From DEI to Destiny: Caroline Wanga’s Raw Truth on Leadership, Fear & Authenticity + More

From DEI to Destiny: Caroline Wanga’s Raw Truth on Leadership, Fear & Authenticity + More

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
What's up is way up at Angela Yee and it
is a Wealth Wednesday, and this is gonna be a
really special one for us today. I got my partner
Stacy Tisdaye here.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Happy Wealth Wednesdays, everybody, and hold on to your seats,
your seat belt, your feet, and your.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Shoes and put your seat up nice and high for
this one if you can.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
We are so thrilled to have the one and only
Caroline Wanga. You may know her as the CEO of
Essen's Ventures, but we want to tell you she is
also the author of I'm Highly percent Sure and after
a fifteen year career at Targets, starting as an intern,
working her way to the C suite, which came after

(00:41):
doing a lot of community service and nonprofit work in Minnesota,
she is here to tell us how that.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
All happened and they found women.

Speaker 4 (00:53):
We're gonna go way up. We're gonna go way up.

Speaker 5 (00:58):
Excited to be here.

Speaker 4 (00:59):
Was like home when we.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Talk about all that, starting in Minnesota, starting in Africa,
all of those things which we're gonna take a deep
dive into a lot of people tried to do what
you have done. They started out as immigrants.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
What have you?

Speaker 2 (01:17):
They set their career path and set their sights on
the C suite, didn't quite get there. What is your secret, sauce,
What is it about Caroline that made you do what
so many people tried to do?

Speaker 5 (01:31):
We can't do. So here's where I'll start. Thank you
for giving me credit for having foresight, but I didn't.
So the people who have this plan to be in
the C suite and to make that rise are already
thirty two steps of more head than I was.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Right.

Speaker 5 (01:43):
And so I think a lot of times, when people
look at your life story, especially when you write something
like a memoir, they can mistakenly believe you were as
enlightened then as you are now as you reflect on it.
And one of the things I'm passionate about on my
work with authenticity is I'm gonna tell you the story
the way it happened, because if I give you the
cleaned up version and it doesn't match where you are
feeling at that stage, you will dismiss thinking it's possible

(02:06):
for you. So myth bus number one, it wasn't all
that clear. So if you already have a plan to
be there, you're ahead of where I am. But the
second part of your question, which is the magic or
the secret sauce, I would say, you know, the book
has four core pillars. One of those is ancestry is anger.
And I have talked many times about the household I
grew up in, my daddy that was disappointed that I

(02:26):
wasn't president, and all.

Speaker 4 (02:27):
Of these things.

Speaker 5 (02:28):
But I would tell you that the propellant for this
idea of not having a plan to get to those
places but ending up in a lot of those places
was based in living in a household and existing within
a family that literally believed there was nothing I could
not do, literally believe there was nothing I had to
go get to do what I want to, literally believed

(02:49):
I can wake up in the morning and be anything.
And I think that that is really the anchoring that,
even when I didn't know I needed it, never had
me afraid to do it scared because I never heard
it narrative of a deficit in what I had his skills,
what I had as dreams, and so I didn't feel
as pressured to always know exactly what's next. I felt
confident that whatever I choose to do next, I'm gonna

(03:11):
kill it, and when I'm done with that, I'll kill
the next thing, and I think that is for me.
What I would say is what created that, the courage
and the anchoring to have.

Speaker 4 (03:19):
A squiggle career path, because that's.

Speaker 5 (03:21):
What mine looks like. But I would commend people that
have the foresight to know what they want to do
to not dismiss that and still have that be a
part of your plan. But mine was propelled by the
story of how great I am filled in our household,
which prevented me from being afraid to do every new thing.
And even if I was afraid, I did it anyway
because I was told that I had everything within me
to do whatever I want.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
I want to say with that for just a moment,
because in your book you said you left Kenya were
you nine ten ten?

Speaker 4 (03:48):
Sorry ten?

Speaker 2 (03:49):
And you had been quote operating completely believing that you
just needed to pick what you wanted to do and
you wouldn't be able to do it, and that totally
unraveled when you moved to the United States. Minnesota unpacked, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
Minnesota, Minnesotannnesota, Rockville.

Speaker 5 (04:05):
I will be on a couch for the rest of
my life for that move right there, started at the
equator and ended up in Antarctica.

Speaker 4 (04:09):
But that's a separate session.

Speaker 5 (04:11):
Here's what I would tell you, right, I you know,
I joke off and I say, you know, I came
from a place where everybody looked like me, right, the pastor,
the president, the prostitute, the policeman.

Speaker 4 (04:21):
Everybody looked like me.

Speaker 5 (04:22):
So the idea of what I looked like was not
an understood barrier to something.

Speaker 4 (04:27):
Right. Now, we got otherisms like tribalism and.

Speaker 5 (04:29):
Other things that create that, but that at the age
of ten, you just don't have the capacity to think
that way. And so the idea of what I looked
like had not been entered into my psyche as something
to be careful about or be aware about. The talk
didn't happen in the same way with me. But because
the transition happened when I was ten. While I knew
that to be true about my.

Speaker 4 (04:47):
Household, I didn't know it was like a philosophy for thinking. Right.

Speaker 5 (04:50):
So then we come over here to this place called
the United States, and we end up in a place
called Minnesota. My dad came to the US to do
his PhD. And I'm here, like I thought the middle
finger meant I love you, And I'm getting called these
names and I'm five eight. At the age of eleven,
I have a deep voice, and my lunch smelled different, right,
And I'm not sure.

Speaker 4 (05:09):
If these are jabou jeans are from Goodwill? Right, like
all of this stuff.

Speaker 5 (05:12):
First of all, junior high, everybody just deserve a prize
for making it. But then to be dark and different
and a deep voiced girl and not be fashionable and
not have a ton of means. And my lunch smells
funny because my parents aren't going to pay the school.
They want me to eat Kenyan food. Right, I'm five eight.
I don't really have a community. I'm joining a group
of folks that have been going to school together since

(05:33):
they were in kindergarten.

Speaker 4 (05:34):
Right, And so at ten.

Speaker 5 (05:36):
You choose to survive every day because having parents who always.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Thought they don't they don't always relate it.

Speaker 4 (05:41):
I grew up in a similar It's not even relate
like I would come home sad, you know.

Speaker 5 (05:45):
And if you know how to coach a child in
junior high, black, honey, I know it's hard, but you'll
make it.

Speaker 4 (05:49):
You'll be stronger later. My parents are like, why do
you care about what she said?

Speaker 5 (05:52):
And it wasn't about not recognizing where I was in
a child. It was also their transition into understanding a
different set of barriers that came up been here.

Speaker 4 (05:59):
Because they didn't do junior high.

Speaker 5 (06:01):
They didn't write, and in my country, education liberates you
from everything, and so they didn't necessarily at the time,
nor did I know how to help me process junior high.
They just kept driving the mantra that I has been true, like, girl,
you can.

Speaker 4 (06:12):
Get over it.

Speaker 5 (06:12):
Well, you had ten years old, not on that boy
to cust me out one more time.

Speaker 4 (06:15):
It wasn't interested in all this stuff they started to take.
I started to get rid of it.

Speaker 5 (06:20):
I worked really hard to lose my accent. The last
word I figured out how to say without an accent.

Speaker 4 (06:26):
Was the word purple.

Speaker 5 (06:27):
And I would not say that word for two years
because I couldn't.

Speaker 4 (06:30):
Get rid of it.

Speaker 5 (06:31):
But I worked to lose my accent. I wore shoes
that were too small because size ten feet at the
age of ten aren't cutes, right, like you're wearing easy
spirit and stuff your mama bought right. I diminished my intelligence.
I actually skipped the fifth grade when I came coming
right based on the way.

Speaker 4 (06:48):
That seems are I didn't I used to try to
get a C.

Speaker 5 (06:51):
Instead of an A because anything I did, because I
was different and it was junior high, attracted negative energy
normally junior high haterism. But it also created a place
where I didn't hear enough about what was good about
me in that space, So everything became bad. And in Rosville, Minnesota,
there's like two and a half people that look like me,

(07:12):
and everybody else's like, girl, what are you mad about?
And so it started a long journey that's had many
parts of making myself small, but it.

Speaker 4 (07:20):
Was a tactic of survival.

Speaker 5 (07:21):
But it was a conflict that came with the household
that I was raised in to do anything that I
believed in, and then being in a place where the
guidance my parents continued to give me was not creating
a good experience in a critical stage of life and
adolescence in a brand new place with none of this diversity,
inclusion and recognize other people's stuff in it, It was

(07:42):
straight like, you are weird, and we're going to make
sure you know how weird you are. And I wasn't black,
I wasn't white. I was just immigrant, right, and I
didn't attend how am I supposed.

Speaker 4 (07:54):
To know what to do.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
You know, imagine students that go through that and don't
have the parents at home that are supportive of them,
and the background that you had, and knowing who you are,
how difficult that is. It makes me think about another situation.

Speaker 3 (08:07):
Recently.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
Kalis was talking about homeschooling and how she's homeschooling her
children because she doesn't want them, she doesn't like the
education system, and she's using like AI teachers and things
like that.

Speaker 5 (08:19):
You know, I think it's fascinating. And you know you said,
you said, it must have been nice to have that
in my household, and I would tell you again trying
to talk about it. When I was ten, it most
certainly was something that drove really heavily when we were
in Kenyra. It didn't play out here, but the other
side I would give because I always want to make
sure people understand I'm not saying one thing was better
than another. What ended up happening is the couple of
friends I had, you know, I would go to their

(08:41):
house for sleepovers whatever. You know, you have your junior
high friends, and those parents saw what was happening because
they were raised in the US. They know junior hi
is just the gauntlettle life and everybody gets made fun of.
So what became really interesting was how the parenting of
the few friends that I had that I went to
their house to feel safe. Most of them were white. Yeah,
like again I was not coordinating this, but like the

(09:03):
way that they stepped in to fill the gap because
my parents did it.

Speaker 4 (09:07):
Things great.

Speaker 5 (09:07):
This is not a bashing of my parents. It's just
what happens when you transition environments. And they never made
it feel anything. They didn't go talk to my parents
just when I could come over, like I would get
permission to process parenting that took into account what junior
high is.

Speaker 4 (09:21):
And half the time I was like, boys are stupid.

Speaker 5 (09:23):
Girl, You'll be fine, right, But just somebody who seemed
to have empathy for what I was in dissonance about
was so valuable. And again I believe that it's about
a village, right, And there were so many people that
played a role and collectively, and I talk about myself
this the time. I am exactly what happens when a
community decides to birth, build, and bequeath somebody to the world.

Speaker 4 (09:43):
I was built by and continue to be.

Speaker 5 (09:46):
Villages and communities of people that collectively offered what they
had to help me be the best human I can be.
And even back at ten years old, going to other friends'
houses whose parents understood junior high helped to supplement what
my parents were continuing to offer me.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
You know what I realized too, when you're growing up,
sports also can be something. Yes, that is a great
equalizer for people to be like the camaraderie that you
fail because I grew up not as athletic as you were,
but I did grow.

Speaker 4 (10:12):
Up playing What did you play?

Speaker 1 (10:14):
I played field hockey, I ran track also, and I
played basketball. Yeah, so you had the mast because you
know you're taller than I am.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
Don't do that.

Speaker 4 (10:26):
Wait, sitting here.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
With these two talking about basket playing basketball.

Speaker 4 (10:30):
We have a hyrd.

Speaker 5 (10:33):
Okay, So this is so dope, right, because here's why
this is super dope.

Speaker 4 (10:36):
Here's why this is super dope.

Speaker 5 (10:37):
Right. What you said is absolutely true. In junior At
the end of my junior high I went to like
a middle school, so ninth grade was the oldest in
the high school started tenth grade. So by ninth grade,
every like I started to run track and field. Now
the real story is they thought I was a marathon
runner because I'm Kenyon and I was a sprinter. It
took him a minute to figure that out. But it's
actually Kenyon's from a particular tribe that are marathoners. But
I did do really well in track and field, and

(10:59):
I started to run for the high school while I
was still in junior high And to your point, an
environment where competitiveness brings bonds and you just get this
adrenaline rush for winning like it does, like it anchors you.
It becomes your world. And I would say that sports
saved my life in that season definitely, because for me,
I was finding something I was good at.

Speaker 4 (11:17):
And when you're good at something like.

Speaker 5 (11:18):
That, especially in the US educational system, I love the job, right, Yeah,
whatever you want extra launch.

Speaker 4 (11:24):
You ain't got to be the class all time. It
passed to be in the hall like it. Just the
way that good athletes are.

Speaker 5 (11:29):
Treated in the educational system is very uplifting. It can
be unhealthy, but for me it was such a healthy
way to find my place, and so I became really
excited about the sports arena and what.

Speaker 4 (11:40):
It did for me.

Speaker 5 (11:40):
I could bring my intelligence back because now I can
tell people I'm just trying to keep playing ball versus
I'm just thinking I'm smart. Well, volleyball and track became
my sport. So track is what I was in a lot.
I was gonna be Jackie Joyner Kursy, google it all
the young'ins, but I was. I wanted to be an
Olympic captathlon because of how many track events I did.
Volleyball came as a result, like in the tenth like
you're talking, you jump, put your hands up, Okay, we

(12:02):
don't do some with you. And I actually ended up
enjoying volleyball because track is such an individual sport.

Speaker 4 (12:07):
Volleyball was a team team.

Speaker 5 (12:08):
And then the madness happened, which is my junior year
of high school. My track coach and my volleyball coach.

Speaker 4 (12:16):
Ganged up on me.

Speaker 5 (12:17):
They did and they said, you're gonna do basketball in
the winter and I said absolutely not. They were like,
you need conditioning in the winter. I said, I will
go swim and get my hair done every week before
I do basketball. I didn't win that fight, and they
threatened the other two sports to not do it. So
imagine you're five to eleven in an urban part of
the Twin Cities.

Speaker 4 (12:35):
I was in the Minneapolis at that time. So those
lots of black.

Speaker 5 (12:38):
Folks and you are a starting center for a varsity
basketball team and you have never played basketball before. Wow out,
this is like a seven high school competitive advantage, where
like this is very competitive basketball at I am a
junior who has never played basketball, I'm on varsity and

(12:58):
I'm a starting center.

Speaker 4 (13:00):
When I tell you, I hate basketball to this day.

Speaker 5 (13:02):
Because of this, because them big old girls was in
the pub off my spleen.

Speaker 4 (13:07):
You had his damn ball.

Speaker 5 (13:08):
Because like literally, I'd been forced to do it by
my other two coaches.

Speaker 4 (13:12):
The height was there, the natural athleticism was there.

Speaker 5 (13:16):
The sport was not.

Speaker 4 (13:17):
Of interest to me.

Speaker 5 (13:18):
It was way too late to be a varsity starter
that nobody had heard about. I was known in volleyball
and track. Then you got these school ribberies where even
the cheerleaders was like, bro, what you're supposed to be
like everybody? And so I'm over here like I'm only
coming to do two things, rebound and jump balls. Don't
you ask me to do another thing? And so like
literally i'd be on the court point got a parson

(13:39):
to the ball. I'm like, can't get to.

Speaker 4 (13:40):
The basket here?

Speaker 5 (13:41):
You go, and it literally became this place where I
did it because I was forced to. I hated every
minute of it because I wasn't good. Everybody thought I
was good and then big girls in the paint and
they sharp elbows are no good. And I played for
two years and to this day I hate basketball, not
watching it, but like it was the one sports experience
for I was like this thing, y'all can keep this,

(14:02):
but it's the one sport everybody thought I played.

Speaker 4 (14:04):
Because what was your rival's name?

Speaker 2 (14:07):
Who you also ended up?

Speaker 3 (14:08):
Porcupine?

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Miss Porcupine. I'm sorry.

Speaker 5 (14:12):
Look the whole language, I've been working really hard to
not say her name.

Speaker 4 (14:18):
Her name is Porcupine for a reason. It is the visual.

Speaker 5 (14:21):
It is the visual representation of how she felt to
me in that season. But the story about Porcupine is
really important because I talked to you guys about my
transition to the US and and what what that came
with us. I was figuring it out, which.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
We're gonna have you back for a whole other episode
on racial isolation.

Speaker 5 (14:38):
Yes, but but what happened is the sports got me
out of that kind of isolation. I was feeling really
good by the time I got to high school. In
the three sports, her and I were often paired together
in practice because we were a similar height. She did
she did a different sport in the spring than me,
but we did all.

Speaker 4 (14:56):
The gold and basketball together.

Speaker 5 (14:57):
And and the way that this person were just like,
you know how people are meeting to each other, right,
But I'm like, we at practice, why are you picking
your belly button and putting stuff on me? Girl didn't
like it was just these shenanigans related.

Speaker 4 (15:10):
To high school. But it was in this place where
I'm like, why, I don't even like you?

Speaker 5 (15:16):
But we had to be together because we're there, And
then we became compared to each other because we were
both smart, we were both athletic, right, and again, I
have no desire to be compared to you.

Speaker 4 (15:23):
Give her whatever.

Speaker 5 (15:24):
Prize you want, But for her, it was perpetuating. And
so she would start to say, I'm going to Harvard
and you're not. That's the kind of stuff you say
it plastic like.

Speaker 4 (15:31):
She was like, no.

Speaker 5 (15:32):
Matter how good we are together, you're never gonna get
to where I'm gonna get. And as much as I
can lie to you until y'all was enlightened, and like, oh,
you're just a messed up person with low self esteem. No.

Speaker 4 (15:40):
I believed every word she said. So guess what.

Speaker 5 (15:43):
We graduate from high school and we end up at
the same college.

Speaker 4 (15:48):
It wasn't.

Speaker 5 (15:50):
Me.

Speaker 4 (15:51):
I'm sitting up straight feathers.

Speaker 5 (15:52):
Cock like, hey, you want to class together, right, Guess
what happens because I'm talking smack now right, and she's
humbled a little bit.

Speaker 4 (16:00):
Guess what happened.

Speaker 5 (16:01):
I get pregnant my first semester in college. If you
don't think she returned some of that snart back to me,
like I told you wasn't nothing. I knew you weren't
going to stay long. And I will tell you that
from the moment that I became a parent because I
dropped out of college, from the moment I became a parent,
for two decades, the idea that her and who she

(16:25):
is and what she represented and what the moment that
I had a child did held me captive for twenty years.
I would go look at you know, there's LinkedIn now,
but there's other things that I would go look at
what job she had over the course of those years,
to see if she had a better job than me.
Like that psychological burden of what she told me I
couldn't do as just a part of high school banter,

(16:46):
but she meant it. And then when I got pregnant,
she amplified it, even not just to me from a
rumor mail perspective, because again we both went to the
same college with the same track scholarship or the same
sports scholarship. And for twenty years, that moment in which
I had my daughter was one thing. She became the
person who I was obsessed and competing with in a

(17:08):
really weird way for twenty years, and I would go
back and look at what job she had and what
that created was At the age of thirty six years old,
I didn't realize I was sitting at the top of
a fortune fifty company that very few people get to
do in the c suite. I didn't even see that
person I'm talking about some people don't get to do.

Speaker 4 (17:24):
Forget black and get girl, forget imp.

Speaker 5 (17:26):
Yeah, I couldn't see it because I kept going back
to see.

Speaker 4 (17:29):
If she had a job.

Speaker 5 (17:30):
And I was at a development conference where one of
the counselors just grabbed me, and at the end of
the day, I was still seventeen years old in my
mind at thirty six.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
What do you tell people who get stuck in their
with their inner porcupine.

Speaker 4 (17:43):
I don't tell them anything.

Speaker 5 (17:44):
What I offered them is a story of how I
got through mine, which was this facilitator at this development commence.
I'm telling you it happened for twenty years. I didn't
know what was happening in these twenty years, right Like,
that's the reflection of why I made myself even smaller
for those twenty years, Right like, I literally was doing
it thinking it was the right thing. I didn't realize
myself to be in some sort of deficit. I was like,

(18:05):
I'm now just Cadence's mom. I have no hobbies, I
know whatever. I work in corporate and what is porcupine
and doing? Because I got to make sure my job.

Speaker 4 (18:10):
Is better than her. She ain't even think about me.

Speaker 5 (18:12):
But at this development conference that I was at for work,
because high potential folks are put in it, I was
having like this emotional moment. It was one of those
things where people are asked to give anonymous feedback on you,
and everybody get courageous and start writing stuff.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
Now.

Speaker 4 (18:26):
I didn't want to tell you at work, and I
was like, I know that's Linda.

Speaker 5 (18:28):
But I was sitting here reading my report and the
facilitator saw me, and I was just starting to get emotion.
I was like, don't be kind over Linda, and so
he pulled me outside and I was like, leave me alone,
do not start to assess me.

Speaker 4 (18:39):
I'm not interested.

Speaker 5 (18:41):
And he finally got me talking and what he realized
and then gave me a task, which is the answer
to your question, and goes, Caroline, you're still seventeen years old.
He's like, you are a thirty six year old black
woman at the top of one of the biggest companies
in the world.

Speaker 4 (18:53):
Most people don't get to that level, and you over
here mad about hut. And he didn't say it that mean,
but that's what intent was.

Speaker 5 (19:01):
But he recognized enough of how much it actually was
not about me, knowing it really was a real thing
for me to give me an exercise that didn't demean me,
but that helped me grow. And it was something super
simple psychological birthdays. So what he gave me as a
task was, Caroline, my only goal for you is for
your seventeen year old brain to.

Speaker 4 (19:23):
Catch up with your thirty six year old life.

Speaker 5 (19:26):
And he said, I'm not gonna be able to stop
you from going to look up porcupine, but you should stop.

Speaker 4 (19:29):
But I can't stop you.

Speaker 5 (19:30):
I said, well, here's what I can do. Anytime something
happens in your day, in your life that you're really
excited about, you get to celebrate a birthday. You don't
have to consult anybody about your birthday, you don't have
to say anything, and.

Speaker 4 (19:42):
You get to decide what is birthday worthy.

Speaker 5 (19:44):
And so what that created was like little moments where
like maybe I have avoid my boss being mad at Dad,
and I'm like, come on, PowerPoint, it's our birthday. Like literally,
I just got to have these celebrations by my celebrating
every psychological birthday. I remember I was sitting with my
niece at my daughter's graduation NYU, which was a birthday
for me.

Speaker 4 (20:01):
Right, So she went to NYU and graduate the degreen engineering.

Speaker 5 (20:04):
Everybody's there and I was sitting with my niece Io,
who's a crazy eighty one year old woman but she
was five, and she's sitting on my lap and I'm
having this emotional moment because I'm watching my daughter walk
across the stage at NYU with a degree in engineering.

Speaker 4 (20:16):
When we were not supposed to make it.

Speaker 5 (20:18):
For some odd reason, I start humming happy birthday, right,
and nobody can really hear it, but like, I'm humming
it right.

Speaker 4 (20:25):
So I'm sitting in.

Speaker 5 (20:25):
This moment and my niece Io, who is eight but
eighty one, she literally just starts singing with me. She
doesn't ask me any questions, she just starts to sing
so like, and I just keep humming and she's singing
like this is Io and Auntie having this moment. And
so when we were done, she turned around.

Speaker 4 (20:45):
She was on my left.

Speaker 5 (20:46):
She goes, Auntie, Caroline, I didn't know it was your
birthday today, I said, you know what, Io, I didn't either.
And the beauty of an innocent eight year old sincerely
believing it's your birthday and joining you in a celebration
even though she didn't know if it was were just
the poignant.

Speaker 4 (21:01):
Moments that kept me in that exercise.

Speaker 5 (21:03):
And so that's just kind of what I lived, and
slowly but surely I continue to chip away at where
my psychological age was so far behind my chronological age
and stage in life.

Speaker 4 (21:15):
And that is the exercise, even to this.

Speaker 5 (21:17):
Day, that celebrating your only catch up and the fact
that I don't have to share it with anybody. I
don't have to get anybody else's validation. Is what's most
liberating because I get to make the ultimate. Some days,
I want to ate a cupcake at the grocery store
of midnight, and I didn't ask questions.

Speaker 4 (21:30):
I was like, here're your five out. I was I'm
gonna eat it right here.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
I found something to celebrate.

Speaker 5 (21:33):
The thought that I was given the power to decide
what was worth celebrating, and once I did a celebration,
I was given permission to go a year older is
the exercise that saved my life. I'm not all the
way lined up, but I'm better than I was.

Speaker 4 (21:45):
Your high percent sure, I am highly percent sure. I'm
not where I was, and I'm getting to where I
want to.

Speaker 1 (21:52):
You know what I wanted to ask you as we
flash back to when you found out you were pregnant
with Cadence and your father was really not speaking to you.
It was a disappointment in the family. And is this
something that you guys have since had a conversation about,
or just even realizing how much that affected you, because
it was already something you had to grapple with. It

(22:12):
was a decision that you made and coming here knowing that, Okay,
this track scholarship, I'm supposed to do X, Y and Z,
but instead things are going a different direction, and then
feeling like you're seventeen years old then don't have that support.

Speaker 5 (22:26):
Yeah, so I think anybody who has spent time with
being the last year, y'all know, I'm my Daddy's girl, right,
Like I talk about my dad all the time.

Speaker 4 (22:32):
He's crazy, but like he's just hilarious.

Speaker 5 (22:35):
And so therefore, being seventeen years old and having to
tell my parents that not only am I pregnant, but
I'm going to have the baby, when you have two
people who sacrifice so much to get you here. They
didn't come to the US for opportunity for them, they're
both PhDs. They came for the opportunities for me. And
I'm a firstborn and only girl, right And we've only

(22:56):
been here seven years at the point that this happens.
And they were fine with the fact that I went
to college, but having attract scholarship didn't matter to them.

Speaker 4 (23:04):
They're academics. And so I didn't tell my parents.

Speaker 5 (23:09):
Well, li, y'all read in the book how I told
my parents it was a very seventeen year old, but
I remember there was a lot of things that were disappointing.
I think it was cousins that weren't allowed to speak
to me anymore, as if it's contagious.

Speaker 4 (23:22):
It was.

Speaker 5 (23:22):
It was whether it be in word, in looks, in energy,
people who started to renegotiate my potential without my permission.
Why are you telling me today I can't do that
and yesterday I could. And I'm seventeen taking this in like,
I know how proud you've been at me, And all
of a sudden, the day after I'm pregnant, it changes.
And that's why I say, we negotiate my potential without

(23:43):
them like this unsolicited guidance to do things at a
lesser level now that I was gonna have a baby
right like and I didn't know how to process it,
but that like that was the energy and so the
ware are a lot of things happening at that time,
and one of them was and again I understand, and
all the things like experience came from a place of love.
So I'm not condemning them of just being honest about

(24:03):
the impact they had. But I will tell you that
I think that for both of my parents, and at
the time they were separated someone I lived with my mom,
but my dad saw us regularly. I think the hardest
part for me being a daddy's girl and having had
this environment and being told how dope I am. By
the way, I'm a daddy's girl. My mom thinks I'm
a fairy and I could do anything like She's very

(24:23):
much the optimist as well. But to have my dad
be in such a level of disappointment about if.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
He failed, they take it very personally.

Speaker 5 (24:34):
It's part of what created that separation, because what people
need to understand is separate from what makes one country another.
The journey of immigrants coming to the US is usually
about opportunity, and the adults that come are rarely the
ones who will benefit. It's usually for the generations of
their children and their children to come, and the home

(24:54):
countries that people come from.

Speaker 4 (24:56):
Celebrate that with the people that go.

Speaker 5 (24:59):
Right. So Lucas Zwanga's family was so proud that we
were in the US and they're going to do good
and look at our niece Caroline, right. So what has
to be understood in that story is this became something
my father and mother were trying to figure out how
to tell the people back in Kenya because they brag
about what we do. And I'm the firstborn and I
was the first one to go to college here, and

(25:20):
so I can tell you that because now I understand
what led to his behavior. But at the time, my
daddy was disappointed in me. And to have a daddy
that told me every day I can do whatever I want,
never told me I couldn't do anything. Be so disappointed
that he couldn't figure out how to interact with me
because he didn't want to make me feel worse, but
he didn't know how to deal with the fact that

(25:42):
the firstborn of the family that he brought here only
seven years in is now going to have a limited
life because she became a parent.

Speaker 4 (25:48):
He had to isolate And I.

Speaker 5 (25:50):
Understand it psychologically now, but at the time I just
was sad.

Speaker 4 (25:54):
I made my daddy said.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Well, realizations and life lessons. Did it teach you that
cadence is birth changed all that.

Speaker 5 (26:02):
Here's what I would say, and I think this is
very much my personality, and I have to keep saying
I'm still a work in progress, y'all.

Speaker 4 (26:09):
Right, I have not a right and it sounds like math,
don't it the finances? Like did you say eighty or nothing? Anyway?

Speaker 5 (26:17):
But but my point is, and I say that because
I need people to know, don't put me in this
category is somebody that's figured it out. Don't remove yourself
from believing what's true for me.

Speaker 4 (26:24):
That's why I tell the stories.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
Because I said observation that her life can just make
all of that.

Speaker 5 (26:29):
Yeah, and and and here's the thing with Cadence. So
number one, because I was so hell bent on not failing.
I raised Cadence in a violent defiance of what I
thought people were saying about me. She's gonna be clean,
she's gonna be fed, she's gonna be smart, and nobody
gonna tell me I can't do this right. Like, it
was this defiance of like all y'all think I'm an

(26:52):
fail watch this. And while that sounds like something really
motivating and sounds like something really.

Speaker 4 (26:58):
Heroic, it actually was toxic.

Speaker 5 (27:01):
Here's why because and again I was seventeen at the time.
While that defiance helped me get Cadence to where she
needed to be as a parent, and she's one of
my favorite human beings in the world.

Speaker 4 (27:13):
She's super dope, right, it got me there.

Speaker 5 (27:16):
It compromised some of the other things that happened in
people's parenting journey.

Speaker 4 (27:20):
Which is just relationship. Right.

Speaker 5 (27:23):
So while I love my daughter and she was loved
and you know there was nothing wrong, my fueling of
defiance overrolled sometimes when you just need to be in relation.
And I think that now that she's an adult and
we've gone through many different stages of our relationship. She
just turned thirty a couple of weeks ago, she's here
in New York, I think that, And I'm always honest

(27:45):
about this, right, like that season is what kept me
alive and kept her taking care of But as a
little girl in the paradox between that moment and then
me and my parents is sitting out loud in that
the fact that I did that and the fact that
she becomes an adult and she sees other parents, and
there's maybe some things missing because we were only seventeen
years apart, because I was very defiant and stoic in

(28:08):
raising her, and anything related to loving you up happened.

Speaker 4 (28:11):
But what you felt more was like this.

Speaker 5 (28:13):
Energy I was giving everybody else about you being good.
We are in a stage where we're trying to figure
out what the impact was of that, and Cadence has
trauma because of that, and I have to be comfortable,
and I'm saying this fully, honestly, I have to be comfortable,
and that's why my own story with my parents is important.
I have to be comfortable with letting Cadence process that
experience in her own way. And I will say that

(28:35):
over the last couple of years, Cadence has taken ownership
of processing what wasn't fun for her and what wasn't
right for her. And the energy that came was something
well intended but didn't always create a great experience. And
it has been hard for me to make room for
the way that she needs to process it because different
from what my dad did with me, Cadence needs some

(28:56):
separation from me so to process it. And it is
something I've learned how to live with. But the journey
was I got so hell bent on proving people wrong.
That energy created a different parenting experience. There was nothing
that happened to her, but it created a parenting experience
where she experienced more of the energy of like, you
can do whatever you want than she did. The babe,

(29:17):
come get a hug and she's processing that as an
adult and I have to let her do that and
that's hard, but I understand it because of what I
went through with my parents.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
So you are my daughter's going to be You don't
think my daughter can be this. She's going to be this.
You don't think I can be this. I'm going to
be this. I'm going to hit all the markers. Where
did this radical authenticity mentality persona that you have come from?

Speaker 5 (29:44):
The one that you're seeing now? It only started in
twenty fifteen. So remember I told you about that conference.

Speaker 4 (29:51):
That I went to where I did psychological birthdays.

Speaker 5 (29:53):
It was intended to just catch me up to where
I was. What's sitting parallel to that was the opportunit
Twunity Target gave me to be the chief Diversity, Inclusion and.

Speaker 4 (30:03):
Culture Officer of the company.

Speaker 5 (30:05):
And again, to me, that was just another job because
I was still on here comparing myself.

Speaker 4 (30:08):
So that's why I keep telling people like you give
that is a big deal to be in the c
sweetest thought, I was like, Okay, it's a Tuesday. Like literally,
that's how jaded I was.

Speaker 5 (30:15):
But I take this job and my inner saboteur, which
my book is about the journey between my inner sabatur
and my intuition. That's where I'm highly percent sure comes from.
And I got this job, and I had worked at
Target for ten years when I got that job, and
I was really good at what I did. I got
that job and got afraid i'd be fired because my
job was to tell people how they can bring their

(30:37):
authentic selves to work within the Target corporation. It was
my job to hold people accountable that the company, the employees,
the leaders, whatever. And I wore cardigans, which I hate
because I thought that's what you were to survive. I
refused to do things with my hair like start locks,
because I didn't think you'd do that in corporate America.
I hated what I wore. I hated how I showed up.
I hated that I was small. And I actually got

(30:57):
scared that I'll get fired because now I'm supposed to
say authenticity and if you saw me in the grocery,
start on Saturday just saying, oh.

Speaker 4 (31:02):
What you see?

Speaker 5 (31:03):
And so I got scared and I started with an
esthetic activity of getting rid of the clothes I didn't
like that I'd been wearing for years to survive in
corporate and starting to wear the clothes I did like,
and then it became blue lipstick, and it became other things.
And so the DEI job scared me into being the
caroline at work that I was outside of work.

Speaker 4 (31:23):
But again it wasn't this enlightened moment. It was like,
I can't get fired. This child wants to do it
in exensive.

Speaker 5 (31:28):
What ended up happening the more I did those little
things and they were little at the time, but little things,
and there's always consequences, but they're bearable. And I need
people to remember that, stop not expecting consequences for owning
who you are. Trust you can manage them. Right, The
consequences were bearable. I had to tell two people don't
touch me what I ask of me, you know, and

(31:48):
one person like stop asking about my hair.

Speaker 4 (31:50):
But like other than that, fine, nobody cared.

Speaker 5 (31:53):
Nobody I cared.

Speaker 4 (31:55):
I was watching. Nobody cared. So every little.

Speaker 5 (31:58):
Bit more I brought not lose my job gave me
positive reassurance to keep going. So by the time I
had been in that job five years, which is when
I got the call to come over to Essence, I
had fully embraced the way that I showed up. Because
while it started as not wanting to get fired, it
became the loudest propellant of being a DEI practitioner. People

(32:20):
saw somebody who walks what they talk and like if
Caroline's asked come to work but too on a Tuesday.

Speaker 4 (32:24):
Shit, we are too right.

Speaker 5 (32:26):
And so even when I got the call to go
to Essen's Ventures, and you know, many months in as
I was working through the doubt of being a CEO,
I remember I talked with rich lu Dennis on the
many days where I cried and wanted to quit, and
I remember I had talked to him and I was
I was basically resigning, and I said, why me now?

(32:46):
Mind John already took the job as late to ask
the question, but Willson Noville and he said two things.
He said, I called around about you, and everywhere you
went you won. So all this defiance and grit that
had not created great things was one of the things
that got me the job.

Speaker 4 (33:04):
And then he said, the second thing is.

Speaker 5 (33:07):
You live in the way I want every black woman
to be able to live.

Speaker 4 (33:15):
So a decision that started it being afraid of.

Speaker 5 (33:17):
Being fired from the DEI job and owning my authenticity
and all the trauma of the way that I chose
to live my life. Being an early mom and functioning
in defiance became the two reasons I was asked to
come be in charge of a cultural artifact. And what
that created is a continued defiance to stay in my
authenticity for those girls that need.

Speaker 4 (33:36):
To see me do it. But I also perform.

Speaker 5 (33:38):
One hundred times better when I can wear urban flamingo
and whatever else I may have on, because then my
attention is not wasted on worrying what people think about me.
It's all directed to what I'm supposed to do in
the world.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
You did it for those girls. Still Bongo women.

Speaker 5 (33:54):
Yeah, still doing it, and you'll understand why we use
the word wanga and why Bubo is in the book.

Speaker 4 (33:59):
It is our last name. But but there's a really
big heritage story there.

Speaker 1 (34:03):
Like longas oh it's one time I knew my HERI
It's is like, you know, you're I think that's a
powerful thing.

Speaker 2 (34:09):
You made such a difference. When I was reading that,
I was like, people should know they're from kings and
we just don't know that. And it's missing in the
African American experience. It's missing in their outcomes as well.

Speaker 5 (34:20):
Yeah, and Laveil Laveil with Amistad Books, who helped me
do this book after many years of refusing to do
a book. When we were talking because I just talked,
I had like two to three things that were required
on this book. I would not negotiate the name. I'd
had the name of this book in my head for years.

Speaker 4 (34:35):
The picture the author's sold.

Speaker 5 (34:37):
I took that picture in twenty twenty two is a
part of headshots. But the minute I decided the name
of the book, I knew that was going to be
the picture because it kind of is the epitome of
I'm highly percent sure in.

Speaker 4 (34:45):
A look my eyes are like I look mischievous. And
then it was.

Speaker 5 (34:52):
What I say needs to be verbaid on what goes
in the book, don't corporatize it, don't do whatever. So
it was saturdays of Lavel listening to me run my mouth,
sending a chat or for transcripts. And when we had
everything together and we were trying to decide the order
of the book because it's not chronological, and I refuse
to do chapter numbers because I didn't want to amplay chronology.
Every chapter is the name, and I asked it was

(35:13):
their favorite chapter name, but I didn't want to put
my dad's chapter first. And I didn't want to put
my dad's chapter first because as much as we've got
a lot of things that we're dealing with, the amount
of energy that has come my way in the essence
ventures job about being an African immigrant and the accusations
that I am sitting there trying to steal something from

(35:35):
the domestic black community, from the African American community. Since
I took this job, the tension between the African amergrant
community and the African American community is there, and me
stepping into this role at essence attracted that to me, right,
and so it's always been in the back of my mind.

(35:55):
And so I was hesitant to make that the first
chapter in the book because I didn't want to prepare
youate this better than thou kind of thing that a
lot of people feel in the conversation between African immigrants
and African American And so I was really resisting because
I didn't want to turn people off. In the first
chapter of the book, Okay, so Lavail says to me,

(36:15):
and she's black after American. She says to me, Carolina
has got to be the first chapter. And I said why,
She says, do you know how many people will believe
that there's more than you need to go find in
their story?

Speaker 2 (36:25):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (36:25):
Yes, exactly immediately.

Speaker 5 (36:28):
Right, And so as much as yes, what you guys
are saying is true, all I said is okay, I'm
gonna trust you, Lavail, because my experience with it hadn't
been that, and so had she not convinced me, it
would not have been the opening chapter of the book.
But what you felt is exactly why she asked me
to do it, and I trusted her. And it seems
like that's what people are taking from it. But again,

(36:50):
our trauma makes us make interesting decisions.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
You know, you said that people have been asking you
to do this book for so long. Why did you say, okay,
it is time now?

Speaker 5 (36:59):
Really?

Speaker 1 (37:00):
I do think timing is very important when it comes
to something like this, So why did the timing align?

Speaker 4 (37:06):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (37:06):
And I don't even know that people knew what kind
of book they wanted me to do. They just wanted
me to do a bit.

Speaker 4 (37:10):
Yeah, And my.

Speaker 5 (37:11):
Resistance was a really simple answer. I am a person
who delivers what my purpose is in my voice and
my inflection in the way that I use words right,
Like people who are supportive of what I stand for
have usually heard me do it firsthand. I'm on a podcast,
I'm on a stage, I'm writing something whatever, right, And
so I know that part of what people value and

(37:35):
what I offer is the fact that I deliver it
verbally right.

Speaker 4 (37:38):
I deliver it, I say.

Speaker 5 (37:39):
It, I put the inflection, I'll put the sarcasm, I'll
put the snarkiness, I'll put the jokes up with the
customer like I get to mix the formula of how
they take it in. I never thought that the way
that I delivered those messages live could be justifiably.

Speaker 4 (37:53):
Translated into writing.

Speaker 5 (37:55):
Because I struggle to say what I'm saying by writing
out a sentence, because I am not a sentenced thinker.
I'm a stream of consciousness, and I forget what I
say as when as I did. And so I was
convinced for years that the things that I were teaching
and the things that I stood for that people loved
wouldn't fit in a book. But they wanted a book
because they may not get invited to the conference where
I'm speaking, or they may never get to work with

(38:16):
me at Target right, but they as the reputation built,
they wanted to know more and maybe they snaw snippet
and wanted more. And I was like, it ain't gonna
work in a book, y'all. I'll make you a video
before I'll give you a book. That's why half the
things I would say are free on the internet right now.
And so that's why I fought it. I didn't think
it could translate and lavel. I've been asked me to
do book for about two years, but what ended up happening.

(38:37):
And again I will say that this Essence Venture's job
played a role in it is when I moved away
from a corporate space, the Target corporation, where my work
in DEI had a foundation for conversation about authenticity internally,
externally and in the corporate.

Speaker 4 (38:51):
Sector, which is really like OZ.

Speaker 5 (38:52):
The corporate sector is a really weird, separate thing from
all of reality, so it's kind of like insular.

Speaker 4 (38:58):
It celebrates itself.

Speaker 5 (39:00):
When I moved into the essence role, and I have
this responsibility for a cultural artifact that is sacred and
I am not from the industry.

Speaker 4 (39:10):
I wasn't from the entertainment industry. I wasn't from the
media industry.

Speaker 5 (39:12):
I was like, who is Guerau right, Michelle Ebanks? The
legend had just stepped away, right, Like I am not familiar. Then, thirdly,
this is not something I built, nor that I have
the right to personalize. My job is to keep it
rich and keep it moving. And the community owned because

(39:33):
people were like, we know who you are. A job
to know who's sit in the chair, right.

Speaker 4 (39:36):
So the community owned she was there.

Speaker 5 (39:38):
What I realized is in this particular seat and the
way that essence functions, people look to essence for something.
If you think about Susan Taylor's in the Spirit column.
And so I got to this place where because I
came out of the corporate world, I couldn't articulate in
the same way everything I wanted to say, because there
were things related to just making sure that essence epos

(40:01):
is known that got added to my vocabulary. And so
because I do all this purpose work and people would
discover it as I engage with them in the job,
I finally said, you know what, guys, here's the issue
that this book solves. For I am not as I
am not in the decision seat as much as I
used to be about where I go and what I
talk about I said, and there is a purpose journey

(40:23):
that my life represents that I want to continue to
make sure people get. So I will do a book
to accelerate more people being able to hear the story
so they can find theirs because in this essence job,
I won't make it everywhere, and I don't want.

Speaker 4 (40:38):
People to miss out on the message. That's why I
did the book.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
You know, as you talk about Target and then going
from Target to Essence, and clearly at both of those
times there was turmoil going on within companies.

Speaker 3 (40:50):
I want to ask now about God to ask this.

Speaker 4 (40:53):
Every time I come to the answers.

Speaker 1 (40:54):
She brings some violence, but Target with di right because
for five years, you know, you were that person that
also was protecting what was happening at the company, making
sure that it was authentic, making sure that while the
bottom line matters, you know what else matters is also
making sure we're taking care of our people right. And
now we're in a space where we're seeing all these

(41:16):
boycotts of Target, and we're seeing like what's happening And
I just want to hear from you as somebody that
I know you're not there now, but from somebody who's
been on the inside. What do you think is the
way for them to be able to move forward? And
what are your thoughts on the boycott?

Speaker 4 (41:31):
So here's what I'll offer you.

Speaker 5 (41:32):
And I've been asked this question before as I've been
talking about the book, and I'm gonna say it this
way because I think it's really important. There is a
chapter in the book, and because I didn't do numbers,
I can never people, but it is a chapter called
this Ain't Scrabble. That is the name of the chapter.
Reading that chapter because by the way, when I got
the DEI job, I wasn't a DEO person, so very

(41:53):
similar not being a media person coming in here like
I was from the business, like I'm waiting to get
over here and tell y'all what you need to do
to make money for the business in this job, right,
Like I didn't grow up in DEI. So this Ain't
Scrabble chapter is what my actual believed and built philosophy
is as a practitioner, right, not based on where target

(42:13):
is today. What I wrote in this book, and again
this book was done long before what's happening now. This
Ain't Scrabble is the chapter that describes my practitioner perspective
on how you drive deeon a corporate company. It articulates
that from the job that I was in from twenty
fourteen to twenty twenty, what did I do in that
role to help target move that further. I was not

(42:35):
the first one. I was the fifth one I think
in that job.

Speaker 1 (42:38):
But the loudest when and the most visible when that
I was a different but I was a different one.

Speaker 3 (42:43):
I was a different one.

Speaker 5 (42:45):
Yeah, they thought I was the first because I was
a different one. I was one that didn't want to
be behind the scenes and just be the no and
risk management police. I wanted to go into community and
be like, what do you think this thing is? And
if I make it different, what is it? And I'm answered,
I'm starting there for one reason. I think the piece
that there's two things I would ask that would be
really important. The first of them is check the facts.

Speaker 4 (43:10):
Check the facts.

Speaker 5 (43:12):
The things that people choose to believe to take action
need to be things that people understand. Check the basis
for the facts, so that as you take action.

Speaker 4 (43:23):
You are functioning with the set of facts that you've
independently looked at and decided are important.

Speaker 3 (43:27):
To you.

Speaker 5 (43:28):
The second thing would be whether or not Target did
the right thing in this scenario. What I will offer
is that the role that corporations play and how the
world moves is heavy. Understand and be clear about what

(43:50):
you want to be different, not just what you don't like,
because that's where change happens. What do you want to
see the different? And so I share that with you
Because I left Target in twenty twenty, right, So I
wasn't there. In fact, we I announced I was leaving
the week that George Floyd was and they were burning
Target stores down in Minneapolis the week I announced I

(44:11):
was leaving.

Speaker 3 (44:12):
And they wanted you to wait to announce that we.

Speaker 5 (44:14):
Were gonna wait, but we said, it's not going to
get better, right, So I left in twenty twenty. But
what I will share with people is I just want
you to make sure that the action you're choosing to
take is based on things you have decided are information
that's right, and you have decided you want you know
what you want to be different. That way, you can
push from whatever seat or point of leverage you have

(44:35):
what you want to see happen. And if you can't
answer those two questions for yourself, Go get the answer.

Speaker 2 (44:41):
How is it not destabilizing? I remember for years I
used to cover the diversity woman media conferences. Yeah, doctor,
she shout out to Sheila. She's been on Wednesdays several times.
And Target was always a leader, they were one of
the sponsors. They were always right out in front and
really really deep re search and you know, change this

(45:01):
whole space. And now all of a sudden, this it's
so destabilizing as a consumer and as as someone who
you know championed the company for champiing diversity. That's what
people are struggling with. It feels like they have been
tricked or manipulated.

Speaker 5 (45:18):
So let me ask you a question, as a consumer
feeling that, what would you want Target to do different
for you to restabilize you.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
I would want them to explain how what justified what
they told themselves to justify such a radical policy shift
from being a leader in that space to now changing
it so quickly.

Speaker 4 (45:45):
Have you told them that no, but I will do it.

Speaker 5 (45:48):
That was my only point. I wasn't like, I wasn't
coming at you. You illustrated exactly what I'm saying is
everybody who is involved in this has a narrative about
what happened to them with what they saw with Target.
That is important to know to be able to articulate
when you say for diversity women and that's one of
the examples. And I know how I saw Target because
of how they did those things. And here's how I

(46:09):
felt when I thought they did something different, And here's
what I want to see them be different.

Speaker 4 (46:13):
That's what everybody should be doing.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
I think that's what people aren't getting about the DEI
argument or like it's a new era now, but there
is a betrayal in this when someone with these about faces,
and that's what I think a lot of people in
communities or color are struggling with that. Nobody's quite getting
that it's betrayal.

Speaker 5 (46:31):
And here's what I would say, you are very intentionally
not seeing me lean intowards like betrayal. Not because I
am saying you're right or wrong.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
The saying is what I feel like, Yes, I wasn't
debating you.

Speaker 5 (46:40):
What I'm saying is everybody has the right to feel
what the moment made them feel. There's no one feeling
that's right. Some people feel betrayed, some people feel tricked,
some people feel My point is this. Nobody needs to
feel like they have to manage at.

Speaker 4 (46:53):
An aggregate level how a moment made them feel.

Speaker 5 (46:56):
Feel how you feel, use the words to describe exactly
how you feel.

Speaker 4 (47:00):
Do that yours was betrayal.

Speaker 5 (47:01):
Others might be different, but please make sure that attached
to that, you know what you want to see be
different to get out of that feeling, and you are
getting it to the entity you need to make the change,
because I feel like that's where things don't go well.
Is there is a ground swell of concern or feeling
or whatever.

Speaker 4 (47:17):
I bit Listen, I have plenty of personal opinions on
things I don't like right.

Speaker 5 (47:21):
So I'm also giving this, giving this guidance to the
lens of what I'm also managing myself through. What I
need us to do is make sure that we are
finishing the sentence. Be clear about where you feel like
things didn't happen well for you and how that made
you feel. Be clear about what you expect to be
different for the feeling to return, and make sure the
entity knows it.

Speaker 4 (47:40):
That's what we got to do.

Speaker 5 (47:42):
Otherwise you'll either get swept off in a ground swell
that maybe doesn't have specificity or you lose track of
what you're really fighting for, because who knows. The movement
may go left and you want to stay right, but
you may still have a beef. I want people to
make sure that they can articulate personally while they're engaged
in it, and have on what they need and get
it to the entity you need to know.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
Yeah, those are personal, you know what you run into personally?
Those are those are really your points of transcendence. The
point where you're in prison is where you're set free.

Speaker 4 (48:13):
I would myself detained.

Speaker 5 (48:16):
This entire book is about how Caroline imprisoned herself psychologically.
It is about how Karen allowed environments to lock her up.
It is about how Caroline's lens was so tainted that
she couldn't see what everybody else could see about herself.
So I'm honoring what you're saying about personal because.

Speaker 4 (48:35):
What we believe is what is true absolutely.

Speaker 5 (48:37):
And if we don't understand if what we believe is healthy,
if we don't understand where that might be informed by
that things there's good things too, and we don't understand
what needs to be different, then we will stay imprisoned,
even if we're given the key, because we haven't gotten
out all the things that need to be different, and
that is not the same as changing how you feel.

Speaker 4 (48:57):
How you feel is how you feel.

Speaker 5 (48:58):
Make sure that you have put towards the action that
you expect from the entity that made you feel that way,
so that at the very least, even if they don't change,
you told them what they needed to do, and then
you can own staying in the energy you want to
if they don't.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
What do you want the legacy of this book to be?

Speaker 5 (49:14):
I don't want this book to be a legacy, is
my honest answer. And I'll tell you why. I know
why you're asking the question. Like I said, I didn't
want to do this book. One of the things that
is true about my story is in the midst of
all the things you see here, I would sit in
rooms and in spaces like this and in moments like this,
and I would listen to these dope people say dope

(49:34):
stuff that made me want to be a better person. Right,
I'm listening to yon one Sue's right, Like I am
sitting here having the opportunity, over the course of my
life to hear these people that inspire me to be
my best self. The stories were way too perfect mm
hmm for me to believe that I could do what
they did to get to where they are, because I

(49:57):
fail seven times before I get up in the morning.

Speaker 4 (50:00):
And so while I.

Speaker 5 (50:00):
Still admired people who I said in the womb with
and heard their stories, because their stories were often packaged
in a way that was about making sure you're hearing
the victory in it, I would remove myself from believing
that the level of success they had reached, or the
level of clarity they had reached, was possible for me
because they didn't tell a story that had the flaws

(50:20):
that I know that I have as a human. And
I remember I would sit in those rooms and I said,
if I ever have that level of agency, if I
ever have that level of agency, I will tell the
story the way it happened, not for me, but for
the fourteen Caroline sitting in a room listening to me,
who need to know that what you read in chapter
twenty is not where I was when I was in

(50:42):
the chapter two that you're in.

Speaker 4 (50:43):
So I'm going to tell you what I was.

Speaker 5 (50:44):
Doing in chapter two so you don't dismiss how to
get through chapter two because you think I was only
a chapter twenty.

Speaker 4 (50:49):
So this book is not about a legacy.

Speaker 5 (50:51):
This book is about dismantling the idea that you only
tell the stories of how you live life through the
lens of triumphs and being honest about the trial. So
every human being believes that with all that they are, good, bad, ugly,
the steps that are present here are possible for them.
And I have a major trigger point with this book
when I encounter people where they tell me all the

(51:13):
reasons why I'm the only person that's going to happen to.

Speaker 4 (51:15):
Well, you owned a business. No, I did not own
none of the business that worked out. Well, it's because
you're this.

Speaker 5 (51:19):
It's because stop dismissing, right, the humanness that is true
about me.

Speaker 4 (51:24):
And while I made it here.

Speaker 5 (51:25):
Now, if you're afraid to confront your own humanness to
go on this journey, say that, but don't make up
excuses for why I'm the only person that could happen to.
So for me, it's not about a legacy. It's about
dismantling a bad behavior and the way that we are
telling stories to people about how to succeed by inserting
within it everything that happened, not just the way things

(51:46):
were good and telling it that way as to how
I felt then, and then offering the reflection of how
I feel.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
Man, was this book scary for you? Because I know
one of your matches is do it scary? Don't not
do it?

Speaker 4 (51:58):
This book?

Speaker 5 (52:00):
If I were to articulate the three biggest fearful moments
in my life, this book is in those three. And
to be honest with you, that clarity has come much
more now that the book was out than it was
when we were writing it. And I mean, if we're
gonna call it, who the heck knew the talk was

(52:23):
gonna be in this when I wrote this book. Who
knew what was going to be happening in the political
climate when I wrote this book? Right, just the environment
that the book got birthed in amplified so loudly what
was already a fear. And my fear was based on
a couple of things. Number One, people think I'm preachy.
You can have whatever perspective you want to me. Yes,

(52:43):
I do give a lot of advice and guidance in general,
and how people feel about the fact I do that
is fine.

Speaker 4 (52:48):
But I was worried that people will dismiss it, thinking
I'm being preachy.

Speaker 5 (52:53):
Number two, I'm telling stories about people. Nobody got to
read their chapter. So while my father than others were
interviewed and we left it verbatim, nobody read this book
but me and lovel So how is Porcupy gonna feel
about it?

Speaker 4 (53:08):
Shes gonna come out the woodwork and act a dog
on food?

Speaker 2 (53:10):
Right?

Speaker 5 (53:10):
But also how is Cadence gonna feel about it? Because again,
I am telling ross stories that don't necessarily always have
the matching story of the other person, right, So I'm
giving my perspective, but how are they?

Speaker 4 (53:23):
How's my mom and dad I feel? And so I was.

Speaker 5 (53:25):
I am also afraid that within the need to write it,
are there now relationships that are wronged right because of
how I was right? And then the third pieces, nobody
wants to put their life out because people will.

Speaker 4 (53:38):
Take it and make it what it is. But the
idea is and.

Speaker 5 (53:41):
That's why I told you the story about why I
finally wrote it. All of those things are true, have
played out to be true, and will continue to be true,
and the volumes turning up on them as we speak.
The whole point of this book is I've been afraid
since I was born. I've never not moved. I just
haven't moved in the way I wanted to or moved
in the way that I needed to. And at some

(54:03):
point in time in my life, multiple times, I'm offered
the opportunity to atone with myself on the decisions that
I made that felt best at the time. And at
the point that you have the opportunity to do that,
those that want to continue to pursue narratives of behavior
maybe that you've atoned for, or things that didn't happen,
or haterism or pick a thing, they're never.

Speaker 4 (54:22):
Going to change their mind.

Speaker 5 (54:24):
I had to change mind about I've atoned for the
things that maybe didn't happen the way that I want.
Haters are gonna hate, people are gonna say what they
want to say. But I had to liberate myself so
that the two girls out of twenty that need this
story don't not get it because of the twenty that
want to hate.

Speaker 4 (54:40):
And that is what I am walking.

Speaker 5 (54:42):
Literally every minute of every day since this book came out.
It's why it's not coming out in the way that
you want to. It's why page one point fifty nine
is in there. So this book is about bringing you
to invite yourself to be your best self, to purpose.
And the last chapter is called take Notes, do it Better,
and it is a page and a half chapter. And
the call at the end of that chapter is write

(55:04):
your purpose down, write it on this page, send it
to us if you want to, because everybody will get
to the maximum of what they're supposed to do in
the world if they can go the journey of understanding
their purpose and activate it loudly. So that page one
is the most important page in this book, because it's
the point at which I give you the scary shaking

(55:26):
baton to say, so on you boub because Angila can't
do your purpose and you can't do hers. Now you
can say no, but then the world goes without. But
I did my part, which here's your.

Speaker 4 (55:36):
Page one fifty nine. I'll look forward to seeing what
you do with it.

Speaker 2 (55:39):
Where can people get this book.

Speaker 4 (55:41):
On the internet?

Speaker 5 (55:43):
If you go to HarperCollins, who's one of the publishers,
if you go to many different retail stores, they're all there.
We also did an audiobook. The audiobook was my negotiation
for the fact I didn't think my words come out
on paper. So if you want the fun version, you
can hear me talk about the chapter that I named
after the guy.

Speaker 4 (55:57):
From the Wire.

Speaker 5 (55:59):
But the audiobook is there too. I think it's on both.
I think it's audible as well as.

Speaker 4 (56:05):
Kindle, and I think it's also on Google Books. But
but that's where it is. Again.

Speaker 5 (56:09):
This book was not about creating any sort of visibility
for me or doing something to push this forward. This
book was me extending my personal purpose, which is to
democratize authenticity by getting people connected to the purpose and
going first and telling the honest story so that they'll
get to there as faster. I want everybody to outdo me.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
I think we filled everybody's bank this wealth Wednesday before
we leave, ladies. Tomorrow is Juneteenth, Yes it is. It
is June teen tomorrow. What a way for us to can?

Speaker 3 (56:41):
I have a very special Juneteenth happening tomorrow.

Speaker 5 (56:43):
So I'm excited.

Speaker 1 (56:44):
Well, one of my good friends, John Last, he's a comedian.
He owns an app called Black and it's highlighting black
owned businesses.

Speaker 3 (56:52):
It has a map, and we love maps.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
For black owned businesses. But he also now has a marketplace.
It's kind of like a black Amazon, is what he's
calling it. And so every break we are going to
highlight a black owned business that you can support with
every day purchases like toilet paper that's black owned. You know,
lotions all things that you need for every day things,
buying art, all of those things. And so I'm just

(57:15):
excited to be able to share that and help elevate
these businesses too.

Speaker 4 (57:18):
What would you.

Speaker 5 (57:18):
Guys say people should take from this book or I
should know about this book?

Speaker 3 (57:23):
I well, I would go ahead say no.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
I'm a firm believer in our You know, our trials
are our teachers. You call your inner sabatory. I named
mine crit and I critic Krit and I reframed her.

Speaker 4 (57:39):
It's a tool.

Speaker 2 (57:41):
And you know when Krit shows up, cool, you know,
listen to your you know, I try to teach people
how to let their instincts and their intuitions and stuff lead.
And that's those are also things that shake crit up.

Speaker 4 (57:55):
It's so it's.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
Still okay to be high. So that highly person, I'm sure,
is uh the way I look at that.

Speaker 5 (58:04):
Well, you know, I'm a believer in that intertbateur and
I honor all the people that introduce their innercebateur as
a powerful.

Speaker 4 (58:12):
Thing because it is. It doesn't necessarily meaning you let
it take over. But it has a voice and.

Speaker 5 (58:17):
It'll play a role. And if you don't understand its
voice and the role it plays, it'll take over. If
you understand it, then you can battle.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
With the You reframe it as a tool. They're not
a sentence.

Speaker 3 (58:27):
And I love it.

Speaker 4 (58:27):
Yeah, and again she's ruthless. I don't even like.

Speaker 3 (58:32):
Well I am off.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
For the setting goals and having a map to get
to those goals, I love that, But I also love
the idea of not being stagnant. And so for me,
what I would take from this is even the creation
of Wanga Women, how it started as something that was like, Okay,
you know, I'm just gonna start taking these paypals to
go and do these and yeah cash up shout out

(58:55):
to cash Up, but also just being able to do
that and then actually like building a structure around that
and having good people around you to help just really
like get it done, because sometimes we can get a
little nervous or make ourselves shrink into a space where
we know we should be way greater than that, and
we have the ability to do that. So I just

(59:16):
love the way that you've grown Wanga Women into what
it is today, And even as somebody who is not
trained in speech, like you said, and going out and
doing all these talking from your heart and not having
anything scripted, I think that speaks volumes to people more
than anything else.

Speaker 4 (59:30):
Right, And thank you.

Speaker 5 (59:31):
Guys for taking that question right, because I'm still a
girl on her journey too, right. And so the more
we can, I'm sure our stories. And I love that
this is gonna be on Wealth Wednesday, because for me,
wealth is financial as much as it is psychological, as
much as it is mental, as much as it is physical.
And I think we all function best in all aspects
of our wealth are exactly where we need it to
be to pursue our purpose.

Speaker 1 (59:52):
Ce Grate Well, lastly, just showing up the way you
want to, look at how you you know, look at
how you show up. I think whenever Caroline walks in
the room, she stands out in an amazing way. But
it took you a while to get to that point
where you felt like you could actually show up that way,
Like you said, it was a process to get to that.
By being able to live as who you truly are,

(01:00:12):
that's one of the most freeing things you can do.

Speaker 5 (01:00:15):
I've been walking in rooms my whole life, and it's
only recently that I've become comfortable with knowing what people
actually feel. Right, I had a thought when I would
walk into a room. It was never a positive one,
even though that probably has been existing longer than I know.
And so your point is good, which is you're always
going to walk in rooms and you're always gonna have
a thought. Question is which thought is it going to be?

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
To follow everything about this woman? Everybody go to Instagram
and follow at one we.

Speaker 5 (01:00:38):
Come Petty too, because I'll be saying crazy stuff. I
like the banter, I like the reel out here.

Speaker 4 (01:00:44):
We really out here.

Speaker 5 (01:00:45):
If you want to read a fun chapter, read the
Petty partner's part of the book. Those are my road dogs.

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
At Wonga Woman. Tonight on Wealth Wednesdays, all of you
who went to Teamwealth Wednesdays dot com like you should
and subscribe to our newsletter. There's going to be a
feature on Caroline and this wonderful book. I'm highly percent
sure follow us on Instagram as well. Thank you all,
and Happy Wealth Wednesday, Happy pre.

Speaker 5 (01:01:07):
Ju Happy pre June teenth post Wealth and all the
other good stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:01:13):
Well