June 3, 2024 • 54 mins
Dr. Errol Pierre is a corporate executive, leader, mentor, and outspoken advocate for healthcare equity in the US and Haiti. HIs book, The Way Up, helps underrepresented individuals from all ethnic backgrounds achieve their professional goals and elevate their careers in today's workplace.
What you probably don’t know is that grief - in one form or another - plays a part in every one of those roles.
In this episode we cover:
- Why a book about climbing the corporate ladder gets the spotlight on a show about grief
- How little kid Errol’s delayed root canal influenced adult Errol’s entire career
- Building the equitable world from the ground up: Errol’s work in Haiti
- Why making healthcare more accessible will prevent more grief (when it’s avoidable), and reduce suffering (when it’s unavoidable)
- Navigating racism in the corporate world
We're re-releasing some of our favorite episodes from the first 3 seasons. This episode was originally recorded in 2023.
Looking for a creative exploration of grief? Check out the best selling Writing Your Grief course here.
About our guest:
Dr. Errol Pierre is the Senior Vice President of State Programs at a large non-profit health plan in New York. He provides leadership, mentorship, and guidance to professionals of color across various industries, ensuring the advancement of diverse professionals into leadership positions. He’s also fiercely committed to healthcare equity - building a world where systemic equity is built into the foundation of all new ventures.
Follow Dr. Errol Pierre at @ErrolLPierre on most social platforms or visit errolpierre.com
About Megan:
Psychotherapist Megan Devine is one of today’s leading experts on grief, from life-altering losses to the everyday grief that we don’t call grief. Get the best-selling book on grief in over a decade, It’s Ok that You’re Not OK, wherever you get books. Find Megan @refugeingrief
Additional Resources:
Read Errol’s book - The Way Up: Climbing the Corporate Mountain as a Professional of Color
For more on grief in the workplace, read “The Burden of Bereavement: Grief is the latest challenge for employers in the coronavirus era” and “How to Talk to a Grieving Customer”
Want to talk with Megan directly? Join our patreon community for live monthly Q&A grief clinics: your questions, answered. Want to speak to her privately? Apply for a 1:1 grief consultation here.
Check out Megan’s best-selling books - It’s OK That You're Not OK and How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed
Books and resources may contain affiliate links.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I can count endless stories of people who were sick
and for go for went care because they knew the
system was bad. They knew they were going to be
on a waiting line for four hours. They knew they
were going to wait on line just to get a
script to go see another doctor. They knew they were
going to get a billion to mail for four hundred bucks,
(00:21):
and they have no idea how they're going to pay for.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
This.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Is it's okay that you're not okay, and I'm your host,
Megan Devine. This week on the show Business Leader mentor,
author and corporate exec doctor Eryl Pierre joins us to
talk about the hardships inherent in climbing the corporate ladder
for people of color, systemic equity, and why advocacy at
its root is always really grief work, settle in friends.
(00:49):
The conversation that brings all of those seemingly desparate things
together is coming up right after this first break. Before
we get started. Two quick notes. One, this episode is
an encore performance. I am on break working on a
giant new project, so we're releasing a mix of our
(01:12):
favorite episodes from the first three seasons of the show.
Some of these conversations you might have missed in their
original seasons, and some shows just truly deserve multiple listens
so that you capture all of the goodness. Second note,
while we cover a lot of emotional relational territory in
our time here together, this show is not a substitute
(01:32):
for skilled support with a licensement a health provider, or
for professional supervision related to your work. Take what you
learn here, take your thoughts and your reflections out into
your world and talk about it. Hey, friends, So, on
the surface, today's guest might seem like an odd match
(01:53):
for this show. I mean, okay, listen to the description
of his new book in the Way, Climbing the Corporate Mountain.
As a professional, color accomplished executive, Doctor Eryl Prierre delivers
a pragmatic and actionable guide to help underrepresented individuals from
all ethnic backgrounds achieve their professional goals and elevate their
careers in today's modern workplace. And here's his bio. Doctor
(02:18):
Eryl Pierre provides leadership, mentorship and guidance to professionals of
color across various industries, ensuring the advancement of diverse professionals
into leadership positions. Okay, all of that sounds amazing and awesome,
and it is. But I mean, the tagline of Hereafter
is conversations with interesting people about difficult things. So why
(02:41):
exactly is a corporate executive, mentor leadership author a guest
on the show? Well, as you will hear in today's conversation, grief, love, suffering,
and a dream for a better world is at the
root of everything, doctor Errol Pierre does. We kind of
(03:03):
came to that realization together in the course of our conversation,
which is also really cool. So on one hand, yes,
he is an amazing mentor and leader and guide, particularly
for people of color looking to advance their careers. But
he's also an advocate for equity and accessibility in healthcare, which,
when you think about it, is actually a ferocious, deeply
(03:25):
embodied care for the well being of individuals and families
and communities. The work of leadership, whether on a corporate
level or an advocacy isn't like to erase pain, the
pain that is such a large part of being human.
But the real work is to decrease the odds of
that pain showing up on your doorstep and to reduce
(03:46):
suffering when that kind of pain can't be avoided. This
conversation is really special, So I don't want you to
listen to his accolades and think that doesn't sound like me.
There is so much in this conversation for everybody. Now.
When I first started talking to him, I kind of
front loaded, though, let's go over your bio and why
(04:07):
you being here as a topic of discussion before I
even actually kind of properly welcomed him to this show,
sort of a host faux pas. But you know whatever,
I'm jumping in with my own over zealous awkward. Welcome
to the awkward party is also a tagline for the show,
so you know, I'm I'm just breaking it anyway. Here
(04:28):
you go, jumping right in with the over zealous awkward.
My conversation with doctor Eryl Pierre. So in the intro,
I was telling people that you provide leadership, mentorship and
guidance to professionals of color across various industries, ensuring the
advancement of diverse professionals into leadership positions, which is a
(04:49):
lot of business talk that I lifted from your book's
press release. But I want to get behind that. First
of all, Welcome to.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
The show, Eryl, Thank you for having me it's pleasure
to be We.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Were chatting before we got rolling about like the work
of bringing a book out into the world. And I
think that's part of it too, that like, there's this
book about business that you have out in the world,
but it's really more than a book about business. Can
you tell me a little bit about that?
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Sure? Sure, So the culmination of the book The Way
Up was after the murder of George Floyd and during
the pandemic that disproportionately impacted communities of color, black and
brown populations. I was stuck in a nine hundred square
foot apartment in the Bronx with too much time in
my hands and was just retrospective on how I ended
(05:47):
up being where I was at that point in time,
and putting pen to paper, I really wanted to describe
my journey from working in a beauty supply store warehouse
to becoming chief operating officer of a large insurance company
in New York and then still feeling some emptiness. And
so the book is a culmination of, Hey, I got
(06:08):
to where you're supposed to get to. You got to
the top, but I wasn't happy. And I also interviewed
eleven other executives of color as well, which are infused
to the books. Their quotes are through there because unfortunately,
underrepresented people like myself were not believed. So you need
other people to have the same story so that you're validated.
(06:29):
So I also wanted to infuse their input and their
insights and their experiences, and then lastly back it up
with data and statistics so that again it's not just
an anecdotal story. But that's really the culination of it.
And the goal is twofold one. If you are a
person of color, hey, here's a nice little rubric of
(06:49):
tips and tricks that you can learn. That's great. But
then I think the other major important piece is if
anyone reads this book, especially as someone in leadership at corporation,
realize like, wow, I didn't know my employees are going
through this just to tread in place, and that's really
the bigger unset story.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Yeah, there's sort of this like lip service around caring
about employees mental health, and I love that you bring
that up, like you want some real stories about what
your employees are bringing to their lives on the job,
Like can we have that conversation instead of that sort
of you know, pop psychology lip service. We'll give you
a gift basket for all of your hard work, but
(07:30):
not address the real systemic issues inside corporate structure. Now,
you mentor professionals of color who work in the healthcare industry,
and I imagine that there are conversations about really difficult
things inside that work that you do. It's not just
career strategy. So you know, my question was going to be,
can we talk a little bit about the grief spoken
(07:51):
and unspoken for people of color inside the corporate climb?
But I think I want to ask a question before that,
which is, how does grief intersect with this work for you?
Speaker 1 (08:03):
If it does, yeah, it's a great question. It does intersect.
Because I say this a bunch of times throughout the chapters.
The way society is is going to show up inside
the office, and for some strange reason, we have this
belief that when you show up to work, you're like
this different person and you're not bringing the baggage that
(08:24):
you have in and so in society, if I go
to a grocery store and someone follows me around because
they think I'm going to take something, that sort of
chip on my shoulder, that paranoia that feeling is going
to show up in the workplace when I don't get
a promotion or I get passed on for a job,
and delinking the two you do a disservice to your employees.
(08:46):
So grief is absolutely throughout. Some of the chapters talk
about traumatic experiences I've been through and how to harness them. First,
you have to be aware of them and acknowledge them
so that you can like distress and it doesn't create anxiety.
And then once you get to that point, which can
take a while, then harness them as you continue your climb.
(09:10):
So grief runs throughout it not just my grief, also
brief of my parents, because I talk about my parents
that came from Haiti and how their America was different
than my America, but yet their America totally influenced how
I operate in my America.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Yeah, and your parents came to America from Haiti in
the seventies. Yeah, right, as you said, completely different world.
And you write that while your father worked really hard
and was in a union, healthcare was out of reach
for your family, right, Like, that's just one example of
challenges that people face. You talked about it a little bit,
But what role does that experience play in the life
(09:46):
that you've built for yourself and the life that you
hope to help others build for themselves.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
I talk about it in the books. I see it
right now vividly. Had to get a root canal when
I was a kid, and I went to the dentist,
and a dentist told my dad and these are I
was talking, so like you're off to the side. You
don't know, it's sure right, And it's interesting what kids
remember right when they're older. And the dentist and I
told my dad, we can't complete the work until January
(10:11):
first of next year. So even though you started, it
was like September, like he has to come back in January.
I had no idea what this mat and so they
sort of like closed my tooth that was unfinished, and
we laughed, and I remember having this feeling of an
unfinished mouth walking around, not realizing why I had to
wait till January. Later on in life, I learned, oh,
(10:31):
dental plans for union workers who have worked menial jobs
my dad was dishwasher at a nursing home are not comprehensive.
So we had an out of pocket max, which meant
a root canal. The whole cost of a root canal
was more than the benefit I had per year, And
so I end up ironically working in health insurance and
that became my passion. I was like, this is crazy
(10:54):
that in a country that is spends more money than
any country in the world on healthcare doesn't provide adequate, comprehensive,
high quality care to all of its citizens with dignity
and respect. There's so much of a lack of dignity
or respect. When a father has a tether son, I'm
going to bring you back to finish a tooth next year.
(11:16):
So I know he felt that as a hard hit
and I could see it as a kid that he
was kind of like, I'm not doing enough, And that
became my passion. That's why I'm in the health equity
space today of no one, no one, no one should
not get comprehensive care that they deserve that's culturally sensitive
and of high quality. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
I mean there again we go back to sort of
these are headlines and buzzwords, right. The lack of comprehensive
health care has real world impact, like all of these things,
but until you live it, until you really understand the
personal impact of that it's just a headline. It's just
something to be mad about. It's just something to say
(11:54):
we should all move to Canada or you know whatever,
the things that we do that are not in the
muck of the real human toll of that. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
The one thing I'd add too, is we shouldn't wait
until it happens to us for it to be validated.
So I don't need to have someone else experience lack
of health care for me to say, oh, it happened
to my mother, so now I believe in it. And
unfortunately lead it happens a lot in America where it's like, well,
I don't experience it, so it's not real until it
(12:25):
happens to you. Then you're like, well, I'm speaking from
you know, experience, This is a real It shouldn't be
that way. If one human experienced it, then it's valid.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
I mean, I would love that. I would love if
human brains work that way. But it does seem like
there's something important that has to happen to sort of
open those doors in the brain to recognize somebody else
as deserving of support and access and care and all
of those things. There's this great I'm not going to
(12:55):
go on this tangent for too long. But there's this
great book called General Theory of Love written by three psychiatrists.
It's an older book now, but they talk about how
there were experiments done on the limbic part of the
brain in mammals. I promise this is related to what
you were just saying. But what they found, and sorry,
this is an animal study, everybody, not my study. Don't
(13:18):
yell at me. But what they found was that if
they damaged the limbic part of the brain of female hamsters,
that those female hamsters wouldn't recognize their own offspring, they
would basically treat them as furniture, and that if they
stimulated the limbic part of the brain, then everybody was
family and they cared for each other, and they like so,
(13:40):
so of course me. I'm like, So, what we're saying
is that for the people who enact policies that do
actual damage to real, actual people, they have limbic deficits,
and there's some limbic damage in there, and what we
need to do is find some way to help them
reconnect with the part of their brains that sees every
life life as valid and deserving of care, and how
(14:02):
the heck do we do that? I don't know, but
I do know that some of that work is advocacy work.
I told you I could bring this back right a lot.
So some of the ways that we do that that
we help people understand that things need to happen to
make things better for others, even if it's not your
(14:23):
own shared experience. Like that's advocacy work in a nutshell,
And a lot of your public advocacy work is in
health equity. That phrase health equity is something that we
sometimes see in headlines, So can you tell me, first
of all, what that means in a business and policy sense,
and then what it means for you personally. We touched
on that a bit, but I like the two parter here.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yeah. Sure. So health equity the intent is it's different
than equality. Health equality equal would mean everyone gets a
visit to physician. One visit to a physician, that's equal,
But some patient they need six visits, and some patients
may be so healthy they need zero. So health equity
(15:06):
looks from an economic lens, how to take limited resources
and make sure that they're used in the most equitable
efficient way based on the needs of the people. And
so the example you know you can use is like
one patient may need a wheelchair, doesn't mean everyone needs
a wheelchair for it to be equal. But from an
equabal perspective, say, give this person a wheelchair, this other
(15:28):
person may need something else. And so we spend two
point five times more than any other country in a nation.
We don't need more money, we need better bureaucratic systems
to make sure that the money flows to the right places.
And so what health equity fights for is today there
is somewhere in New York City a mom who's a
(15:48):
single mom with a child who we'll go to the
doctor because by taking off work means they won't make money,
and so they stay at work and their sickness gets
worse and they end up in the emergency room at
the worst point. And then on the same vein there's
another mom who can take off work because they're salaried,
(16:09):
and they decide to bring their child to off the
doctor's office twenty times for stiffools, earaches, anything, And that
person who's going twenty times can probably go four times.
And then the mom who never went once should probably
go twice at least for preventive care. Visit in the
follow up, and what health equity tries to do is
shake that. It turns into sometimes controversial because it's like
(16:33):
you're taking something from someone you're ration in care. Ironically,
every developed nation on the planet besides US, does healthcare
that way. United Kingdom, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden. That's how
they do care. They say, the people who need it
get it. The people who don't need it, they will
be a little bit longer. That's just how it works
when you have limited resources. So that's really helped equity.
(16:54):
You layer onto it as well. Cultural competency re happen
to be some of the most diverse cities in the
world in America, and so you're thinking through English is
not the first language. What happens when someone's telling you,
you know, discharge information on how to leave a hospital.
So if someone's saying to you you need to have
a meal with these medications that you take twice a day,
(17:17):
and it's not in their native language, so they understand
those instructions and will they abide by it. The example
what I always used too is someone with pneumonia shows
up to the emergency room. You stabilize them, you give
them medication, you send them home, they end up going
back to a Nisia house building public housing that doesn't
have heat. We didn't solve the issue. So howth acouady
also thinks about the other determinants of health that's outside
(17:39):
of just getting access to care, but other things that
also lead to health outcomes.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Yeah, it's really looking at the whole complex picture of
things and understanding that we don't operate in a vacuum.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
And I think that industry and corporate levels often think
just in one channel, right, Yeah, just one channel and
not in systems. And it's like, you know, I'm listening
to you say the you know, the economic benefit of
equitable care, Like we have to actually make it fit
into the language that industry speaks, which is economics. Right,
(18:11):
it's ROI And that actually caring for people in the
ways that they need to be cared for is to
your economic benefit. Is that a hard sell?
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Now?
Speaker 3 (18:21):
I'm just now I'm just indulging my curiosity. But is
that a hard sell inside the healthcare industry for you?
Speaker 1 (18:26):
I don't think it's a hard sell. I think the
work needed to get done to make it happen is
the heart cell. So the example we can show is
other developed nations like Norway, Sweden, they do lots of
social programs for their citizens, stick paid leave, childcare, free
health care, and what they find is their healthcare costs
(18:48):
are reduced because they're investing in things that keep people healthy. Right,
people believe that in concept. Now in America, when you say, okay,
we agree with the concept, let's make it happen, somebody
has to change. And that's what the robber is. No
one wants to change. Like, I agree, ery health equity,
let's do it. But can you leave me alone and
start with them?
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Right? I mean, I think this is probably you know,
the response to a lot of behavioral and worldview changes, right,
Like yeah, yeah, yeah, that sounds great.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
I'm on board as long as I don't have to
do anything different, as long as I don't have to
feel any discomfort, as long as nothing in my world
needs to change. And of course there's a direct bridge
here to addressing systemic racism in the medical industry. Oh yeah, right, Like,
oh yeah, I'm totally on board with you. I get this.
That's a terrible outcome. But I like, I've got managed care,
(19:42):
and I've got this, and I've got that, Like, so
we think about the healthcare industry, insurance especially as this
like anti human monolith from a consumer, that is definitely
how I feel about it. But I was listening to
an interview with you the other day as I was
preparing for time here together, and you were talking about
(20:04):
systemic racism and what we call poor medical outcomes for
people of color, and you used a term of systemic equity. Yes,
as a counterpoint to systemic racism. Can we talk about
that for a minute, And then I do want to
get into like the reality of health outcomes for communities
of color. So systemic equity, what does that mean?
Speaker 1 (20:29):
So I'll say that we're trying to fix the issues.
And so when you think from a perspective of solving things,
you hear the term that people use is systemic racism
and systemic inequality because it's embedded into systems that we have.
I like to say, let's start from scratch, Let's have
a clean piece of paper, what would be the world
(20:50):
we would imagine? So you start with systemic equity, and
from that perspective, you're like, here's all the dollars, now,
let's rationally think about how to get it fed. To
the right places. Systemic equity would then say, okay, the
best most efficient way to deliver care is to preventive
care visits. Awesome. Here are a group of people who
(21:13):
are unable to show up to the doctor because transportation
is an issue, because they're a senior who lives on
a shift floor walk up that doesn't have an elevator,
because they are salaried, and anytime that they take off work,
they're not putting money in their pocket. They can't find
a doctor and speaks their language. The vaccination websites were
(21:34):
only in English, so if they speak Urdu Chinese asient creole,
they won't even know how to book an employment. So
we would make sure there was more funds for those
to get their preventive care visits, and then folks that
can navigate the healthcare arena would eventually get their care
as well because they have health literacy, they have the capabilities,
(21:55):
they have transportation and things of that nature. And so
instead of speaking of a deficit like oh my gosh,
this systemic inequity and so bad, like, well, how would
we create the perfect model where we start with systemic equity.
It's embedded in the system. An example is when they
created those vaccination websites for everyone to get vaccinated. Obviously,
(22:18):
the people who were around the table were thinking through
the lens of themselves. They like, I use a desktop
and it's English, not realizing that the people who had
the highest hensitency don't use desktop as their formal way
to get into that access. They use a mobile phone
and English is not their first language. So systemic Equity
would have built a mobile app in Spanish and Chinese first.
(22:41):
So that's the type of thing that I like to
solve puzzles with. From that perspective, it's like, let's look
at it from a Systemic Equity lens, start with the
way you want to create it, as opposed to trying
to move the deck chairs on something that's broken.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
That is brilliant, It really is, because it's like I think,
when you start talking about system racism systemic inequity, people
get their hackles up just as what you describe like
that sounds great, but don't make me change anything. But
I think if you present things as let's start from
scratch and what dream can we build yep, I think
(23:15):
that maybe that engages people's limbic systems. I don't know,
but there's something really welcoming about this idea of collaborating
on the world we most want. I remember a teacher
of mine used to say years ago, like everybody can
agree that we want clean water. Where we argue is
about who gets to have it, right, So I hear
(23:39):
what you're saying there is like we can all agree
that we want to be cared for, and we want
to care for other people. We want to like indulge
the wrong word here, but like indulge our better natures
because at some core level, I think also, what I
really love about that approach is it sort of has
an unspoken baseline of people are good and want to
(24:01):
do good right right, which I think can easily get
lost in the choices that people and industries and countries.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
And you mentioned this, the phrase systemic racism can denote
that it's impossible to solve. They say, oh, it's systemic,
so now you're absolving human beings from their individual behaviors. Well,
it's not me, it's systemic. And then too, it's systemic,
so you're like, well, how am I going to change healthcare?
(24:29):
That's too big, it's too and so I think it's
defeating too from people of like I don't even know
where to start. This is too big, and I now
absolve of any responsibility because it's the system. So I
also think the phrase also leads to some of that cynicism.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
I love that it really is a welcoming in thing.
Like you know, at the time that we're recording La
County and while all of California has been getting pelted
with a lot of rain, and there's a lot of
pissy tweets out there saying, good job, Elly, you didn't
keep the water right when like, Okay, you clearly have
no idea how water reclamation works on a big systemic level.
But like, these are really big, complex issues and it's
(25:09):
not just up to the big complex forces to solve.
There are things that we can do as individuals to
help make things different. It's not just passing things downstream
to somebody else whose job it is. Right. Yeah, and
we go back to sort of advocacy and finding places
that are important to you to take action, right, I
(25:31):
want to talk a little bit about your work in Haiti,
if we could do that from an it Hey, before
we get back to this week's guest, I want to
talk with you about exploring your losses through writing. There
are lots of grief writing workshops out there with prompts
(25:52):
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(26:12):
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(26:34):
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show notes. I want to talk a little bit about
your work in Haiti if we could do that from
an it so. You're on the board of Meta Nova,
which is a nonprofit that provides free medical character residents
of North Eastern Haiti and as I was reading about
(26:55):
that work, and we talked a second ago about like
the lenses that we look through. I see every thing
as a grief issue. Everything is a grief issue in
my opinion. But reading about that work, I was like,
this is this is a grief issue, right, Advocacy and
policy are a grief issue. But I want to hear
that from you, is do you think that's accurate? Is
my assessment that, like policy is a grief issue?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
I think so. I've never thought of it through that lens,
But as you say it, I'm like, yeah, that makes sense.
So Haiti and I said this earlier. I mean what
they've gone through is just traumatic as a whole foreign nation.
God is independence in eighteen oh four from the biggest
empires at the time, the Poleon Bonaparte, and ever since
(27:38):
then they've been sort of punished because back then, to
see a country get as freedom as former slaves would
have been, you know, lead to other countries to do
the same. So a lot of countries didn't even recognize
their independence, didn't trade with them, and they sort of
got stuck in a rut. France ended up charging them debt,
(27:58):
so they basically bought their own boy, which is just
insane that that happened. One of the few countries I
actually had to pay for their freedom. And so that
all you fast forward to a country that is consistently
just getting bombarded by whether natural disasters, hurricanes, earthquakes, or
just cous after cous, Like right now, they don't have
a stable government as it is. Their former president was
(28:19):
assassinated and they still have a new president, and so
I'm thinking through that lens of like what can I do.
I'm an American, my parents grew up in Haiti, but
I feel like I can do something because I'm so
thankful for where I am in my career, and that's
where I stumbled upon medi Nova. There was the major earthquake,
seven point something earthquake in twenty ten, and that was
(28:43):
sort of the impetus for me to know that I
had to go back to the country of my father,
and so I was like, I need to do something.
I can't just sit here and donate to American Red Cross,
like I felt the need that I had to be there,
and so twenty ten was my first visit to Haiti
on a mission trip, and we just like at that
point in time. It was literally like all hands on
deck providing food. We were at a tent based hospital,
(29:07):
providing like immediate care. And the ironic thing is things
that we take for granted, that we buy over the
counter at CBS and Walgreens, these were medications we were
giving to people in Haiti because they don't have it.
So you know, someone's suffering from diarrhea, like simple things,
and so I didn't think we would be giving out
peptibis ball as a need, but that's what people needed
(29:28):
at the time because the water was so dirty after
an earthquake, and so it was just something I knew
that I wanted to give back and I felt the
purpose too. Medi Nova does these trips every year, so
I've been back to Haiti every year since twenty ten,
with the exception of twenty twenty because of COVID, but
I've gone every year. It was besides that, and we've
since raised enough money to have a full time clinic.
(29:51):
So one of the things with nonprofits are, you know,
you do these humanitarian trips and you just show up,
you give out care, and you leave, and people always say, well,
how is that continuous? What do you do? You're just
a drop in the bucket, and so we really wanted
to have a stable, long term healthcare access point for
the people of Haiti. And so we've since built the
clinic in the city of Kara Call that's now open
(30:15):
twenty four hours, seven days a week. It's staff by Haitians,
it's run by Haitians, it's service Hatians. And so we've
done race for keeping that clinic open. And I sit
on the board just always thinking about advocacy on how
to keep those patients that are working there safe, and
then when it's safe again, bringing Americans to Haiti so
they can see it for themselves.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
So as you're describing that, I'm wondering. We talked a
few minutes ago about building the world that we want
from the ground up. Do you feel like that's part
of what's happening with Medan Nova and the work in Haiti.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
It's tough, the things impacting Haiti are so big and
multi layered. However, if the least I can do is,
and this gets back to health equity, provide culturally competent care,
so these are Asian doctors and nurses gettle care to Haitians.
What tends to happen is a lot of NGOs show
up and they're providing great care to doing what they
(31:09):
need to do, but it's not in language, it's not
culturally relevant. So I love the fact that this clinic
is run by Haitians and staff by Haitians, So we're
doing apart from that perspective. And then we're helping the
economy because we hire from the community where the clinic is.
I would love to think it can expand the hardest
part about it is trying to think through how to
(31:30):
make it sustainable on its own so it doesn't need donations.
I will continue to obviously raise funds, but we have
to think the next step of how this become sustainable.
Over time, I think we'll get to the point of
creating the new future when within Haiti there could be
systems that are sustainable on their own that can help
their own people.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
Yeah, there's a point here that I want to pull
out that as we start to build into that dream
of systemic equity and place care where it needs to
be placed. It doesn't mean that things don't suck. It
doesn't mean that there isn't still suffering and complex issues
and being in the path of natural disasters like that.
(32:13):
The best organized healthcare system is not going to stop hurricanes.
And bringing this back to the States, It's like health
care systemic equity is not going to stop people from
getting sick. It's not going to stop people from dying.
If that's not our goal, what's our goal.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
So it doesn't stop people from getting sick, but what
it will start is that person who is sick to say,
I'm actually going to make effort to get the care
I need because the barriers have been removed. I can
count endless stories of people who were sick and for
(32:56):
go for went care because they knew the system was bad.
They knew they were going to be on a waiting
line for four hours. They knew they were going to
wait on line just to get a script to go
see another doctor. They knew they were going to get
a bill in the mail for four hundred bucks and
they have no idea how they're going to pay for it.
And so if you think about a model war, yes,
(33:16):
we can't prevent people from getting sick, but can we
make a model that when you are sick, at least
you know you're going to get the care you need
and you're going to feel respect and so that you
actually go and get the care you need. The vast
majority of our pain that we feel on the system
is because of people avoiding care, one because of cost,
two because of fear, and then then three just because
(33:38):
they don't feel the systems built for them. I'll to
share one stat so Martunity. Mortality in America is as
bad as third world countries are stats. So, if you
take one hundred thousand women and they're pregnant, on average,
fifteen of them will die giving birth. And if you
(33:58):
look at other countries like Japan or Norway, it's like
seven and six and five, and you're in some European countries,
so it's low. We're fifteen. Now when you look at
African American women, it jumps up to forty, and then
specifically Haitian women in Brooklyn where I live, it's like
sixty eight.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
And so in America we have the average of fifteen,
but different people have much higher numbers. And the question is, well,
why is that? And when you look at the data,
when a black woman gives birth and goes into the hospital,
one their level of pain is not believed that this
happened to Serena Williams. So it doesn't matter if you're
lowing toumb or you're a billionaire. Their level of pain
(34:41):
is not believed. So they say, you know, on a
scalf of one to ten, how's your pain? Black woman
says eight, and they're like, oh, you're exaggerating because I
think you're strong. Maybe you're a big woman, your skin
looks tough. You guys just know how to get through things.
So they're not believed from that perspective. And then two,
(35:01):
for some strange reason, and this is from bias, typical
regimens that's supposed to be provided aren't provided to patience
of color because they're like, well they don't need that.
Oh I don't I'm not going to give it. I'm
not going to do that. And so you actually see
patient pattern changes that happen specifically to a woman of
color giving birth Black women, and so we know the
reasons why it's sixty eight patient mothers are going to
(35:25):
die when they give birth out of one hundred thousand
versus fifteen. And then it's like, are we going to
have the intestin afforded to to call it out and
say we can fix it. We know we can fix it.
We're going to believe them when they say what pain
level they're at, and we're going to give the same
level of care. So this mother that we would any
other mother that walks in, and we're not going to
let the color of their skin have like implicit bias
(35:46):
and have us do something different. There's a good book
called a Tlobo one day called Checklist Manifesto, and essentially
it's like, make a checklist that way, there's no bias.
Have everyone who comes in that presents this way, they
get this, and you remove the bias of this like
subjectivity of the doctor saying, ah, they don't need that,
I'm going to be we'll do this, which then leads
to death.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
You know.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
With with that type of process, without having a checklist manifesto, all.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Of this awareness and advocacy and addressing systemic patterns, all
of these things, the work you do is grief work,
right because again, I'm going to go back to headlines, right,
Like we see the articles and the news stories and
the clips of maternal death rates for black women, and
(36:31):
it's a headline, right, and it might be something that
we say like that sucks, like that's not right, and
then we go back to you know, if that hasn't
been in our personal sphere, we go back to you know,
everything is a dumpster fire. If that has been in
our personal sphere, we say, yeah, I lived that, and
it's it's this big thing that we can't we can't
seem to get people to pay attention to. But these
(36:52):
are like, these are actual, real people and families and
communities that are living the effects of these practices. And
so you know, you don't have to claim that you
do grief work. But from where I sit, like all
of this advocacy work on so many levels, is to
reduce pain where there is pain, avoid pain where pain
(37:15):
can be avoided, and where we can't avoid pain, we
care for the suffering of the individuals, the families, and
the communities to surround that suffering with support. And that's
grief work.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
I want to go back to the focus of your
book if I can. It kind of feels like a
sharp detour from what we've been talking about. But again
for me, like I don't see the territory that we've
just been exploring and your book as too separate things
because we can't divorce. I think you started out by
(37:51):
saying this, like, you can't take the social and communal
lived experience and separate it from your experienvperience in the
job force, in the work world, like there is no
what is that? What's that show that I haven't watched?
Where like there's an enforced separation between work and your world.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
I'm actually talking about I think like office space or something.
Speaker 4 (38:13):
Severance, right, Like, I sorry, everybody, I am under an
entertainment rock and I haven't seen it, but I do
know what it is enough to reference it here, But
like that doesn't.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Exist, right, And so a lot of what you do
in your book is naming those on the job and
off the job issues and helping people navigate them. One
of my favorite things about your approach is, like, you know,
you think about a business a business coach. You're not
a business coach, but you think about like business coaching,
and they're like, you can do anything, nothing is impossible.
(38:46):
And what I love about you as a human and
you as a leader is you don't say that stuff
because the reality is is that some things are impossible
and you can't do everything that you dream And if
we could start having those conversations, that could really change things.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Yeah, yeah, I call out specifically the example of not
becoming the race police in your corporation. So, yes, diversity, equity,
and inclusion is important. Yes, you should call out bias
that you feel in the workplace, and you should do
it in the right way, and there's tips that I
talk about how to do it and giving people grace
(39:28):
through the process. But you cannot be the police for
the company on what's racist and what's not as a
person of color navigating through what's biased and what's not,
what's discriminatory, what's not, because it will take you so
far away from your day job. It'll be let go,
not because of bringing up these issues, but because it's
(39:48):
impossible to perform the way you need to perform while
trying to police human behavior. And so I always say, like,
like we talked about earlier, society comes into the workplace,
it's not two different worlds. So you know, you're literally
trying to say, oh, I'm going to throw every starfish
back into the ocean. It's impossible. So do what you
need to do to navigate for your career, help out
(40:11):
your peers. But by no means are you going to
change the world. Because trying to say like my company
is going to be perfect, Like society is not perfect.
Until society is perfect, your company won't be perfect. So
don't try to have that goal. Your goal is make
sure that you have the right mental health, make sure
that you're taking advantage of all the opportunities you can,
(40:32):
make sure you don't get walked over and taken advantage of.
You speak up when you see things, and you navigate
on behalf of you and your peers. But that's to
the point of you know, I'm not going to be
someone that's like raw, you can change the world. Everyone's
going to be perfect panacea. It's like it's not worth it,
and it's not possible either.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
It's not possible. And I love how you know, when
we very first started our conversation, you said that a
lot of your work is about acknowledgedging the challenges for
people of color in that corporate leadership climb. And for me, like,
the acknowledgment is such powerful medicine, right, having spaces where
you can tell the truth about that, And I think
that's some of the beauty of your business leader work
(41:14):
is you're naming what's true, yeah, right, and not from
this and we will fix it. All place, and also
not from a collapsed we're all screwed, but from like
this real position of awareness and support and encouragement in
(41:35):
the things that are within your sphere of control, so
that you can meet the level of success that you
most dream of for yourself while acknowledging the real difficulties
on the road to get there.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
I think the goal of the book was one and
the feedback I've gone from people that started reading it is, Wow,
your story is so much like mine. So that's great.
So now you're not alone, because I think there's a
lot of people of color passing through the workplace thinking
there by themselves and their alone, not realizing that other
people are going through it. Two saying it out loud,
(42:06):
so you can point to black and white and saying,
oh okay, Like now I know what imposter syndrome is. Now,
I know what code switching is. Now, I know the
impacts of performative allied ship. I know what to call
it when I see it. I didn't know there was
a book hadilary word for that. Bad bosses, You know,
sometimes bosses are bad, not because they're racist, just because
(42:26):
Darren asshol So you know, think about the boss you're
going to work for before you get the job. I
think people worry about D and I after they get
the job, then they walk in and say, oh, what
programs do you have? You should be asking those things
during the interview, and I call it out specifically in
the book, like, Hey, can you share with me on
your team? What was the last It was the diversity
(42:48):
metrics of the last round of promotions that you did.
You know, that's a reasonable question to ask. I'm just
curious because as a person of color that's going to
be in a room where I'm the only one I
want to know, like, do you have experience and history
of having emotions in the past. Well, we have to
get better at asking those questions up front, and if
someone's uncomfortable about that, it tells you whether you should
(43:08):
work there or not.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
Yeah, that is clear information. If you ask that question
and they're like deer in the headlights, like that is
information that's important, you know, And I love I love this.
I mean the as you're describing that, of course, my
brain is also thinking making the parallels between what you
just described and the work of building equitable systems from scratch.
(43:31):
It's like you can't stop the crap of the system,
like you can't take on that giant ye. However, there
is so much that you can do to reduce your
own suffering and to name the pain that's in the room.
And I think, you know, this is a badwagon that
I'm on a lot that, Like, you know, when we're
(43:51):
talking about grief. When I'm talking about grief, I'm not
just talking about grief related to death or talking about
the pain and suffering of being alive and all of
the friction points where that shows up. And the approach,
you know, the approach that I believe in for grief
is not just It doesn't just belong to death and illness.
It belongs to every part of human life. And again,
(44:15):
I want to pull that out or pull that back
that that's so much of what I understand as the
as the core of the work that you do in
the world, across all of the sectors, is where can
we name the pain that's immovable and create systems of
support around that pain so that are suffering is reduced well.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
One hundred percent. I can share an example. I talk
about this specifically in the book. So people I'd mentored
before that are frustrated with their careers that they feel stuck.
I'm just stuck, right, And so I have this chapter
on being an entry level job and just feeling stuck
and describing to an employee. Think about it this way.
One job entry is going to get three thousand resumes.
(44:56):
There is already biased in the machine that's going to
shrink that three thousand resumes down to the ten that
the recruiters actually got to look at. So there's probably
a long shot that you'll be selected because what they're
using is people who've already been promoted and are already
at the company, and they're using those words to put
into the algorithm to get new people. So most likely
(45:19):
you're going to get squeezed out. Then you have ten
resumes left over, and then human intervention happens. Probably the
resumes are not diverse, right, the ten resumes that they're selecting,
and then the panel of the people that are going
to do the interviews are not diverse. So you're like,
I'm not editing at a job, but just take a
step back and realize like all of the barriers along
(45:41):
the way that you went through to get there, And
I was like, it is what's actually happening? Someone has
a mentor. That mentor says, I have a job that's
getting posted in June, and it's only in January. They
know about it ahead of time. Then they get an
email the job's posting like tomorrow. Okay, great, they already
sent their resume. They tell the recruiter Molly's applying for
(46:01):
the job. Make sure that you find her where you know,
she's the one that I want to interview. Other people
come through, we do the interview, everyone already knows Molly's
a chosen person, and then voila, Molly got the job.
So you're submitting resumes just really nilly to all these
websites going through that path. What I would advise is
you have to build relationships. You need to find the
(46:22):
mentor to find the relationships with people internally that are
going to tell you about the rule before it's posted,
and go from that perspective. And then if you're in
a position of power, what I now have the control
to do as as a leader in my company is
when I look at the ten resumes, I'm like, I
will not start the process until the ten resumes represent
the community we serve. I needed diverse later candidates, and
(46:44):
then the people are going to do to interview I
need a diverse slate of interviewees. I won't even accept
the people until I have a diverse slate. And so
I can do that for my perch from power. But
then the person who's applying can also do their part
and saying I got to navigate this system differently, because
just posting a resume is not going to happen. And
so to your point, yes, you can be you can
(47:05):
have grief of the process, or you could just say
this is the way it is and then what can
I do about it?
Speaker 3 (47:10):
Yeah, there's there's the truth telling in there. And you know,
everything everything comes down to relationship building, doesn't it. Everything
always comes down to relationship building, for good or for
not good. That is that is what it is all about.
And I think that the way that we build the
worlds that we want across all sectors is relationship building
by telling the truth right and finding which part of
(47:32):
the suffering we can reduce. And now I wonder and
as I say that out loud, I'm like, oh wait,
but Errol's talking about don't start from a deficit. Start
by talking about the world that you want to live in,
so that you can inhabit it. So I'm going to
have to think about how I talk about the reduction
of suffering in my dream vision of the world. But
that is that is some self work for another day.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
The growth of the growth of joy, the.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
Growth of joy. But I think I think that gets
really really tricky, at least from in the work that
I do, because we so often rush joy without naming
the pain. Yeah, and so that means that we leap
prog over it. It's that same sort of thing that
if a person of color is saying, like the cards
are stacked against me and like there's this in this
We're like, but focus on the joy, right, So there,
for me, there's a lot of beauty in naming the
(48:17):
pain and allowing it to exist and then finding ways
to reduce the suffering around that. And to me that
actually feels really hopeful. But this show is not about
my hope. It is about your hope, which is a
really lovely segue for me. So much of the work
that you do is with these really big dinosaur systems,
and change takes a really long time. You're quoted in
(48:39):
an article for Essence magazine about the tech industry's slowness
to diversify its workplace and like empty promises, and there's
a lot of that in the book. So thinking about
the long view of things, or maybe the wide view
of things, because I'm trying to I'm trying to like
put my linguistic arms around all of you, not just
the exact knowing what you know and living what you've lived.
(49:04):
What does hope look like for you now?
Speaker 1 (49:07):
Yeah, hope to me is giving a dose of energy
and optimism and I guess passion to people who were
just about to give up. I talked about in the
book Guarding against Cynicism and every once in a while
you just need another dose of energy to keep moving.
(49:29):
For me, I want to go to bed every night saying,
at bare minimum, my passion and my purpose on life
has moved forward at least one inch, at least one
inch before I go to bed. And so today I'm
doing more than one inch talking with you. But I
want to make sure at least one inch my passion
and my purpose moves forward. And if I can inspire
(49:52):
a new set of leaders that are going to be like,
I'm going to push for this and push for an
extra inch. And that's personal it's just about to give up,
to say I've been find this for so long, I'm
about to give up. What's the point. Hopefully they're now
reinvigorated to say I'll push on for two more months,
you know. And that's really the hope that I have set.
If we all can collectively boost each other, inspire each other,
(50:14):
we keep pushing for the work because I do think
at the end the plate, we will get better.
Speaker 3 (50:18):
You know.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
It's like two steps forward, one steps back, but we
will get to a better place.
Speaker 3 (50:24):
I love that, and you're doing such big work to
build that world into being. Yeah, okay, this sounds like
a really good place to wrap us up. We're going
to link to your website and to your new book
in the show notes. Anything else you want people to
know about you or the book, or places they should
look for more information about the little sparks that you
(50:45):
set off in their minds.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
Sure. So, yeah, The Way Up is out now. It's
available anywhere books are sold Amazon, Target, Barnes and.
Speaker 3 (50:53):
Old independent book stores, independent bxtource stores.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
Absolutely very important block and please find on social media
let's speak, let's talk. I'd love to engage and talk
about anything about you. Know, advancing just an inch e
r R O L L p I E R R
E pretty much all social media Errol lper on Instagram,
LinkedIn Facebook, anywhere you can find me excellent.
Speaker 3 (51:19):
And obviously we will put all of those into the
show notes for you, everybody, so that you do not
have to furiously write them down and figure out how
to spell everything. It'll all be in your show notes.
All right, Eryl, thank you my friend for being here. Everybody.
We will be right back with your questions to carry
with you right after this. Each week I leave you
(51:46):
with some questions to carry with you until we meet again.
Now you know what really struck me in this conversation
with doctor Eryl Pierre. Well, okay, first, surprising nobody, I
definitely look at everything through a grief lens, and I
know that, but it's also really like, wow, that came
up again. And not only do I look at my
own life in the world around me through a grief lens,
(52:08):
but I look at everybody else's lives through a grief
lens for them. Okay, Second thing that I'm taking from
this conversation, I felt truly optimistic after the time I
spent with doctor Pierre, me being optimistic is a stretch
a lot of days, So feeling optimistic is really cool.
(52:30):
And I love that. I love his vision of systemic equity.
I love the phrasing of that, this idea that we
can build the world we want to inhabit from the
ground up every time we have an opportunity to do so.
That all just feels so much more achievable than trying
to fix a system that is deeply, deeply broken. So
(52:54):
what parts of the conversation stuck with you today? What
made you think or cry or feel even just the
tiniest bit more seen in the life that you are living.
Everybody's going to take something different from today's show, But
I do hope you found something to hold onto. Hope
really is a crowdsourced thing. And as we've learned, grief
(53:16):
is a really big motivator behind a lot of important work,
whether we name it that or not. Grief, hope, the
world we most want to inhabit, it's all the same work.
Want more of this cool Grief is really the foundation
of all things. Conversation Grief education doesn't just belong to
(53:38):
end of life issues. As my dad says, daily life
is full of everyday grief that we don't call grief.
Learning how to talk about all that without cliches or
platitudes or simplistic dismissive statements is an important skill for everyone.
Find trainings, professional resources, and my best selling book, It's
Okay that You're Not Okay, plus the Guided Journal for
Grief at Megandivine. Co Hereafter with Megan Divine is written
(54:04):
and produced by me Megan Divine. Executive producer is Amy Brown,
co produced by Elizabeth Fazio, with logistical and social media
support from Micah, edited by Houston Tilley, and music provided
by Wave Crush and background noise provided not only by
the helicopters in the distance, but by Luna asking very quietly,
(54:26):
very politely, but very repeatedly, for a little doggie care
and attention
I can count endless stories of people who were sick
and for go for went care because they knew the
system was bad. They knew they were going to be
on a waiting line for four hours. They knew they
were going to wait on line just to get a
script to go see another doctor. They knew they were
going to get a billion to mail for four hundred bucks,
(00:21):
and they have no idea how they're going to pay for.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
This.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Is it's okay that you're not okay, and I'm your host,
Megan Devine. This week on the show Business Leader mentor,
author and corporate exec doctor Eryl Pierre joins us to
talk about the hardships inherent in climbing the corporate ladder
for people of color, systemic equity, and why advocacy at
its root is always really grief work, settle in friends.
(00:49):
The conversation that brings all of those seemingly desparate things
together is coming up right after this first break. Before
we get started. Two quick notes. One, this episode is
an encore performance. I am on break working on a
giant new project, so we're releasing a mix of our
(01:12):
favorite episodes from the first three seasons of the show.
Some of these conversations you might have missed in their
original seasons, and some shows just truly deserve multiple listens
so that you capture all of the goodness. Second note,
while we cover a lot of emotional relational territory in
our time here together, this show is not a substitute
(01:32):
for skilled support with a licensement a health provider, or
for professional supervision related to your work. Take what you
learn here, take your thoughts and your reflections out into
your world and talk about it. Hey, friends, So, on
the surface, today's guest might seem like an odd match
(01:53):
for this show. I mean, okay, listen to the description
of his new book in the Way, Climbing the Corporate Mountain.
As a professional, color accomplished executive, Doctor Eryl Prierre delivers
a pragmatic and actionable guide to help underrepresented individuals from
all ethnic backgrounds achieve their professional goals and elevate their
careers in today's modern workplace. And here's his bio. Doctor
(02:18):
Eryl Pierre provides leadership, mentorship and guidance to professionals of
color across various industries, ensuring the advancement of diverse professionals
into leadership positions. Okay, all of that sounds amazing and awesome,
and it is. But I mean, the tagline of Hereafter
is conversations with interesting people about difficult things. So why
(02:41):
exactly is a corporate executive, mentor leadership author a guest
on the show? Well, as you will hear in today's conversation, grief, love, suffering,
and a dream for a better world is at the
root of everything, doctor Errol Pierre does. We kind of
(03:03):
came to that realization together in the course of our conversation,
which is also really cool. So on one hand, yes,
he is an amazing mentor and leader and guide, particularly
for people of color looking to advance their careers. But
he's also an advocate for equity and accessibility in healthcare, which,
when you think about it, is actually a ferocious, deeply
(03:25):
embodied care for the well being of individuals and families
and communities. The work of leadership, whether on a corporate
level or an advocacy isn't like to erase pain, the
pain that is such a large part of being human.
But the real work is to decrease the odds of
that pain showing up on your doorstep and to reduce
(03:46):
suffering when that kind of pain can't be avoided. This
conversation is really special, So I don't want you to
listen to his accolades and think that doesn't sound like me.
There is so much in this conversation for everybody. Now.
When I first started talking to him, I kind of
front loaded, though, let's go over your bio and why
(04:07):
you being here as a topic of discussion before I
even actually kind of properly welcomed him to this show,
sort of a host faux pas. But you know whatever,
I'm jumping in with my own over zealous awkward. Welcome
to the awkward party is also a tagline for the show,
so you know, I'm I'm just breaking it anyway. Here
(04:28):
you go, jumping right in with the over zealous awkward.
My conversation with doctor Eryl Pierre. So in the intro,
I was telling people that you provide leadership, mentorship and
guidance to professionals of color across various industries, ensuring the
advancement of diverse professionals into leadership positions, which is a
(04:49):
lot of business talk that I lifted from your book's
press release. But I want to get behind that. First
of all, Welcome to.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
The show, Eryl, Thank you for having me it's pleasure
to be We.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Were chatting before we got rolling about like the work
of bringing a book out into the world. And I
think that's part of it too, that like, there's this
book about business that you have out in the world,
but it's really more than a book about business. Can
you tell me a little bit about that?
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Sure? Sure, So the culmination of the book The Way
Up was after the murder of George Floyd and during
the pandemic that disproportionately impacted communities of color, black and
brown populations. I was stuck in a nine hundred square
foot apartment in the Bronx with too much time in
my hands and was just retrospective on how I ended
(05:47):
up being where I was at that point in time,
and putting pen to paper, I really wanted to describe
my journey from working in a beauty supply store warehouse
to becoming chief operating officer of a large insurance company
in New York and then still feeling some emptiness. And
so the book is a culmination of, Hey, I got
(06:08):
to where you're supposed to get to. You got to
the top, but I wasn't happy. And I also interviewed
eleven other executives of color as well, which are infused
to the books. Their quotes are through there because unfortunately,
underrepresented people like myself were not believed. So you need
other people to have the same story so that you're validated.
(06:29):
So I also wanted to infuse their input and their
insights and their experiences, and then lastly back it up
with data and statistics so that again it's not just
an anecdotal story. But that's really the culination of it.
And the goal is twofold one. If you are a
person of color, hey, here's a nice little rubric of
(06:49):
tips and tricks that you can learn. That's great. But
then I think the other major important piece is if
anyone reads this book, especially as someone in leadership at corporation,
realize like, wow, I didn't know my employees are going
through this just to tread in place, and that's really
the bigger unset story.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Yeah, there's sort of this like lip service around caring
about employees mental health, and I love that you bring
that up, like you want some real stories about what
your employees are bringing to their lives on the job,
Like can we have that conversation instead of that sort
of you know, pop psychology lip service. We'll give you
a gift basket for all of your hard work, but
(07:30):
not address the real systemic issues inside corporate structure. Now,
you mentor professionals of color who work in the healthcare industry,
and I imagine that there are conversations about really difficult
things inside that work that you do. It's not just
career strategy. So you know, my question was going to be,
can we talk a little bit about the grief spoken
(07:51):
and unspoken for people of color inside the corporate climb?
But I think I want to ask a question before that,
which is, how does grief intersect with this work for you?
Speaker 1 (08:03):
If it does, yeah, it's a great question. It does intersect.
Because I say this a bunch of times throughout the chapters.
The way society is is going to show up inside
the office, and for some strange reason, we have this
belief that when you show up to work, you're like
this different person and you're not bringing the baggage that
(08:24):
you have in and so in society, if I go
to a grocery store and someone follows me around because
they think I'm going to take something, that sort of
chip on my shoulder, that paranoia that feeling is going
to show up in the workplace when I don't get
a promotion or I get passed on for a job,
and delinking the two you do a disservice to your employees.
(08:46):
So grief is absolutely throughout. Some of the chapters talk
about traumatic experiences I've been through and how to harness them. First,
you have to be aware of them and acknowledge them
so that you can like distress and it doesn't create anxiety.
And then once you get to that point, which can
take a while, then harness them as you continue your climb.
(09:10):
So grief runs throughout it not just my grief, also
brief of my parents, because I talk about my parents
that came from Haiti and how their America was different
than my America, but yet their America totally influenced how
I operate in my America.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Yeah, and your parents came to America from Haiti in
the seventies. Yeah, right, as you said, completely different world.
And you write that while your father worked really hard
and was in a union, healthcare was out of reach
for your family, right, Like, that's just one example of
challenges that people face. You talked about it a little bit,
But what role does that experience play in the life
(09:46):
that you've built for yourself and the life that you
hope to help others build for themselves.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
I talk about it in the books. I see it
right now vividly. Had to get a root canal when
I was a kid, and I went to the dentist,
and a dentist told my dad and these are I
was talking, so like you're off to the side. You
don't know, it's sure right, And it's interesting what kids
remember right when they're older. And the dentist and I
told my dad, we can't complete the work until January
(10:11):
first of next year. So even though you started, it
was like September, like he has to come back in January.
I had no idea what this mat and so they
sort of like closed my tooth that was unfinished, and
we laughed, and I remember having this feeling of an
unfinished mouth walking around, not realizing why I had to
wait till January. Later on in life, I learned, oh,
(10:31):
dental plans for union workers who have worked menial jobs
my dad was dishwasher at a nursing home are not comprehensive.
So we had an out of pocket max, which meant
a root canal. The whole cost of a root canal
was more than the benefit I had per year, And
so I end up ironically working in health insurance and
that became my passion. I was like, this is crazy
(10:54):
that in a country that is spends more money than
any country in the world on healthcare doesn't provide adequate, comprehensive,
high quality care to all of its citizens with dignity
and respect. There's so much of a lack of dignity
or respect. When a father has a tether son, I'm
going to bring you back to finish a tooth next year.
(11:16):
So I know he felt that as a hard hit
and I could see it as a kid that he
was kind of like, I'm not doing enough, And that
became my passion. That's why I'm in the health equity
space today of no one, no one, no one should
not get comprehensive care that they deserve that's culturally sensitive
and of high quality. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
I mean there again we go back to sort of
these are headlines and buzzwords, right. The lack of comprehensive
health care has real world impact, like all of these things,
but until you live it, until you really understand the
personal impact of that it's just a headline. It's just
something to be mad about. It's just something to say
(11:54):
we should all move to Canada or you know whatever,
the things that we do that are not in the
muck of the real human toll of that. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
The one thing I'd add too, is we shouldn't wait
until it happens to us for it to be validated.
So I don't need to have someone else experience lack
of health care for me to say, oh, it happened
to my mother, so now I believe in it. And
unfortunately lead it happens a lot in America where it's like, well,
I don't experience it, so it's not real until it
(12:25):
happens to you. Then you're like, well, I'm speaking from
you know, experience, This is a real It shouldn't be
that way. If one human experienced it, then it's valid.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
I mean, I would love that. I would love if
human brains work that way. But it does seem like
there's something important that has to happen to sort of
open those doors in the brain to recognize somebody else
as deserving of support and access and care and all
of those things. There's this great I'm not going to
(12:55):
go on this tangent for too long. But there's this
great book called General Theory of Love written by three psychiatrists.
It's an older book now, but they talk about how
there were experiments done on the limbic part of the
brain in mammals. I promise this is related to what
you were just saying. But what they found, and sorry,
this is an animal study, everybody, not my study. Don't
(13:18):
yell at me. But what they found was that if
they damaged the limbic part of the brain of female hamsters,
that those female hamsters wouldn't recognize their own offspring, they
would basically treat them as furniture, and that if they
stimulated the limbic part of the brain, then everybody was
family and they cared for each other, and they like so,
(13:40):
so of course me. I'm like, So, what we're saying
is that for the people who enact policies that do
actual damage to real, actual people, they have limbic deficits,
and there's some limbic damage in there, and what we
need to do is find some way to help them
reconnect with the part of their brains that sees every
life life as valid and deserving of care, and how
(14:02):
the heck do we do that? I don't know, but
I do know that some of that work is advocacy work.
I told you I could bring this back right a lot.
So some of the ways that we do that that
we help people understand that things need to happen to
make things better for others, even if it's not your
(14:23):
own shared experience. Like that's advocacy work in a nutshell,
And a lot of your public advocacy work is in
health equity. That phrase health equity is something that we
sometimes see in headlines, So can you tell me, first
of all, what that means in a business and policy sense,
and then what it means for you personally. We touched
on that a bit, but I like the two parter here.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yeah. Sure. So health equity the intent is it's different
than equality. Health equality equal would mean everyone gets a
visit to physician. One visit to a physician, that's equal,
But some patient they need six visits, and some patients
may be so healthy they need zero. So health equity
(15:06):
looks from an economic lens, how to take limited resources
and make sure that they're used in the most equitable
efficient way based on the needs of the people. And
so the example you know you can use is like
one patient may need a wheelchair, doesn't mean everyone needs
a wheelchair for it to be equal. But from an
equabal perspective, say, give this person a wheelchair, this other
(15:28):
person may need something else. And so we spend two
point five times more than any other country in a nation.
We don't need more money, we need better bureaucratic systems
to make sure that the money flows to the right places.
And so what health equity fights for is today there
is somewhere in New York City a mom who's a
(15:48):
single mom with a child who we'll go to the
doctor because by taking off work means they won't make money,
and so they stay at work and their sickness gets
worse and they end up in the emergency room at
the worst point. And then on the same vein there's
another mom who can take off work because they're salaried,
(16:09):
and they decide to bring their child to off the
doctor's office twenty times for stiffools, earaches, anything, And that
person who's going twenty times can probably go four times.
And then the mom who never went once should probably
go twice at least for preventive care. Visit in the
follow up, and what health equity tries to do is
shake that. It turns into sometimes controversial because it's like
(16:33):
you're taking something from someone you're ration in care. Ironically,
every developed nation on the planet besides US, does healthcare
that way. United Kingdom, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden. That's how
they do care. They say, the people who need it
get it. The people who don't need it, they will
be a little bit longer. That's just how it works
when you have limited resources. So that's really helped equity.
(16:54):
You layer onto it as well. Cultural competency re happen
to be some of the most diverse cities in the
world in America, and so you're thinking through English is
not the first language. What happens when someone's telling you,
you know, discharge information on how to leave a hospital.
So if someone's saying to you you need to have
a meal with these medications that you take twice a day,
(17:17):
and it's not in their native language, so they understand
those instructions and will they abide by it. The example
what I always used too is someone with pneumonia shows
up to the emergency room. You stabilize them, you give
them medication, you send them home, they end up going
back to a Nisia house building public housing that doesn't
have heat. We didn't solve the issue. So howth acouady
also thinks about the other determinants of health that's outside
(17:39):
of just getting access to care, but other things that
also lead to health outcomes.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Yeah, it's really looking at the whole complex picture of
things and understanding that we don't operate in a vacuum.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
And I think that industry and corporate levels often think
just in one channel, right, Yeah, just one channel and
not in systems. And it's like, you know, I'm listening
to you say the you know, the economic benefit of
equitable care, Like we have to actually make it fit
into the language that industry speaks, which is economics. Right,
(18:11):
it's ROI And that actually caring for people in the
ways that they need to be cared for is to
your economic benefit. Is that a hard sell?
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Now?
Speaker 3 (18:21):
I'm just now I'm just indulging my curiosity. But is
that a hard sell inside the healthcare industry for you?
Speaker 1 (18:26):
I don't think it's a hard sell. I think the
work needed to get done to make it happen is
the heart cell. So the example we can show is
other developed nations like Norway, Sweden, they do lots of
social programs for their citizens, stick paid leave, childcare, free
health care, and what they find is their healthcare costs
(18:48):
are reduced because they're investing in things that keep people healthy. Right,
people believe that in concept. Now in America, when you say, okay,
we agree with the concept, let's make it happen, somebody
has to change. And that's what the robber is. No
one wants to change. Like, I agree, ery health equity,
let's do it. But can you leave me alone and
start with them?
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Right? I mean, I think this is probably you know,
the response to a lot of behavioral and worldview changes, right,
Like yeah, yeah, yeah, that sounds great.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
I'm on board as long as I don't have to
do anything different, as long as I don't have to
feel any discomfort, as long as nothing in my world
needs to change. And of course there's a direct bridge
here to addressing systemic racism in the medical industry. Oh yeah, right, Like,
oh yeah, I'm totally on board with you. I get this.
That's a terrible outcome. But I like, I've got managed care,
(19:42):
and I've got this, and I've got that, Like, so
we think about the healthcare industry, insurance especially as this
like anti human monolith from a consumer, that is definitely
how I feel about it. But I was listening to
an interview with you the other day as I was
preparing for time here together, and you were talking about
(20:04):
systemic racism and what we call poor medical outcomes for
people of color, and you used a term of systemic equity. Yes,
as a counterpoint to systemic racism. Can we talk about
that for a minute, And then I do want to
get into like the reality of health outcomes for communities
of color. So systemic equity, what does that mean?
Speaker 1 (20:29):
So I'll say that we're trying to fix the issues.
And so when you think from a perspective of solving things,
you hear the term that people use is systemic racism
and systemic inequality because it's embedded into systems that we have.
I like to say, let's start from scratch, Let's have
a clean piece of paper, what would be the world
(20:50):
we would imagine? So you start with systemic equity, and
from that perspective, you're like, here's all the dollars, now,
let's rationally think about how to get it fed. To
the right places. Systemic equity would then say, okay, the
best most efficient way to deliver care is to preventive
care visits. Awesome. Here are a group of people who
(21:13):
are unable to show up to the doctor because transportation
is an issue, because they're a senior who lives on
a shift floor walk up that doesn't have an elevator,
because they are salaried, and anytime that they take off work,
they're not putting money in their pocket. They can't find
a doctor and speaks their language. The vaccination websites were
(21:34):
only in English, so if they speak Urdu Chinese asient creole,
they won't even know how to book an employment. So
we would make sure there was more funds for those
to get their preventive care visits, and then folks that
can navigate the healthcare arena would eventually get their care
as well because they have health literacy, they have the capabilities,
(21:55):
they have transportation and things of that nature. And so
instead of speaking of a deficit like oh my gosh,
this systemic inequity and so bad, like, well, how would
we create the perfect model where we start with systemic equity.
It's embedded in the system. An example is when they
created those vaccination websites for everyone to get vaccinated. Obviously,
(22:18):
the people who were around the table were thinking through
the lens of themselves. They like, I use a desktop
and it's English, not realizing that the people who had
the highest hensitency don't use desktop as their formal way
to get into that access. They use a mobile phone
and English is not their first language. So systemic Equity
would have built a mobile app in Spanish and Chinese first.
(22:41):
So that's the type of thing that I like to
solve puzzles with. From that perspective, it's like, let's look
at it from a Systemic Equity lens, start with the
way you want to create it, as opposed to trying
to move the deck chairs on something that's broken.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
That is brilliant, It really is, because it's like I think,
when you start talking about system racism systemic inequity, people
get their hackles up just as what you describe like
that sounds great, but don't make me change anything. But
I think if you present things as let's start from
scratch and what dream can we build yep, I think
(23:15):
that maybe that engages people's limbic systems. I don't know,
but there's something really welcoming about this idea of collaborating
on the world we most want. I remember a teacher
of mine used to say years ago, like everybody can
agree that we want clean water. Where we argue is
about who gets to have it, right, So I hear
(23:39):
what you're saying there is like we can all agree
that we want to be cared for, and we want
to care for other people. We want to like indulge
the wrong word here, but like indulge our better natures
because at some core level, I think also, what I
really love about that approach is it sort of has
an unspoken baseline of people are good and want to
(24:01):
do good right right, which I think can easily get
lost in the choices that people and industries and countries.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
And you mentioned this, the phrase systemic racism can denote
that it's impossible to solve. They say, oh, it's systemic,
so now you're absolving human beings from their individual behaviors. Well,
it's not me, it's systemic. And then too, it's systemic,
so you're like, well, how am I going to change healthcare?
(24:29):
That's too big, it's too and so I think it's
defeating too from people of like I don't even know
where to start. This is too big, and I now
absolve of any responsibility because it's the system. So I
also think the phrase also leads to some of that cynicism.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
I love that it really is a welcoming in thing.
Like you know, at the time that we're recording La
County and while all of California has been getting pelted
with a lot of rain, and there's a lot of
pissy tweets out there saying, good job, Elly, you didn't
keep the water right when like, Okay, you clearly have
no idea how water reclamation works on a big systemic level.
But like, these are really big, complex issues and it's
(25:09):
not just up to the big complex forces to solve.
There are things that we can do as individuals to
help make things different. It's not just passing things downstream
to somebody else whose job it is. Right. Yeah, and
we go back to sort of advocacy and finding places
that are important to you to take action, right, I
(25:31):
want to talk a little bit about your work in Haiti,
if we could do that from an it Hey, before
we get back to this week's guest, I want to
talk with you about exploring your losses through writing. There
are lots of grief writing workshops out there with prompts
(25:52):
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(26:12):
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(26:34):
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backslash wyg, or you can find the link in the
show notes. I want to talk a little bit about
your work in Haiti if we could do that from
an it so. You're on the board of Meta Nova,
which is a nonprofit that provides free medical character residents
of North Eastern Haiti and as I was reading about
(26:55):
that work, and we talked a second ago about like
the lenses that we look through. I see every thing
as a grief issue. Everything is a grief issue in
my opinion. But reading about that work, I was like,
this is this is a grief issue, right, Advocacy and
policy are a grief issue. But I want to hear
that from you, is do you think that's accurate? Is
my assessment that, like policy is a grief issue?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
I think so. I've never thought of it through that lens,
But as you say it, I'm like, yeah, that makes sense.
So Haiti and I said this earlier. I mean what
they've gone through is just traumatic as a whole foreign nation.
God is independence in eighteen oh four from the biggest
empires at the time, the Poleon Bonaparte, and ever since
(27:38):
then they've been sort of punished because back then, to
see a country get as freedom as former slaves would
have been, you know, lead to other countries to do
the same. So a lot of countries didn't even recognize
their independence, didn't trade with them, and they sort of
got stuck in a rut. France ended up charging them debt,
(27:58):
so they basically bought their own boy, which is just
insane that that happened. One of the few countries I
actually had to pay for their freedom. And so that
all you fast forward to a country that is consistently
just getting bombarded by whether natural disasters, hurricanes, earthquakes, or
just cous after cous, Like right now, they don't have
a stable government as it is. Their former president was
(28:19):
assassinated and they still have a new president, and so
I'm thinking through that lens of like what can I do.
I'm an American, my parents grew up in Haiti, but
I feel like I can do something because I'm so
thankful for where I am in my career, and that's
where I stumbled upon medi Nova. There was the major earthquake,
seven point something earthquake in twenty ten, and that was
(28:43):
sort of the impetus for me to know that I
had to go back to the country of my father,
and so I was like, I need to do something.
I can't just sit here and donate to American Red Cross,
like I felt the need that I had to be there,
and so twenty ten was my first visit to Haiti
on a mission trip, and we just like at that
point in time. It was literally like all hands on
deck providing food. We were at a tent based hospital,
(29:07):
providing like immediate care. And the ironic thing is things
that we take for granted, that we buy over the
counter at CBS and Walgreens, these were medications we were
giving to people in Haiti because they don't have it.
So you know, someone's suffering from diarrhea, like simple things,
and so I didn't think we would be giving out
peptibis ball as a need, but that's what people needed
(29:28):
at the time because the water was so dirty after
an earthquake, and so it was just something I knew
that I wanted to give back and I felt the
purpose too. Medi Nova does these trips every year, so
I've been back to Haiti every year since twenty ten,
with the exception of twenty twenty because of COVID, but
I've gone every year. It was besides that, and we've
since raised enough money to have a full time clinic.
(29:51):
So one of the things with nonprofits are, you know,
you do these humanitarian trips and you just show up,
you give out care, and you leave, and people always say, well,
how is that continuous? What do you do? You're just
a drop in the bucket, and so we really wanted
to have a stable, long term healthcare access point for
the people of Haiti. And so we've since built the
clinic in the city of Kara Call that's now open
(30:15):
twenty four hours, seven days a week. It's staff by Haitians,
it's run by Haitians, it's service Hatians. And so we've
done race for keeping that clinic open. And I sit
on the board just always thinking about advocacy on how
to keep those patients that are working there safe, and
then when it's safe again, bringing Americans to Haiti so
they can see it for themselves.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
So as you're describing that, I'm wondering. We talked a
few minutes ago about building the world that we want
from the ground up. Do you feel like that's part
of what's happening with Medan Nova and the work in Haiti.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
It's tough, the things impacting Haiti are so big and
multi layered. However, if the least I can do is,
and this gets back to health equity, provide culturally competent care,
so these are Asian doctors and nurses gettle care to Haitians.
What tends to happen is a lot of NGOs show
up and they're providing great care to doing what they
(31:09):
need to do, but it's not in language, it's not
culturally relevant. So I love the fact that this clinic
is run by Haitians and staff by Haitians, So we're
doing apart from that perspective. And then we're helping the
economy because we hire from the community where the clinic is.
I would love to think it can expand the hardest
part about it is trying to think through how to
(31:30):
make it sustainable on its own so it doesn't need donations.
I will continue to obviously raise funds, but we have
to think the next step of how this become sustainable.
Over time, I think we'll get to the point of
creating the new future when within Haiti there could be
systems that are sustainable on their own that can help
their own people.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
Yeah, there's a point here that I want to pull
out that as we start to build into that dream
of systemic equity and place care where it needs to
be placed. It doesn't mean that things don't suck. It
doesn't mean that there isn't still suffering and complex issues
and being in the path of natural disasters like that.
(32:13):
The best organized healthcare system is not going to stop hurricanes.
And bringing this back to the States, It's like health
care systemic equity is not going to stop people from
getting sick. It's not going to stop people from dying.
If that's not our goal, what's our goal.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
So it doesn't stop people from getting sick, but what
it will start is that person who is sick to say,
I'm actually going to make effort to get the care
I need because the barriers have been removed. I can
count endless stories of people who were sick and for
(32:56):
go for went care because they knew the system was bad.
They knew they were going to be on a waiting
line for four hours. They knew they were going to
wait on line just to get a script to go
see another doctor. They knew they were going to get
a bill in the mail for four hundred bucks and
they have no idea how they're going to pay for it.
And so if you think about a model war, yes,
(33:16):
we can't prevent people from getting sick, but can we
make a model that when you are sick, at least
you know you're going to get the care you need
and you're going to feel respect and so that you
actually go and get the care you need. The vast
majority of our pain that we feel on the system
is because of people avoiding care, one because of cost,
two because of fear, and then then three just because
(33:38):
they don't feel the systems built for them. I'll to
share one stat so Martunity. Mortality in America is as
bad as third world countries are stats. So, if you
take one hundred thousand women and they're pregnant, on average,
fifteen of them will die giving birth. And if you
(33:58):
look at other countries like Japan or Norway, it's like
seven and six and five, and you're in some European countries,
so it's low. We're fifteen. Now when you look at
African American women, it jumps up to forty, and then
specifically Haitian women in Brooklyn where I live, it's like
sixty eight.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
And so in America we have the average of fifteen,
but different people have much higher numbers. And the question is, well,
why is that? And when you look at the data,
when a black woman gives birth and goes into the hospital,
one their level of pain is not believed that this
happened to Serena Williams. So it doesn't matter if you're
lowing toumb or you're a billionaire. Their level of pain
(34:41):
is not believed. So they say, you know, on a
scalf of one to ten, how's your pain? Black woman
says eight, and they're like, oh, you're exaggerating because I
think you're strong. Maybe you're a big woman, your skin
looks tough. You guys just know how to get through things.
So they're not believed from that perspective. And then two,
(35:01):
for some strange reason, and this is from bias, typical
regimens that's supposed to be provided aren't provided to patience
of color because they're like, well they don't need that.
Oh I don't I'm not going to give it. I'm
not going to do that. And so you actually see
patient pattern changes that happen specifically to a woman of
color giving birth Black women, and so we know the
reasons why it's sixty eight patient mothers are going to
(35:25):
die when they give birth out of one hundred thousand
versus fifteen. And then it's like, are we going to
have the intestin afforded to to call it out and
say we can fix it. We know we can fix it.
We're going to believe them when they say what pain
level they're at, and we're going to give the same
level of care. So this mother that we would any
other mother that walks in, and we're not going to
let the color of their skin have like implicit bias
(35:46):
and have us do something different. There's a good book
called a Tlobo one day called Checklist Manifesto, and essentially
it's like, make a checklist that way, there's no bias.
Have everyone who comes in that presents this way, they
get this, and you remove the bias of this like
subjectivity of the doctor saying, ah, they don't need that,
I'm going to be we'll do this, which then leads
to death.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
You know.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
With with that type of process, without having a checklist manifesto, all.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Of this awareness and advocacy and addressing systemic patterns, all
of these things, the work you do is grief work,
right because again, I'm going to go back to headlines, right,
Like we see the articles and the news stories and
the clips of maternal death rates for black women, and
(36:31):
it's a headline, right, and it might be something that
we say like that sucks, like that's not right, and
then we go back to you know, if that hasn't
been in our personal sphere, we go back to you know,
everything is a dumpster fire. If that has been in
our personal sphere, we say, yeah, I lived that, and
it's it's this big thing that we can't we can't
seem to get people to pay attention to. But these
(36:52):
are like, these are actual, real people and families and
communities that are living the effects of these practices. And
so you know, you don't have to claim that you
do grief work. But from where I sit, like all
of this advocacy work on so many levels, is to
reduce pain where there is pain, avoid pain where pain
(37:15):
can be avoided, and where we can't avoid pain, we
care for the suffering of the individuals, the families, and
the communities to surround that suffering with support. And that's
grief work.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
I want to go back to the focus of your
book if I can. It kind of feels like a
sharp detour from what we've been talking about. But again
for me, like I don't see the territory that we've
just been exploring and your book as too separate things
because we can't divorce. I think you started out by
(37:51):
saying this, like, you can't take the social and communal
lived experience and separate it from your experienvperience in the
job force, in the work world, like there is no
what is that? What's that show that I haven't watched?
Where like there's an enforced separation between work and your world.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
I'm actually talking about I think like office space or something.
Speaker 4 (38:13):
Severance, right, Like, I sorry, everybody, I am under an
entertainment rock and I haven't seen it, but I do
know what it is enough to reference it here, But
like that doesn't.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Exist, right, And so a lot of what you do
in your book is naming those on the job and
off the job issues and helping people navigate them. One
of my favorite things about your approach is, like, you know,
you think about a business a business coach. You're not
a business coach, but you think about like business coaching,
and they're like, you can do anything, nothing is impossible.
(38:46):
And what I love about you as a human and
you as a leader is you don't say that stuff
because the reality is is that some things are impossible
and you can't do everything that you dream And if
we could start having those conversations, that could really change things.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Yeah, yeah, I call out specifically the example of not
becoming the race police in your corporation. So, yes, diversity, equity,
and inclusion is important. Yes, you should call out bias
that you feel in the workplace, and you should do
it in the right way, and there's tips that I
talk about how to do it and giving people grace
(39:28):
through the process. But you cannot be the police for
the company on what's racist and what's not as a
person of color navigating through what's biased and what's not,
what's discriminatory, what's not, because it will take you so
far away from your day job. It'll be let go,
not because of bringing up these issues, but because it's
(39:48):
impossible to perform the way you need to perform while
trying to police human behavior. And so I always say, like,
like we talked about earlier, society comes into the workplace,
it's not two different worlds. So you know, you're literally
trying to say, oh, I'm going to throw every starfish
back into the ocean. It's impossible. So do what you
need to do to navigate for your career, help out
(40:11):
your peers. But by no means are you going to
change the world. Because trying to say like my company
is going to be perfect, Like society is not perfect.
Until society is perfect, your company won't be perfect. So
don't try to have that goal. Your goal is make
sure that you have the right mental health, make sure
that you're taking advantage of all the opportunities you can,
(40:32):
make sure you don't get walked over and taken advantage of.
You speak up when you see things, and you navigate
on behalf of you and your peers. But that's to
the point of you know, I'm not going to be
someone that's like raw, you can change the world. Everyone's
going to be perfect panacea. It's like it's not worth it,
and it's not possible either.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
It's not possible. And I love how you know, when
we very first started our conversation, you said that a
lot of your work is about acknowledgedging the challenges for
people of color in that corporate leadership climb. And for me, like,
the acknowledgment is such powerful medicine, right, having spaces where
you can tell the truth about that, And I think
that's some of the beauty of your business leader work
(41:14):
is you're naming what's true, yeah, right, and not from
this and we will fix it. All place, and also
not from a collapsed we're all screwed, but from like
this real position of awareness and support and encouragement in
(41:35):
the things that are within your sphere of control, so
that you can meet the level of success that you
most dream of for yourself while acknowledging the real difficulties
on the road to get there.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
I think the goal of the book was one and
the feedback I've gone from people that started reading it is, Wow,
your story is so much like mine. So that's great.
So now you're not alone, because I think there's a
lot of people of color passing through the workplace thinking
there by themselves and their alone, not realizing that other
people are going through it. Two saying it out loud,
(42:06):
so you can point to black and white and saying,
oh okay, Like now I know what imposter syndrome is. Now,
I know what code switching is. Now, I know the
impacts of performative allied ship. I know what to call
it when I see it. I didn't know there was
a book hadilary word for that. Bad bosses, You know,
sometimes bosses are bad, not because they're racist, just because
(42:26):
Darren asshol So you know, think about the boss you're
going to work for before you get the job. I
think people worry about D and I after they get
the job, then they walk in and say, oh, what
programs do you have? You should be asking those things
during the interview, and I call it out specifically in
the book, like, Hey, can you share with me on
your team? What was the last It was the diversity
(42:48):
metrics of the last round of promotions that you did.
You know, that's a reasonable question to ask. I'm just
curious because as a person of color that's going to
be in a room where I'm the only one I
want to know, like, do you have experience and history
of having emotions in the past. Well, we have to
get better at asking those questions up front, and if
someone's uncomfortable about that, it tells you whether you should
(43:08):
work there or not.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
Yeah, that is clear information. If you ask that question
and they're like deer in the headlights, like that is
information that's important, you know, And I love I love this.
I mean the as you're describing that, of course, my
brain is also thinking making the parallels between what you
just described and the work of building equitable systems from scratch.
(43:31):
It's like you can't stop the crap of the system,
like you can't take on that giant ye. However, there
is so much that you can do to reduce your
own suffering and to name the pain that's in the room.
And I think, you know, this is a badwagon that
I'm on a lot that, Like, you know, when we're
(43:51):
talking about grief. When I'm talking about grief, I'm not
just talking about grief related to death or talking about
the pain and suffering of being alive and all of
the friction points where that shows up. And the approach,
you know, the approach that I believe in for grief
is not just It doesn't just belong to death and illness.
It belongs to every part of human life. And again,
(44:15):
I want to pull that out or pull that back
that that's so much of what I understand as the
as the core of the work that you do in
the world, across all of the sectors, is where can
we name the pain that's immovable and create systems of
support around that pain so that are suffering is reduced well.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
One hundred percent. I can share an example. I talk
about this specifically in the book. So people I'd mentored
before that are frustrated with their careers that they feel stuck.
I'm just stuck, right, And so I have this chapter
on being an entry level job and just feeling stuck
and describing to an employee. Think about it this way.
One job entry is going to get three thousand resumes.
(44:56):
There is already biased in the machine that's going to
shrink that three thousand resumes down to the ten that
the recruiters actually got to look at. So there's probably
a long shot that you'll be selected because what they're
using is people who've already been promoted and are already
at the company, and they're using those words to put
into the algorithm to get new people. So most likely
(45:19):
you're going to get squeezed out. Then you have ten
resumes left over, and then human intervention happens. Probably the
resumes are not diverse, right, the ten resumes that they're selecting,
and then the panel of the people that are going
to do the interviews are not diverse. So you're like,
I'm not editing at a job, but just take a
step back and realize like all of the barriers along
(45:41):
the way that you went through to get there, And
I was like, it is what's actually happening? Someone has
a mentor. That mentor says, I have a job that's
getting posted in June, and it's only in January. They
know about it ahead of time. Then they get an
email the job's posting like tomorrow. Okay, great, they already
sent their resume. They tell the recruiter Molly's applying for
(46:01):
the job. Make sure that you find her where you know,
she's the one that I want to interview. Other people
come through, we do the interview, everyone already knows Molly's
a chosen person, and then voila, Molly got the job.
So you're submitting resumes just really nilly to all these
websites going through that path. What I would advise is
you have to build relationships. You need to find the
(46:22):
mentor to find the relationships with people internally that are
going to tell you about the rule before it's posted,
and go from that perspective. And then if you're in
a position of power, what I now have the control
to do as as a leader in my company is
when I look at the ten resumes, I'm like, I
will not start the process until the ten resumes represent
the community we serve. I needed diverse later candidates, and
(46:44):
then the people are going to do to interview I
need a diverse slate of interviewees. I won't even accept
the people until I have a diverse slate. And so
I can do that for my perch from power. But
then the person who's applying can also do their part
and saying I got to navigate this system differently, because
just posting a resume is not going to happen. And
so to your point, yes, you can be you can
(47:05):
have grief of the process, or you could just say
this is the way it is and then what can
I do about it?
Speaker 3 (47:10):
Yeah, there's there's the truth telling in there. And you know,
everything everything comes down to relationship building, doesn't it. Everything
always comes down to relationship building, for good or for
not good. That is that is what it is all about.
And I think that the way that we build the
worlds that we want across all sectors is relationship building
by telling the truth right and finding which part of
(47:32):
the suffering we can reduce. And now I wonder and
as I say that out loud, I'm like, oh wait,
but Errol's talking about don't start from a deficit. Start
by talking about the world that you want to live in,
so that you can inhabit it. So I'm going to
have to think about how I talk about the reduction
of suffering in my dream vision of the world. But
that is that is some self work for another day.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
The growth of the growth of joy, the.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
Growth of joy. But I think I think that gets
really really tricky, at least from in the work that
I do, because we so often rush joy without naming
the pain. Yeah, and so that means that we leap
prog over it. It's that same sort of thing that
if a person of color is saying, like the cards
are stacked against me and like there's this in this
We're like, but focus on the joy, right, So there,
for me, there's a lot of beauty in naming the
(48:17):
pain and allowing it to exist and then finding ways
to reduce the suffering around that. And to me that
actually feels really hopeful. But this show is not about
my hope. It is about your hope, which is a
really lovely segue for me. So much of the work
that you do is with these really big dinosaur systems,
and change takes a really long time. You're quoted in
(48:39):
an article for Essence magazine about the tech industry's slowness
to diversify its workplace and like empty promises, and there's
a lot of that in the book. So thinking about
the long view of things, or maybe the wide view
of things, because I'm trying to I'm trying to like
put my linguistic arms around all of you, not just
the exact knowing what you know and living what you've lived.
(49:04):
What does hope look like for you now?
Speaker 1 (49:07):
Yeah, hope to me is giving a dose of energy
and optimism and I guess passion to people who were
just about to give up. I talked about in the
book Guarding against Cynicism and every once in a while
you just need another dose of energy to keep moving.
(49:29):
For me, I want to go to bed every night saying,
at bare minimum, my passion and my purpose on life
has moved forward at least one inch, at least one
inch before I go to bed. And so today I'm
doing more than one inch talking with you. But I
want to make sure at least one inch my passion
and my purpose moves forward. And if I can inspire
(49:52):
a new set of leaders that are going to be like,
I'm going to push for this and push for an
extra inch. And that's personal it's just about to give up,
to say I've been find this for so long, I'm
about to give up. What's the point. Hopefully they're now
reinvigorated to say I'll push on for two more months,
you know. And that's really the hope that I have set.
If we all can collectively boost each other, inspire each other,
(50:14):
we keep pushing for the work because I do think
at the end the plate, we will get better.
Speaker 3 (50:18):
You know.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
It's like two steps forward, one steps back, but we
will get to a better place.
Speaker 3 (50:24):
I love that, and you're doing such big work to
build that world into being. Yeah, okay, this sounds like
a really good place to wrap us up. We're going
to link to your website and to your new book
in the show notes. Anything else you want people to
know about you or the book, or places they should
look for more information about the little sparks that you
(50:45):
set off in their minds.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
Sure. So, yeah, The Way Up is out now. It's
available anywhere books are sold Amazon, Target, Barnes and.
Speaker 3 (50:53):
Old independent book stores, independent bxtource stores.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
Absolutely very important block and please find on social media
let's speak, let's talk. I'd love to engage and talk
about anything about you. Know, advancing just an inch e
r R O L L p I E R R
E pretty much all social media Errol lper on Instagram,
LinkedIn Facebook, anywhere you can find me excellent.
Speaker 3 (51:19):
And obviously we will put all of those into the
show notes for you, everybody, so that you do not
have to furiously write them down and figure out how
to spell everything. It'll all be in your show notes.
All right, Eryl, thank you my friend for being here. Everybody.
We will be right back with your questions to carry
with you right after this. Each week I leave you
(51:46):
with some questions to carry with you until we meet again.
Now you know what really struck me in this conversation
with doctor Eryl Pierre. Well, okay, first, surprising nobody, I
definitely look at everything through a grief lens, and I
know that, but it's also really like, wow, that came
up again. And not only do I look at my
own life in the world around me through a grief lens,
(52:08):
but I look at everybody else's lives through a grief
lens for them. Okay, Second thing that I'm taking from
this conversation, I felt truly optimistic after the time I
spent with doctor Pierre, me being optimistic is a stretch
a lot of days, So feeling optimistic is really cool.
(52:30):
And I love that. I love his vision of systemic equity.
I love the phrasing of that, this idea that we
can build the world we want to inhabit from the
ground up every time we have an opportunity to do so.
That all just feels so much more achievable than trying
to fix a system that is deeply, deeply broken. So
(52:54):
what parts of the conversation stuck with you today? What
made you think or cry or feel even just the
tiniest bit more seen in the life that you are living.
Everybody's going to take something different from today's show, But
I do hope you found something to hold onto. Hope
really is a crowdsourced thing. And as we've learned, grief
(53:16):
is a really big motivator behind a lot of important work,
whether we name it that or not. Grief, hope, the
world we most want to inhabit, it's all the same work.
Want more of this cool Grief is really the foundation
of all things. Conversation Grief education doesn't just belong to
(53:38):
end of life issues. As my dad says, daily life
is full of everyday grief that we don't call grief.
Learning how to talk about all that without cliches or
platitudes or simplistic dismissive statements is an important skill for everyone.
Find trainings, professional resources, and my best selling book, It's
Okay that You're Not Okay, plus the Guided Journal for
Grief at Megandivine. Co Hereafter with Megan Divine is written
(54:04):
and produced by me Megan Divine. Executive producer is Amy Brown,
co produced by Elizabeth Fazio, with logistical and social media
support from Micah, edited by Houston Tilley, and music provided
by Wave Crush and background noise provided not only by
the helicopters in the distance, but by Luna asking very quietly,
(54:26):
very politely, but very repeatedly, for a little doggie care
and attention
Host
Megan Devine
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