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me um when i heard that this month's topic was you know inclusivity in our businesses i was like crystal so i am so honored that you are taking the time to share your knowledge and your you know thoughts with us so thank you so much um if anybody does join us feel free to like ask some questions um you know where we're doing this to help the group members so um yep pop em in uh for anyone who may not know you or know what you've been up to the last year because you've had some exciting changes um why don't you tell us a little bit about you and what's been going on yeah so my name is crystal whittaker i run crystal lily creative and i'm an inclusive branding consultant um and i joke that i'm like a recovering wedding photographer um but what i do now i work with entrepreneurs and small businesses to help them create more inclusive experiences and brands that are rooted in their core values and i have empowered branding programs and organizational inclusion training that i work with um you know entrepreneurs still entrepreneurs and then smaller businesses you know 10 20 50 employees and it's been the most exhausting fulfilling exciting thing that i think i've ever done and it also feels like the most aligned thing i've ever done so yeah that's amazing yeah i feel like everything in my life has brought me to be able to do this work that's really amazing i mean especially like it feels you know when it feels so aligned to you it's like that's really where you're doing like your best work so that's amazing um so for like let's just start super basic so for anyone who's kinda doesn't entirely know like what does being an inclusive business mean suit it's not really a basic answer but i'll try to do my best um essentially it means that you have an understanding of how to be mindful about the different lived experiences of other human beings and you are intentional about the ways that you connect with people from different communities so if you're running an inclusive business and you're doing it in a genuine way you are doing the work to understand how you can make people feel welcome when they choose to work with you or when they choose to buy from you it's it really boils down to like mindful awareness and being genuine in the choices that you make great and i think that kind of ties into your article in this month's guide which was amazing so if anyone hasn't checked out the guide this month crystal wrote a really informative article and so can you like talk a little bit more about like the deep work that you mentioned and why you recommend starting with deep work rather than kind of jumping into visuals and messaging i know a lot of people just kind of tend to like let's start posting and yeah like that yeah um so you have to do the deep work because if you don't you run the risk of causing more harm than good i don't i don't know if you're familiar with you know the whole idea of like intent versus impact and if you try to dive into showing the world that you're inclusive you know by posting photos and like doing all the things before you've actually done the work to examine your own bias um really take a look at your own lived experience and where you have privilege and where you might have intersectionality and where you don't um there is there's just such a greater chance of making missteps and making mistakes like engaging in tokenism or finding yourself in situations where you have defensive reactions to feedback when people are pointing things out that you could have done better i think i i know with the south bay rising tide community would would you say that it's it's mostly wedding and event vendors still i would think so yeah okay so a really good example of you know causing more harm and just you know diving in before doing the work last june i witnessed a lot of publications after george floyd was murdered just jumping into the pool of you know the hashtag black lives matter and posting photos of black couples black gay couples um you know black straight couples just and the question became okay so you're now posting photos of non-white couples have you always had these photos and if the answer is yes why didn't you post them before and if the answer is no who are you bombarding to get access to these photos to be able to say like we stand with the black community things like that um it's it's very short-sighted and it runs into um what is defined as action bias where now now i'm educating i hope that's okay totally um so action bias is essentially uh when one person or a group or community sees a problem within another person group or community and they're like oh my gosh this is wrong this is terrible like you know that it's wrong and you want to fix it and you go into trying to fix it but you don't actually have an understanding like a real understanding of the root of the problem and what those communities actually need so you have to do the deep work so you don't end up doing that does that make sense yeah and i think um you know i hear a lot of talk in different industries about like reactionary things you know and talking about inclusivity or if it's genuine and i think that is exactly what you were kind of talking about when you're just like posting or you know like something without doing that deep work so yeah i'm guessing you know when we do that deep work then that comes from a more genuine place so people aren't feeling like your brand is is solely reactionary based on the times i mean i know i've met a lot of people in our group and i know that you know everyone is kind of on this path to learn and do better and you know i'm going to just assume that everyone is very genuine in their intentions you know nobody wants to do more harm than good so is starting from that that deep work really the place that that makes the actions feel genuine and authentic yeah and you know before you dive into that deep work i mean what i take people through is a process of you know really first like connecting with ourselves because you need to know how how your body reacts when you're in discomfort um because the work is uncomfortable i'm not even going to sugarcoat it um but i i like to make sure that people have a real understanding of inclusion um starting with you know like key terms and examples to really make sure that it's clear like these are the things that happen to people from you know xyz community and ensure that there's an understanding around that before digging into like the roots of who you are what is your business what is your role in your business and in the world and you know what like what types of people are you serving what does that look like right now and have that clear picture and we dig into core values which is something that um i think is really important to even if people say i know my core values i always tell people revisit them revisit them and like ask yourself how they're connected to inclusion um and from there then you can get into that disruptive piece around identifying your bias because you've got to know where you started before you can really get into like that discomfort and working through the areas where you may have caused harm or you may have witnessed harm and not said or done anything you've got to address all of those things and look at the narratives that you have been taking in and the environments that you've been in and then after you do all that stuff you can get into creating more inclusive messaging and content but if you just dive into the content piece first at some point it's going to start to look performative and i mean i know you've kind of answered this question but how would someone kind of go about starting to do this like deep examination i know a lot of people kind of have listened and learned a lot this last year and really kind of opened up to looking you know deeper inside but do you kind of recommend people just sit down and like this is kind of your focus or write it out or you know like how would someone kind of start this or continue to look at themselves you know on the deeper level yeah um i think that it first comes down to answering a few questions for yourself why do you want to do that work um what what is it that you want to do with your brand what are your goals with it and how do you want to do it and i always encourage people to revisit core values i think that it is probably the most um important thing that you can do because you need to think about what you actually care about and the environments that you're spending time in because like how you how you spend your time and energy and the environments that you put yourself in everything that we do is done and it's connected to our core values whether we recognize it or not um and really go back and revisiting that and making sure that you're in alignment with your values and if you're not then what changes do you need to make and how is inclusion being related back to those values so like i'll give you an example i do i do this it's very evident that inclusion is important to me but i actually don't have inclusion listed as a core value um i my values are freedom empowerment self-care uh community and trust and inclusion for me falls under a few of those buckets empowerment being one because it is empowering to feel like you have a sense of belonging and a voice in the spaces that you enter into um community is important and that speaks to inclusion for me because my community is inclusive all people are welcome i am very very big on creating safe non-judgmental spaces where people can show up as their whole entire selves without having to segment off parts of their identity in order to feel safe um so i always tell people you know when you're looking through your values even if you don't list inclusion or equity or diversity as a value how can you connect those things to your existing values and um that's that's when it becomes more genuine when you start sharing your message because you're speaking from your core yeah for sure um i crystal has a really great pdf download on her website um and i downloaded it and you know i was looking through it and it was really interesting to me because as a branding designer like i also take clients through core values and it was a little shocking that in 14 years of doing this like like inclusion and diversity and all of these things have never been in somebody's top five and i was like wow like i clearly am have not done a good job in my own business and like attracting people that are you know thinking beyond very small groups or you know not thinking broadly enough so that was a very interesting thing just for me and you know it's it's so helpful so if anybody is thinking about their core values or you know messaging definitely download your pdf from your website we'll link to it after but um that was so interesting to me um i i didn't even know you downloaded it so i'm glad that you found that really helpful um i'm actually i don't know if it's okay to share this it's because i'm not asking for money so um i'm going to be running a core values challenge in a couple of weeks so if anybody's interested you can send me a note and um you know get on the list for that i ran it earlier in the spring and it was really popular and people keep asking me for it so i'll be doing a three day challenge and then after that i'll do a live q a just so that if people have questions after they go through the challenge around doing that work with their core values i can answer them amazing i'm absolutely checking that out so there was there was one thing in your um article that i'm sure you know i'm not the only person there are other people you know who are like man what do you mean there's not a checklist how do you do the deep work to create an inclusive brand like what i think i kind of want that structure of like okay here here are the things that i can do because we we want to do this and we want to be helpful but after someone does the deep work um and they're kind of ready to move forward with visuals and you know all of that stuff like is there a kind of first step that you recommend is that when you do your core values are you doing that during the deep work or you know like um you're doing it during the deep work like the core values is kind of like an introduction to the more uncomfortable deep work around identifying bias um sorry i didn't need to interrupt you no i'm i'm just curious like so okay so after the deep work is there a first step you can kind of say here's a good place to start when you're ready to move forward or yeah um i mean a good place to start is uh having a statement for your brand which i have a download for that too um but uh really again going back to that piece around being mindful and aware of what you're putting out and why you're doing it in the first place act from your heart like period if you've re-examined your core values and you're really clear on what your beliefs are and the things that you support when you're acting from that heart space it's going to become naturally apparent what you stand for so um i would say having a brand statement that outlines what your values and beliefs are is helpful it's a good place to start so that when people do land on your website it's like oh okay this person like they're it's very clear what they believe in um and that's controversial you know some people are like i don't want to put all my business out there and that's fine but it's going to be um it's going to lead to more questions when certain people are reaching out whereas no one should have to question whether or not you are willing to work with them it always makes me sad when i see stories about um especially from the wedding industry couples that were rejected you know because they they were same-sex couple and a baker wouldn't make a cake for them you know it's stuff like that like nobody should have to ask like hey will you work with me it should just be clear based on your message yeah totally makes sense and i you know i also have that um fran statement pdf from you and like oh my god it's like mad lib style so if anybody is like i need to write a statement oh my gosh download it i know i'm like am i giving too much away it's i mean it's so great because it literally is so easy and so many people just kind of like give you something and like okay this is kind of how you structure it but yours is literally like fill in the blank so yeah i mean i give permission for people to make it their own but one of the things when i was developing that the mentees were sharing with me they were like mad libs would be really helpful because this is hard work so that's what you got yeah i mean it really is such a great place to just kind of start and for sure you know you can tweak it and make it your own thing but just to kind of have like that there for you it's like okay here's like such a good place for me to just like get something going and then you know tweak and develop as time goes on yeah yeah i'm glad that that's helpful i love that you got the downloads like all the things totally did you know i think it's it's all so helpful you know like i think this last year has been really interesting in just hearing so many unique voices that you know in the past haven't really been like amplified or celebrated and you know it's just been a really good i think learning experience for everybody and just you know doing some of that work and you know kind of as hard as it is looking inside yourself at things that maybe you never really realized you did or thought and trying to be better and you know move forward with that yeah yeah and i think a lot of the discomfort for people comes in to play especially for you know if you're like in an older generation where it's like well but this is how things have always been and what do you mean we can't say this or that why is it all politically correct and it's like well it was never really okay it was often people from the marginalized communities and groups that were forced to sit with that discomfort you know like just the amount of time that people didn't speak up for themselves because it's like well if i do i'm you know i'm gonna be ostracized i'm not gonna get the job or i'm gonna get fired from my job things like that and none of that is okay nobody should have to go through life or be in spaces where they feel like they can't advocate for themselves or other people aren't advocating for them just because they need to make ends meet they need to survive like that's not okay so i could get on a whole soapbox about it no i love it like you know everything is just so helpful i think and you know i'm i totally have understood some people's perspective of you know it's not my job to educate someone but you know i think it's it's so worth just taking a step back and opening your mind when someone is willing to share so i like i appreciate everything that you're you're sharing with us oh thank you i'm glad that you're receptive i'm glad that the community that i have around myself and my brand is receptive i've been very very fortunate in that way yeah and you know i mean i think the rising tide really tries to create a no tolerance policy on any site any type of like discrimination and you know really the goal is to lift all boats so thankfully that does create like at least in our little you know tuesdays together community of people who really all believe in kind of that message no i definitely think that that helps and i think these conversations definitely help yeah i agree and i will say i mean i'll even you know with rising tide they had shared something last as it might have been last week and it was a little bit odd it was a little disconnected and they corrected and shared the education in that corrected post which i really appreciated because it's like okay cool like not only are we doing the work but we're sharing the process so that people can see like we're going to make mistakes it's how you receive that feedback and how you handle it that makes all the difference so i have a question actually about mistakes um you know sometimes you'll see public figures and stuff make a mistake and everyone is like take this post down and they take it down and then all of these people get upset about this person took this thing down you know how if somebody in their business makes a mistake or maybe makes them messed up and could have done something better how you know how is the how do you recommend that cutscene stumbling now how do you recommend that somebody kind of like handle that do you think just like addressing it and leaving up maybe the wrong thing and then you know doing something like the rising tide did i don't know if they left up the their kind of other post um kind of how do you recommend addressing sort of the mistakes or the fumbles that people kind of make because inevitably as we all learn you know we're not going to do everything perfectly yeah and we're not i mean this is messy work um it's so human focused that it's going to be messy um so to answer your piece about what rising tide did they actually scared scared shared screenshots of the original post so that people could see what happened which i you know totally cool um i don't recommend especially if it's if it's a post in public figures you know their comment threads get really long i don't actually recommend completely removing posts especially if there are people in the comments who are sharing education as to why that's not okay because what happens when you remove that post you erase all of their labor you erase their voice you erase the perspective and then people in your community don't get the opportunity to see what happened if they so choose um so i recommend leaving things up even if that's uncomfortable for you like you have to be able to take ownership and accountability for anything that we do even if it's uncomfortable even if it's not pretty um and that's also why i advocate doing the deep work and doing all the things before you start just pushing things out into the internet because it can minimize that you know um so that's my perspective i say leave the posts up and then put something else up that is you know if if it requires an apology or any sort of corrective action then that needs to be a new post um and it needs to be genuine i know that there are some public figures that things have happened the last couple of months and things were said and shared that were just like not genuine or not taking accountability and nobody is winning in that scenario at all yeah for sure i think it's you know it really is such a hard subject and it can be so uncomfortable you know so it's like one of those things where you know you don't want to mess up or you know do more harm than good so i think you know i love that deep work and really thinking and doing all of that stuff and core values and things like that to kind of avoid any potential like damage or hurt yeah and i want to be clear you're probably not 100 going to avoid making a mistake i like if you may even have someone who's an expert in this space i'll be honest i'm sure that i have made mistakes and i probably will make mistakes because i don't know everything not all dei educators know everything the the idea is that you're receptive and once you know better then you do better but you can't um you can't come into this work thinking okay i'm going to go through this program or i'm going to download this worksheet or i'm going to do this thing and then when it's all done everything's going to be fine i'm not going to screw up that's work more humans it's not possible for sure um so do you have any other advice for people on you know who maybe are just starting their journey or who are kind of midway in their journey and you know they're still kind of figuring things out or yeah yes um learn learn as much as you can you don't always have to speak on topics especially if you don't if you're not fully versed on a topic but learn you know diversify who you're following and learning from um look at who your current network and you know mentors educators are and consider whether or not who they're learning from and following like are those groups diverse what does all of that look like because if you are in a bubble in an echo chamber it's going to be a lot more challenging to do the work because you're only getting one or two sets of narratives you've got to be able to take in different perspectives uh so i say um there's there's a couple of really great accounts that people can follow like on instagram there's anti-racism daily i mean me um my friend jordan manny is incredible um uh monique melton is wonderful rachel ricketts is fantastic and then there's another one that's it's called so you want to talk about and it's not just about like dei it's really about social issues on a larger scale and then you know the things that they share are digestible but it's enough to give you information and send you down a path of like okay they've shared some nuggets now go learn more like don't just solely rely on us as educators in our social media accounts because even though the tidbits that we're sharing are valuable they're tidbits it's only like the tip of the iceberg so make sure that you are going beyond what you see on social media and if you can invest in education then make sure that the education you're investing in is going towards people from those communities people who are you know black educators lgbtq plus educators don't get education from a straight white person who has never had a certain had a certain lived experience like it's just there's not a balance there [Music] yeah for sure um so yeah i don't know if there's anything else you want to share or you know i i guess i i have another question that i could ask like it's been it's been a crazy year you know um sadly the very tragic death of george floyd to the you know celebration of our first biracial woman vp like you know i know you've had a lot of things change in your business on this whole topic like how are you how are you feeling like oh wow [Laughter] how am i feeling i mean overall i feel hopeful yeah i think overall i feel hopeful because i through this work i've been able to really recalibrate my own community i had a pretty solid community around me to start with but i've been able to recalibrate and um i trust that the people that i get to work with and collaborate with or even just have conversations with like we have shared values and that just gives me hope because it's like okay i'm not the only one that is out here advocating for these things um i think one of the things that i found really challenging in the wedding industry as a wedding photographer especially because i started in 2015 which is not that long ago but we weren't having these conversations either but i found i found it really challenging because i was i noticed right away that there wasn't a lot of diverse representation in the mainstream industry in the mainstream publications and that was so frustrating to me and i think that's partly why like this work has just felt like such a natural progression and i for the longest for the first couple of years i thought like am i the only one who cares that we're only seeing one or two types of couples in these publications and every so often they'll sprinkle in diversity and then i got connected with a couple of vendors that i had found through a publication catalyst wedding code and from there i went to a conference and it was full of people who fought like me and it was just like yay i'm i'm i haven't not i'm not a weirdo this is really a thing and having more people around me and my brand that just it gives me hope that we can collectively make a shift yeah for sure i think it's like interesting too when you really start to just think about it because even in my own industry you know as a designer i would you know after things and you know was trying to diversify my own feed last year and i like did a search for just like designers to follow and i was so shocked they were all like the list was all white men and i'm like where how come the first female is you know number 30 something on your list let alone anybody who's not white you know it was like so eye-opening and i think once we just keep opening our eyes to those things you know the more hopefully we can make steps to change that but yeah yeah and don't get me wrong i'm not like crapping on white people you know my family's whites but i i just being able to look through the lens of many different lived experiences and perspectives i think it just makes us richer as a society for sure so i mean i can't see if i don't think anyone has really even watched this yet but you know um um i think so we had a lot of technical difficulties starting um so hopefully yes it will be um but if anyone has any questions how can they like reach out to you we'll also post you know some links but i'm you are so kind you know i imagine you are open to answering any questions someone may have if they they want to get in touch with you personally yeah um we can drop i'll monitor the chat the next couple days um i'm pretty sure we can save this live uh hopefully we can just because i feel like what does he do um so yeah i'll monitor the chat but um also share links on how people can connect great thank you so much um i don't know if you have any other things you want to share you know feel free to um i mean i think we covered some pretty good ground uh but yeah like i said if anybody wants to reach out and you know ask questions that we did not cover feel free thank you for inviting me to have a conversation yeah thank you for agreeing to it um our group's been a little sleepy this year so you know i'm very happy but you know even just a one-on-one thing with you has been so great so informative and i i really cannot thank you enough for talking and helping our group out and you know being a source of you know knowledge for our members of course i south bay has always been so welcoming to me so i just yeah i appreciate you guys and i'm happy to have conversations i i miss gabby yeah jenny she might watch this yeah no um but uh thank you again this has been really great and if you need anything feel free to reach out yeah thank you so much you're welcome talking to you you too have a good day you too bye let's see [Music] hop in the room

2021-08-28 01:32

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