July 20, 2025 • 43 mins
This week’s BA Q&A, Mandi is joined by powerhouse author, filmmaker, and workplace equity consultant Minda Harts to talk about how we build trust, advocate for ourselves, and demand more from the spaces we show up in—especially as women of color.
Minda opens up about her latest book, Talk to Me Nice: The Seven Trust Languages for a Better Workplace, and why understanding how we give and receive trust is essential—not just at work, but in every area of life.
If you’ve ever struggled with speaking up, setting boundaries, or navigating relationships in high-stakes environments, this conversation is for you.
Highlights!:
- Why trust (not talent), is the real currency of leadership
- How to communicate your value and protect your peace
- What inspired Minda's seven trust languages
- The connection between storytelling and equity in film and media
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
It's more than that. It's actually good for the bottom line.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
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.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Mandy happy to be here. Thank you so much and
equally one of my favorites humans as well.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
So honored to me.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
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.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
To, we did, but we did get to sit together
at lunchtime.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
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
(01:27):
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.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Please go get it.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
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
(02:01):
out how to better communicate with our staff our employees,
but also like how we as the worker bees can
communicate better with leadership?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Is that right? Yes?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
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.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
How do you get that back with your staff? But
also if you're.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
An employee and you can't get what you need, how
do you ask for it without losing your job?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Right?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
So it's giving both parties the language they need to
be able to communicate better and close that expectation gap.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
So why this book, Now, that's a great question.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
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
(02:58):
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.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Through the night, you know, you know, we know.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
So I got up and.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
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
(03:40):
spend ninety thousand hours of our life at the workplace?
Speaker 4 (03:44):
Is that real?
Speaker 2 (03:45):
That? And so it's like, why wouldn't we want trust
there too?
Speaker 1 (03:49):
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.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
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
(04:31):
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
(04:54):
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?
Speaker 1 (05:18):
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.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
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?
(05:53):
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.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Well.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
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?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Right? Can we have a conversation like that?
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Right?
Speaker 1 (06:19):
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
(06:40):
you that.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
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.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yeah, I mean, trust is a process, and usually we
learn about the love languages.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
Right. And I'm in.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
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?
Speaker 4 (07:11):
I think doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
But love languages, I think they are, like they're very.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
And even gen Z talks about love languages and all that.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
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?
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Do they mirror the love languages?
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Like?
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Can you tell us a little bit about them without
giving everything away in the book, because y'all got to.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
Go get it.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yes, please get it.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Tell me about the seven trust languages.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
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.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
They're backstabbers all the things.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
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
(08:27):
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
(08:49):
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?
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Right? But I let sound like a couple therapy. If
I know that, then I could know my coffee order.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
But and wait, no, wrong topic.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
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.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
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.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Sensitivity.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
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?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
I think about, you.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
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.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Trust or enhance trust.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
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.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
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.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
So you got three there.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
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.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Another language is feedback. Right.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Oftentimes you might not trust somebody, but what is it
that you really need?
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Is it touch? Need more feedback? Right?
Speaker 1 (11:01):
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,
(11:24):
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
(11:44):
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
(12:07):
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.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
I'm digesting everything you said, and I'm wondering, could we
add an eighth love language, and could it be money?
Speaker 4 (12:27):
Could it be like aay me nice?
Speaker 2 (12:29):
That's that acknowledgement, right, That's.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
That's the acknowledgment. Okay.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
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.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Well listen, money is a love is my love language,
my trust language, all the all the languages.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Money talks. You know.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
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.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
To work from.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
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.
(13:27):
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.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah, I mean, that's a great question.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
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
(14:01):
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.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Feedback looks like, right, And then we get.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
To provide examples of after I finish a sprint, it
would be great to know did.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
I hit expectations? Did I meet them?
Speaker 1 (14:25):
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,
(14:47):
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.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
I want to provide that for you.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
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
(15:25):
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.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Feel like it's framing. I don't know if you.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
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.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
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
(16:18):
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?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Twenty fifteen? Oh my god, you know since I was
five years old.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
Yes, you were a child prodigy. That's right, because you're fifteen.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
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,
(16:57):
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?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
You know? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:17):
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.
(17:39):
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.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
Like I'm paying you, So what are we even hearing
to do? Like, just do your job, don't have to
say it.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
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.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
And it will and.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
People will say, well, why do I need to do
all that? Right?
Speaker 1 (18:21):
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.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Right.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Fifty percent of people leave their workplaces because of their manager.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
So think about that.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
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.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
And so trust is a two way street, right.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
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.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Right.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
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.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Now, you don't always have to.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Use that particular language till they understand what you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
But if you can get under the hood.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
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.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
For how our careers move forward.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
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,
(20:09):
then we can solve for some of the other issues
that I think people weren't ready to solve for.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
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
(20:37):
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.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
I need to get out of here.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
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
(21:15):
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
(21:36):
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.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
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.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
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?
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Right?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
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.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Perhaps they can now provide that to us.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
And I don't think anybody shows up in the workplace
to say, how can I row trust with so and so?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Today?
Speaker 1 (22:23):
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
(22:44):
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.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Or on zoom right. So that is my gift to
the world.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
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.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
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.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Is it important to yea? How do you help readers
understand what their primary language is?
Speaker 2 (23:31):
I do?
Speaker 1 (23:31):
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,
(23:54):
but also not just theirs.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
But the people that they work with. Right.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
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,
(24:21):
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
(24:41):
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
(25:02):
trust isn't the issue. You just need a little bit
more of something, and somebody in the workplace needs to
know you need.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
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
(25:29):
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
(25:54):
manager or the senior leadership team would be to providing
the kind of communication style that works for me.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Yeah, you hit it on the head.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
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
(26:27):
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.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Needed that for me. She never articulated that to me.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
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
(27:10):
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.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
And I'm like, girl, i've.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
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.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
To the work, and it will be acknowledged.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
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
(27:53):
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.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Least be out the conversation. Yeah, And that does something
for us.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
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.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Now we know, and hopefully we'll have a better outcome.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
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
(28:38):
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.
(29:00):
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
(29:22):
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.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
Out there and get clarity and comfort from that.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Absolutely, I mean, I'll be honest. I spiraled for about
a month and created this narrative of.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
They hate me, I have to leave. Yeah, you know,
they don't appreciate me.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
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.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
And I had to push myself to be able to
go have that kind of easy. It's not easy.
Speaker 4 (29:59):
I'm glad to hear that's you're human. It took you
a month.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
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
(30:22):
trusting themselves again looks like in their voice.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
I want to take a quick break, Menda.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
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.
(30:46):
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,
(31:07):
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.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yeah, well, thank you for asking.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
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.
(31:42):
But my mom would always have Turner Classic movies on,
so I was like always watching these black and white
movies and just.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Enthralled with them.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
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
(32:12):
stay ready, you don't have to get ready, So I
wanted to invest in myself in that way.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
And then the.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
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.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
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
(32:48):
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?
Speaker 2 (32:56):
That's a great question.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
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.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
What are you doing with the memo?
Speaker 1 (33:15):
I would love to adapt it into a film. And
so we met and.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Our people's met, our lawyers, and.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
So we just said, yeah, we want to work together
and we want the story to be told on a
broader her lens.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
And she had Kyla in mind.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
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.
Speaker 4 (33:38):
In this book.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
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.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
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.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
And so that.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Book came out in twenty nineteen, and then it got
optioned in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
And we.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
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.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
I'm like, who I? Who am?
Speaker 3 (34:33):
I thought you were a human, but I thought it
turns out your AI.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
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
(34:57):
ride the wave with your head.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
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.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
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
(35:29):
of like you're when you write a book. For those
who know about the book process, you may not see anything.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
For a little while, but yes, I know that is.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Very important to get the story out. And so the
one thing I loved.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
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.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
And so trust, trust language, trust, and shall demonstrate it.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
She demonstrated it, and.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
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.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
So I'm like, you know what, I'm going to do it.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
And I just a girl. I'm a writer.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
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.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Live my life.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
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.
(37:02):
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.
Speaker 4 (37:15):
Fan fiction.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
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
(37:38):
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.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
And then he made a movie, Happen.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
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
(38:09):
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.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
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
(38:44):
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
(39:07):
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.
Speaker 4 (39:21):
Right, because yeah, that's what my brother says. He loves
the team of it all.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Oh, it takes so many, It takes so many.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
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
(39:48):
the entire ecosystem. And it's taught me so much about
trust and admitting when you.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Don't know something.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
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.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Between Yeah, where can we is it? Are you getting
into festivals now?
Speaker 1 (40:09):
So literally, as we're recording, I got my first notification
that we got accepted to our first festival.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
Yes, I know, now that that's very exciting.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Yes, yes, so it's very exciting.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
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.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
So the memo, then you're in potential talks to have
that turned into like an actual series.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
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.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
You just want to just tell everybody you just never know.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
You have to plant the seed and you never know
how it's going to to harvest.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
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?
Speaker 1 (41:13):
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.
Speaker 4 (41:23):
The best kind of adult.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
A little more money in my pocket, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
Yes, living your best life.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
You got your fur baby, yes, my fur baby Romans.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
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.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
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.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
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.
Speaker 4 (42:01):
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.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
People or give any advice to someone who's potentially thinking
about breaking in to that space and learning more about it?
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Yeah, well, I think empowering yourself. There's a lot more
tools I think available to us now.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
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.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
A black woman, you can make a film.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
So you just find your tribe, just like anything, and
if you build it, they will come.
Speaker 4 (42:50):
I love it all right.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
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,
(43:11):
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.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Need too, and thank you for always seeing me. It
means so much.
Speaker 4 (43:28):
Oh, likewise, thank you Menda.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
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.
Speaker 4 (43:50):
Take care,
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.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
It's more than that. It's actually good for the bottom line.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
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.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Mandy happy to be here. Thank you so much and
equally one of my favorites humans as well.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
So honored to me.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
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.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
To, we did, but we did get to sit together
at lunchtime.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
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
(01:27):
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.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Please go get it.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
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
(02:01):
out how to better communicate with our staff our employees,
but also like how we as the worker bees can
communicate better with leadership?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Is that right? Yes?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
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.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
How do you get that back with your staff? But
also if you're.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
An employee and you can't get what you need, how
do you ask for it without losing your job?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Right?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
So it's giving both parties the language they need to
be able to communicate better and close that expectation gap.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
So why this book, Now, that's a great question.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
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
(02:58):
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.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Through the night, you know, you know, we know.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
So I got up and.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
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
(03:40):
spend ninety thousand hours of our life at the workplace?
Speaker 4 (03:44):
Is that real?
Speaker 2 (03:45):
That? And so it's like, why wouldn't we want trust
there too?
Speaker 1 (03:49):
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.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
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
(04:31):
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
(04:54):
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?
Speaker 1 (05:18):
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.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
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?
(05:53):
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.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Well.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
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?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Right? Can we have a conversation like that?
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Right?
Speaker 1 (06:19):
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
(06:40):
you that.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
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.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yeah, I mean, trust is a process, and usually we
learn about the love languages.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
Right. And I'm in.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
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?
Speaker 4 (07:11):
I think doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
But love languages, I think they are, like they're very.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
And even gen Z talks about love languages and all that.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
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?
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Do they mirror the love languages?
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Like?
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Can you tell us a little bit about them without
giving everything away in the book, because y'all got to.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
Go get it.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yes, please get it.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Tell me about the seven trust languages.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
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.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
They're backstabbers all the things.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
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
(08:27):
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
(08:49):
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?
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Right? But I let sound like a couple therapy. If
I know that, then I could know my coffee order.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
But and wait, no, wrong topic.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
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.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
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.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Sensitivity.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
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?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
I think about, you.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
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.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Trust or enhance trust.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
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.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
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.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
So you got three there.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
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.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Another language is feedback. Right.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Oftentimes you might not trust somebody, but what is it
that you really need?
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Is it touch? Need more feedback? Right?
Speaker 1 (11:01):
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,
(11:24):
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
(11:44):
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
(12:07):
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.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
I'm digesting everything you said, and I'm wondering, could we
add an eighth love language, and could it be money?
Speaker 4 (12:27):
Could it be like aay me nice?
Speaker 2 (12:29):
That's that acknowledgement, right, That's.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
That's the acknowledgment. Okay.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
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.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Well listen, money is a love is my love language,
my trust language, all the all the languages.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Money talks. You know.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
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.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
To work from.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
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.
(13:27):
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.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah, I mean, that's a great question.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
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
(14:01):
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.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Feedback looks like, right, And then we get.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
To provide examples of after I finish a sprint, it
would be great to know did.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
I hit expectations? Did I meet them?
Speaker 1 (14:25):
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,
(14:47):
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.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
I want to provide that for you.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
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
(15:25):
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.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Feel like it's framing. I don't know if you.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
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.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
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
(16:18):
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?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Twenty fifteen? Oh my god, you know since I was
five years old.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
Yes, you were a child prodigy. That's right, because you're fifteen.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
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,
(16:57):
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?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
You know? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:17):
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.
(17:39):
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.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
Like I'm paying you, So what are we even hearing
to do? Like, just do your job, don't have to
say it.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
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.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
And it will and.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
People will say, well, why do I need to do
all that? Right?
Speaker 1 (18:21):
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.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Right.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Fifty percent of people leave their workplaces because of their manager.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
So think about that.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
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.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
And so trust is a two way street, right.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
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.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Right.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
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.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Now, you don't always have to.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Use that particular language till they understand what you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
But if you can get under the hood.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
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.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
For how our careers move forward.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
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,
(20:09):
then we can solve for some of the other issues
that I think people weren't ready to solve for.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
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
(20:37):
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.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
I need to get out of here.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
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
(21:15):
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
(21:36):
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.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
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.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
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?
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Right?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
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.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Perhaps they can now provide that to us.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
And I don't think anybody shows up in the workplace
to say, how can I row trust with so and so?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Today?
Speaker 1 (22:23):
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
(22:44):
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.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Or on zoom right. So that is my gift to
the world.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
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.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
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.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Is it important to yea? How do you help readers
understand what their primary language is?
Speaker 2 (23:31):
I do?
Speaker 1 (23:31):
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,
(23:54):
but also not just theirs.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
But the people that they work with. Right.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
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,
(24:21):
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
(24:41):
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
(25:02):
trust isn't the issue. You just need a little bit
more of something, and somebody in the workplace needs to
know you need.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
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
(25:29):
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
(25:54):
manager or the senior leadership team would be to providing
the kind of communication style that works for me.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Yeah, you hit it on the head.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
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
(26:27):
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.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Needed that for me. She never articulated that to me.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
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
(27:10):
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.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
And I'm like, girl, i've.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
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.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
To the work, and it will be acknowledged.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
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
(27:53):
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.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Least be out the conversation. Yeah, And that does something
for us.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
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.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Now we know, and hopefully we'll have a better outcome.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
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
(28:38):
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.
(29:00):
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
(29:22):
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.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
Out there and get clarity and comfort from that.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Absolutely, I mean, I'll be honest. I spiraled for about
a month and created this narrative of.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
They hate me, I have to leave. Yeah, you know,
they don't appreciate me.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
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.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
And I had to push myself to be able to
go have that kind of easy. It's not easy.
Speaker 4 (29:59):
I'm glad to hear that's you're human. It took you
a month.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
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
(30:22):
trusting themselves again looks like in their voice.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
I want to take a quick break, Menda.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
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.
(30:46):
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,
(31:07):
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.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yeah, well, thank you for asking.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
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.
(31:42):
But my mom would always have Turner Classic movies on,
so I was like always watching these black and white
movies and just.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Enthralled with them.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
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
(32:12):
stay ready, you don't have to get ready, So I
wanted to invest in myself in that way.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
And then the.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
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.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
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
(32:48):
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?
Speaker 2 (32:56):
That's a great question.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
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.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
What are you doing with the memo?
Speaker 1 (33:15):
I would love to adapt it into a film. And
so we met and.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Our people's met, our lawyers, and.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
So we just said, yeah, we want to work together
and we want the story to be told on a
broader her lens.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
And she had Kyla in mind.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
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.
Speaker 4 (33:38):
In this book.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
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.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
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.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
And so that.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Book came out in twenty nineteen, and then it got
optioned in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
And we.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
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.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
I'm like, who I? Who am?
Speaker 3 (34:33):
I thought you were a human, but I thought it
turns out your AI.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
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
(34:57):
ride the wave with your head.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
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.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
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
(35:29):
of like you're when you write a book. For those
who know about the book process, you may not see anything.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
For a little while, but yes, I know that is.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Very important to get the story out. And so the
one thing I loved.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
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.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
And so trust, trust language, trust, and shall demonstrate it.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
She demonstrated it, and.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
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.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
So I'm like, you know what, I'm going to do it.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
And I just a girl. I'm a writer.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
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.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Live my life.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
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.
(37:02):
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.
Speaker 4 (37:15):
Fan fiction.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
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
(37:38):
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.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
And then he made a movie, Happen.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
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
(38:09):
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.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
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
(38:44):
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
(39:07):
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.
Speaker 4 (39:21):
Right, because yeah, that's what my brother says. He loves
the team of it all.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Oh, it takes so many, It takes so many.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
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
(39:48):
the entire ecosystem. And it's taught me so much about
trust and admitting when you.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Don't know something.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
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.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Between Yeah, where can we is it? Are you getting
into festivals now?
Speaker 1 (40:09):
So literally, as we're recording, I got my first notification
that we got accepted to our first festival.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
Yes, I know, now that that's very exciting.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Yes, yes, so it's very exciting.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
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.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
So the memo, then you're in potential talks to have
that turned into like an actual series.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
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.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
You just want to just tell everybody you just never know.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
You have to plant the seed and you never know
how it's going to to harvest.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
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?
Speaker 1 (41:13):
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.
Speaker 4 (41:23):
The best kind of adult.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
A little more money in my pocket, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
Yes, living your best life.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
You got your fur baby, yes, my fur baby Romans.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
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.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
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.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
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.
Speaker 4 (42:01):
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.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
People or give any advice to someone who's potentially thinking
about breaking in to that space and learning more about it?
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Yeah, well, I think empowering yourself. There's a lot more
tools I think available to us now.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
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.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
A black woman, you can make a film.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
So you just find your tribe, just like anything, and
if you build it, they will come.
Speaker 4 (42:50):
I love it all right.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
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,
(43:11):
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.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Need too, and thank you for always seeing me. It
means so much.
Speaker 4 (43:28):
Oh, likewise, thank you Menda.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
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.
Speaker 4 (43:50):
Take care,
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