Changing Lenses: Diversify Your Perspectives

If you were emotionally OK enough with the episode title to click on the link, thanks for making it this far! I’m only partly kidding. The words “white supremacy culture” are definitely triggering, and not just for white people. What that phrase even means is hard to explain.

So when fellow podcaster and white American male Jeff Akin told me he was (gently) raising awareness about white supremacy culture (“WSC”) at his workplace – a...

Ramadan Mubarak! This special episode of the Changing Lenses podcast is being released just before the holy month of Ramadan, an incredibly significant time in the Islamic faith.

Before I met Saleha Khan, the only thing I really knew about Ramadan was that people fasted for the whole month between sunrise and sunset. In order to truly appreciate what Ramadan means, and how it would be celebrated if Islam was the norm (vs. Christiani...

Have you ever felt in your job hunt that you’re being judged on something that doesn’t even represent who are you? Or at best, it only represents a very small part of the whole you. And yet “woke” companies are claiming to want employees to bring their “whole selves” to work.

I’m saying it out loud: resumes are a terrible tool for hiring, on both the recruiter and the candidate’s side. There are a million reasons why, but one that r...

This episode is all about the experiences of racialized people looking for work. Job hunting is hard enough as it is; but add on to that being Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and any other racialized identity that isn’t white – and it’s even harder.

This is the 3rd in the series of 4 LinkedIn Lives that I’m re-sharing as podcast episodes, so you loyal listeners also get all the amazing career advice my guests provided.

There’s a re...

Endometriosis affects more people than prostate cancer, breast cancer and heart disease combined. It's in the top 20 most painful diseases in the world, and there’s no cure. It affects 1 in 10 people with a uterus. And it is so undiagnosed, so misunderstood, that patients get threatened with expulsion from school, or fired from work.

Today is International Women’s Day. It happens once a year. But this disease affects the people...

When you’re job hunting, does it sometimes feel like you’re trying to breach an impenetrable fortress? Recruiters and hiring managers talk about attracting top talent, but when it comes down to it, they act more like an immigration department trying to keep undesirable people out, than warmly welcoming people in.

And if we’re going to compare recruiting to an immigration process, the best person to do that is someone who’s going thr...

Almost all the career counselling, mentorship, corporate training etc. I’ve received have been almost exclusively from white people. Nothing wrong with that – I’ve been blessed to receive great advice and support from many white leaders over the years.

But I’m not white. And I had to filter a lot of the info I got through my cultural lens.

So when I discovered Oscar Garcia, the special guest for this episode – I k...

If you’re Black, you’re probably well aware of what Walter Gainer II is going to share in this episode. (Trigger warning, the content may be traumatizing or upsetting to you – please take care of yourself and stop listening at any point.)
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If you’re not Black – you NEED to hear what Walt has to say. I thought I knew about the issue from the general media – but in my privilege, I had no idea how pervasive and intrusive ant...

Have you ever tried to do something for the very first time? If so, what did you hear more often:
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❌ “Who do you think you are?”
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✅ “I believe in you!”
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When I started my first ever podcast from scratch with no experience, I had to believe in myself before others believed in me. It’s natural to want validation from others before we actually take a leap of faith. But if we just keep waiting for that...

Anti-Racism. Black Lives Matter. Allyship and Solidarity between equity-seeking groups.

We’ve touched a bit on these with Changing Lenses podcast guests over the last year, but haven’t dived as deeply into these topics as my friend and fellow podcaster Nura Yunus has. She created the Know Nonsense Podcast to educate listeners about the experiences and systems of racism that exist in Canada and across the world, and the ways in which...

You may be aware of ways to accommodate physical and mental disabilities. But what about episodic disabilities?

If you don’t know what an episodic disability is, you’re not alone. Once you hear Melissa Egan describe it, you’ll probably realize that you, or someone you know, has one. 

Melissa is the National Lead of Episodic Disabilities at Realize, a Canadian charity that fosters positive change for people living with HIV and other e...

If we see poverty as the result of financial illiteracy, irresponsibility or a lack of self-control, then the blame falls on the person living in poverty, and the answer is to find a job, spend less, and get financial training.

Financial literacy education is definitely important, and these programs have their benefits. But knowledge alone does not develop capability and behaviour change, any more than knowing you should exercise le...

Carissa Begonia is a Filipina-American who left a safe corporate job to start her own business.  Until I met her, the only examples I had of entrepreneurs or people following their passions were completely unrelatable for me. Because they were almost all white folks who didn’t have the same immigrant, survival-based, play-it-safe mentality that defined my world.

With Carissa, I’d finally found someone who faced similar cultural barr...

Many employers are asking where to find and hire “diverse talent”. What they SHOULD be asking is how their recruitment process might discriminate against these candidates once they apply.

In this episode, Safiyah Husein, a lawyer and Senior Policy Analyst at the John Howard Society, shines a light on the hidden dangers behind a widely accepted hiring procedure: the police (or criminal) background check.

This episode is for you if:

If you’re wondering what you can do in bringing reconciliation and decolonization to Canada – this episode is for you.

 First, we learn what colonization actually looks like. Jessica Dumas of Keeseekoowenin Ojibway First Nation shares personal stories about her family, life experiences, and tragic interaction with police that demonstrate just how effective colonization is. The goal of residential schools was to “kill the Indian in t...

“I started learning about residential schools. I started learning about generational trauma and that's when I realized like, okay, there's nothing wrong with us. I'm not broken. There's things that happened that caused us to be living this way. And once I realized that there was nothing wrong with me and with my people, that's when I really started to regain a lot of strength and courage."

Thi...

Lots of companies have been asking, “What’s the business case for justice, equity, diversity and inclusion (JEDI)?”

Thomas Benjoe turns that around and asks us to think about how JEDI benefits our community and economy, not just ourselves. Thomas is a member of Muscowpetung First Nation, Chair of the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce, and President and CEO of FHQ developments, a business partnership owned by the 11 member First Natio...

“I will always be the Black girl first, before Miriam Njoku. I cannot achieve my way out of being seen with prejudice. That's how they view people like me.”

In this episode, Miriam Njoku changes our lens to reveal the racism she experienced working and living in Canada and Switzerland.

Does that surprise you? These two countries are probably not the first that comes to mind when you think about racism. After all, Canada prides i...

Have you ever been told you can’t do it, or you’re not good enough for something you really wanted? What if you got that message in your whole life starting from childhood? What if abuse or racism you’ve endured created trauma that affects your work or relationships?  How do you heal wounds that you can’t see?

Miriam Njoku knows the struggle all too well. The abuse that she endured as a child and teenager and the racism sh...