Edgar: Welcome back to another Stand Out From the Inside podcast presented by Versiti. I'm your host, Edgar Daggett. And we are tuning back for part two of the Liz Nead podcast. You know, she [00:04:00] had an amazing conversation with us in part one where we talked about culture, her life as an immigrant, but now we're taking a deeper dive into the black and brown communities, her opinions on it, and those outside forces. Let's tune in, let's jump right into it.

Edgar: So really my question is do you think it's beneficial for everybody to directly be on that same line? When you're the exact same way, you know, you might be losing some of those special characteristics that you are as a person. Do you think everybody should find their own way? Look at, okay, this is who I am? I'm gonna stick to a little bit of that Americanized side, but I'm gonna spread out and also be who I am as throughout my culture.
Liz: I don't think that assimilation, it works. And I can tell you from personal experience being raised by I mean, Google it: what is a model minority? My parents adhered to that model minority kind of set of rules. And I don't feel like I'm part of the culture completely. I am constantly, they imagine this, I was born 50 years ago and I'm still being asked where I'm from. Like [00:30:00] every day, if I go outside, somebody will comment on my appearance as if I'm the first person that they've seen. And they'll sometimes it's framed as a compliment. You know, your skin is so beautiful or you're so beautiful. You're exotic. You're, you know, where were you born? Where are you from? How did you lose your accent? It doesn't really work that way. Authenticity is the important part of culture, in my belief system. And that if you force assimilation, if you reward, because dominant culture is who teaches us how to act, and they do it through, rewards and punishments. So certain culture learned that, okay, if I'm punished this way, you know, Indians, for instance, and a lot of other Asian groups came over for prosperity. They wanted to win money. That's what they were hoping for. And so they said, okay, give me your rules. And then I'll do those rules so that I can win in your culture. And there are other cultures that didn't come the same way. They [00:31:00] didn't come through choice. There are cultures that have been here a lot longer, and there's a lot more violence and stress in their story. And again, you find out that, what happens, I'll give you another example. You know, African-American men and women were taught that there's only a certain way that your hair can be, to be professional. And so all this money and time was spent trying to get their hair to look like someone who is Caucasian or European base. I mean, ask yourself this question. Did that really help? Or did it shield the dominant culture from understanding something really important? There's a reason why people consider it okay to touch hair that is African-American hair because it was hidden from them for so long. In the marketing of hair, for example, if you think about what healthy hair is considered, it's silky and [00:32:00] shiny and sleek while there's a lot of people whose hair is not silky, shiny and sleek, but is healthy. And so we have to make space dominant culture has to make space for people who are different. That is a really important thing because people are now realizing that assimilation doesn't work, that you're not really getting anything. You're not really getting representation. Politically, you're not really getting all of the things that you thought you were getting. You're not. As a minority as a marginalized group. You're not getting all the benefits of dominant culture just because you act like them. And so now there's a special moment in our country to hear the voices, the voices have been raised. The gauntlet has been thrown down. I mean, some of it's negative and some of it is, they're being quiet, but they realize that assimilating isn't really working. And so we have a chance to ask questions and get to know people that are different than us for the purposes of [00:33:00] sliding our chair over a little and making space for them. Because at the end of the day, medically in particular representation is so important. We have to have every group represented or we have, solutions medically that only fit the dominant group. And then we're losing really important people because we don't know enough about them.

Edgar: A hundred percent agree. So do you think there's a standard that is in place right now that needs to be changed? So like, this is the standard, this is what, you know, we start with and everything else is either super unique, super different, because when you say that about the hair being like silky and smooth, not everybody has that type of hair and you don't grow with it, you will maybe never get it. So why is that the standard? And do you think that standard needs to be changed?

Liz: I think that the standard that needs to be changed is that there is, I honestly, my country, the United States, I'm an American citizen, has changed. And that, yeah, at one point there was a majority and there were these small [00:34:00] marginalized cultures, but the standard is in the culture that we need to learn to value something other than what was taught to us as valuable, right? It's so arbitrary that people would spend so much time and money to look like something that is a beauty standard. So I don't know where that starts. I really don't. I think that conversation, I think that, you know, just posted something about this, that darkness never wins because light just shows up and wins right away. Darkness doesn't exist when light is there. And so I think about it in terms of shedding light, on different types of people and different cultures that we just have a lot of learning to do that that needs to be the standard that we have to become aware of the people who live in our communities. We're not talking about people in other countries. We're talking about people who live next door and when it smells different and looks different, it is not an expectation that that person either acts exactly like what was [00:35:00] dominant culture in the twenties. That they have to do that, or they have to get back on their boat and go back to wherever they came from. Like really that tells a lot about where we're at as a culture. And I am just as uninformed as anyone else is like, I grew up as a white person. I grew up as a white blonde blue eyed girl in the twin cities. And no, I don't look like that, but see the outside doesn't really, my hair is not learning anything. It's my brain that's learning things. It's my eyes that see things. And so it needs to become a standard in everyday conversation. It needs to become what conversations that parents are having, that you are hurting your children. If they don't know anything about the world, except for themselves, you are literally damaging your child's future because they will get fired and they will lose relationships and they will learn the hard way. So why not? Instead of saying, [00:36:00] well, I don't see color or we love and respect everyone. Well love and respect means awareness, love and respect means effort. I mean, the reality is, is that I'm not African-American, but I take interest in the community and understanding their perspectives and it's very well-documented, it's not like you can't find information about. You know, a black person's relationship with medicine or, you know, maybe someone who is non-binary and you want to understand how they react to hospitals. If there's already information about that, it really is having cultural curiosity. It's about fostering cultural intelligence. Do you have the understanding of what to say? What not to say how to eat food? Like for instance, if you're eating Asian food and they use a lot of like slipperier ingredients, so there might be squid, there might be things that are raw. You never ask, here's cultural intelligence for you, you never asked what is [00:37:00] this? Never. You slice off the smallest bit of food that you can. And then you, if you have to, if you're afraid of it, then put it in starch, like find the noodle, find the rice and put it in your mouth and taste it and swallow it with an open mind. And then you say, thank you for serving me. And if you can slice something else off of it, or you can say, you know what, I, this is how I think I want to serve myself. Am I doing it correctly? Learn things like slurping. Like if you're having ramen noodles, slurping in Asian countries is a sign of respect and enjoyment. And that, that is different than the Quaker based country that we live in which every smell and sound is kind of cut down to a minimum. So you have to learn that. There's just different ways of doing things and that your curiosity to foster your intelligence will end up going a long way. And we can do this quickly so that we can have those [00:38:00] conversations on a deeper level about bigger things. We skip the basics and go straight to the big topics. And we wonder why when you're asking someone about something about their body, but you haven't learned anything about their holidays, how they value food, how they value family, the way they express anger, how they ask questions, if you don't have any of that information and you go straight to the thing that you want, guess what marginalized groups are super used to that. They're used to you pretending they're a cardboard cutout until you need something from them.

Edgar: You have to learn, you have to learn about them first and then be like, okay, because we have, we come up in Versiti a lot with them, directly going, can we get blood?

Liz: Yes.

Edgar: Can we just get this from you? No you have to learn and, you know, as we progress and we've done our unconscious bias training as an organization entirely on learning and being one with the other groups, and that's something massive [00:39:00] because you have to learn first, you have to get those fundamental status, whether you didn't learn them in the school education, but you have to learn. And the only way by learning is by being around those individuals, by being around those types, then here in the United States, you know, going back about what the standard is, I think it has to kinda evolutionize, you know, our United States, isn't the same, isn't filled with the same people that were in the 1800s, 1850s, 1900s. We're changing their states where, you know, going back to have minority population is the majority population. I just came back from south Florida. It's all Spanish. It's a hundred percent Spanish, billboards in Spanish. I go inside the store, they speak to you in Spanish. You feel like you're in a different country because those people are different from the original people that were there. You just said here in Detroit, there is a massive Indian population. There's a massive, we have the university of Michigan, go blue. And there is a massive minority population [00:40:00] with Asian, Indian. There's a massive group. And that same thing is in California. And those are things that we have to kind of realize, we have to learn about them. And we have to be like, okay, this is our new standard. This is how we should approach X & Y now, and keep changing and evolving and be better as a person. And when it comes to questions, like what are questions that should be asked? Because, you know, again, when people are afraid to ask certain questions or people are afraid to learn, and you said it perfectly, you go right to the top and you wanna and you just want stuff and that shouldn't be like that. You know, you can't just go, never talk to us. Imagine going to, you have a friend and you never talked to them for a year, two years, but then you realize they have something now that you want and you go, Hey, can I get this? You're probably not going to get it. You haven't talked to them. You haven't done nothing. You know, you're not going to get what you want from them. And that is something we have to learn [00:41:00] as a community organization. And, but I want to know what are those questions like? How do you approach for somebody that's scared for someone, who's not part of the minority who maybe might not have a person to connect with because one of my biggest advices find somebody and have them take you on that journey, you know, take you to learn. And what do you think is the best advice for best questions to ask when dealing with, with some of those situations?

Liz: So one of the, there's a few questions that I think that you can ask. And I want to speak to people who don't have a friend to take to the restaurant who don't know anyone, personally, but they want something from that person from that culture. And the first thing is you ask the question, what has your experience been with this? What is your experience? And I based that in the idea that if two people were in the same room at the same exact temperature, but one person feels very cold and another person feels like so hot, sweat is rolling [00:42:00] down their forehead. That their experience is different, even though the situation is the same, like, get that idea, get the idea that when you're talking to someone who appears to be different than you, or you figure out that they're different from you, that the question, you know, what is your experience been with this? Can I ask you a few questions? What is your experience been with this? That's a really important thing because my experience growing up in the, in the Midwest is very different than my best friend's experience. It is just plain different and our job is not to try to connect them and find the connections that are the same. Our job is to just learn what's different. You know, you get nothing out of telling someone you settled down. You're not cold, you're warm, I'm warm. So you must be warm. I mean, where do you get with that? Does anything change in that person who's cold? Just because you told them to be warmer? Absolutely not. They feel what they feel and the next thing, you know, so it's based in another metaphor, which is, if I'm running and I see a dog [00:43:00] off the leash and I'm afraid and that nice owner says, oh, don't be afraid he's really nice. Well, let me tell you, my experience is not based in that one dog it's based in every dog I've ever seen in all the times I've ever run. So when you're asking, what has your experience been recognized that it's not going to be in the last two minutes, it's going to be, what has your experience been in every situation that you've been? Maybe my mother is really afraid of dogs. And so because of that, she taught me to be afraid because she didn't want to deal with a dog eating my face off. And so now I'm afraid not only because of my own experience, but because of the experience of others. And so the historical experience is really, really important. And then the third thing is, as you learn about what someone's experienced. You ask them, what is the impact been on your life? How has that affected you? Because I can tell you that everything that you see here has been impacted by the [00:44:00] things that I saw and the things that people said to me, I look for all intents and purposes, very Americanized. Why? Because of the impact of the collection of things that happened. So it's not about intention. I talk to people all the time and particularly people from dominant culture. So someone who is white and Christian tends to be someone who will go well, I didn't really mean that. I mean, people just really need to stop being so offended. I didn't mean that. Learning about impact, learning about the impact of what has happened, learning about the impact of what you're doing. That's where the conversation has to start. You have those questions where you think, what is your experience? What is your experience historically? Is there anything else besides this moment that's teaching you something and then what has the impact on you been? What is the impact on your community been? You will get the shorthand so fast. And I said this at the end of kind of like my last statement, but it will stop feeling like a cardboard cutout and it will start [00:45:00] feeling like a three-dimensional human. Cause right now you can see something, but you don't know anything about how the blood moves through their body. You don't really get what makes them sweat? What makes them happy? What makes them excited? And you have to have those conversations for that person to slowly become something other than the assumptions, like a compilation of the assumptions that you've made about them.

Edgar: So you have to get to know people, you have to get to know them and you can't solve a problem without knowing what the problem is. And it's basically, you have to literally get to know them, sit down. If you don't feel comfortable, you know, meeting all the way, meet in the middle is really what you have to do. And just ask questions like, listen, what's happening in your community? How can we help? What's making things scared, what's making things bad. And then from there, figure out how you can both help each other. So we went to this conference, earlier this year, and you know, we talked a little bit about that diverse community about that [00:46:00] minority community and the ways we can help each other. And we're talking, embrace someone with other blood centers and this came up to be an issue because you know, not all blood centers have that DEI council. Not that many blood centers are, you know, equipped or into those communities. And those were questions that were coming up. Like, how do we get in, how do we talk to them? What if you don't have this specialty, a council that, you know, that you can hear from and learn from and share those, like, see like a mix of different communities or different our diverse cultures. We don't have that tool to learn from like, how do we get in? We either said, okay, do you have any people that work with you that are part of that diverse culture and not close, but how do we start? The start is asking questions, find somebody who's either close to it or present donor and start asking questions. That is how you find out a problem and that's how we can probably come to a solution. And you know what to [00:47:00] circle to hospitals because hospitals play a big role in our system. Some of the communities don't have a positive look on hospitals. They always say hospitals on our own side and you see sometimes commercials, you know, saying like, okay, X person in this community has a higher chance of passing away or, or getting infected with anything from, you know, the majority population. And how do hospitals play a big role in those diverse or minority communities in your eyes?

Liz: So, first of all, I want to say that if you want to know about other people, don't start with people you see as different ask those questions to people you see are the same. Like you can just pick five friends, five colleagues and say, what has your experience been with emergency? Like what, what do you consider an emergency and why? That would be an example. The first thing is what is your experience with insurance and how important has that been? And when did that become important? For my family, [00:48:00] insurance was like something that you just had to have, like you had to have a bank account and you had to have insurance for others insurance is considered something that's optional and they feel uncomfortable being forced to do it. How do you manage your health? You want to ask that question? Like, is managing your health, doing something just for yourself. I mean, obviously there's this huge group of people in the country that don't trust vaccinations and it seems to be growing. So being able to ask those questions, like when do you go see a doctor? Like have people passed away before they should? And what is the experience there's well-documented information about how hospitals treat minorities, particularly African-Americans and Latin X groups and they're not, it's not really like a great track record. So we, we have that information. So you would ask that question, what has the impact been on the stories that you hear and do you feel 100% trusting [00:49:00] in a doctor? I had a family doctor, his name was Dr. Leanne, and he saw everyone in our family and he did every single one of my vaccinations. He saw my mother, he saw my father. That was pretty typical of a white family in the Midwest in the 70's. So that's what my parents did, but there's another person, a best friend of mine who's African-American they never went to the doctor. I mean, they really literally never went to the doctor. They didn't do those checkups. The only time they went is to get those immunizations and it was expensive or they felt like it took a lot of time or whatever they would get it in a community situation. What if that person's relationship with the doctor is shaped by the media and that all you see is you go to the doctor when there's violence going on or a person who never wants to go to the doctor unless it's the same sex. So someone who's a male or female, let's say [00:50:00] there's a lot of situations that create impact on the way that someone sees it. Your job is not to get someone to do something it's to learn. What influences them once you learn what influences someone. It's not going to be that hard to get them to do something because you have to go to the place that makes sense to you. That's where you start the conversation. One question would be, do you typically give blood? And is there anyone that, you know, that gives blood and what do you think they do with the blood and, you know, have you had your blood drawn and was it a positive experience? Another side thing is a lot of Americans have dental anxiety. That's something that you have to answer on a survey when you go get your teeth cleaned because someone screwed it up before and so now you're afraid and there's all these people that never go to the dentist. And there's this there's and there's real issues between your gum, health and heart disease. We have to learn how to comfortably ask those [00:51:00] questions and learn what the experience is. The big thing is when do you access the medical community? When did you, when does your family access to the medical community? How do you approach end of life? What do you know about history? Like my parents, this is an interesting thing. I hope this is not too much information, but my mom went into menopause really early and so when I was in my late thirties and I was already losing my period and I didn't know, no one told me, so I was sweating and growing the mustache and I was having all these different things happen, but I didn't have that medical history. And I certainly didn't have the medical history from my grandparents and my great-grandparents because they weren't in the business of collecting that information yet in India, but they were in the United States. And so you have to even understand that, like how much do you know about your own history to understand whether someone is going to give blood? Those things will make a difference because if someone never goes [00:52:00] to the hospital, then they're going to feel less comfortable in a hospital situation. So those are some ideas to think about.

Edgar: Yeah. And it's super interesting because, you know, I have friends that completely don't go to hospitals. They are completely against, it the only time they've gone to a hospital is if they really, really needed it. Going back to you have a family doctor that has seen everybody and I've seen certain cultures go, I will only go to a doctor who's like me because they'll know exactly where I'm coming from. We've had doctors that are Hispanic or African-American and part of that black and brown community. And that's what I see a lot. People are afraid and people are afraid to go to hospitals and going back to the health insurance either. It's because maybe they think it's needed and it's not needed maybe because of where they came from they didn't have health insurance or maybe it's too expensive and they can get to it. And then when you feel a little bit already uncomfortable, we talk about [00:53:00] vaccinations and possibility where people now are maybe beginning early January, you're either required to have it or you have to test weekly in order to work. Now that perception is like, now you're kind of forcing me to do something I don't want to do. That makes people pull back even more and I'm like, okay, this is not getting us to the direction that we want. We want people to feel comfortable. We want people in our diverse cultures to be like, okay, I want to go to the hospital because I know, or to hospitals, because I know it's needed. We see those negative reactions, those are facts. There's stories saying like people are too the bad, or maybe they don't get the resources that they need. But when we sometimes see that blood world less than 10% of the blood that's donated, it comes from those diverse cultures. People need people like you. So other than the A, B, AB, O combination of blood, there's little antigens, like little tiny, [00:54:00] tiny antigens, that kind of control, okay, you need special blood because you're in that African-American community. And you want blood from an African-American community. It doesn't mean you can't accept any other blood but there's little tiny antigens that could be better for you. We just don't have that. We don't have enough of that. We don't have enough of that blood and we're super, super low. We need to raise how much we have and that plays a big role. That is something that also, it gets pointed out that, and some groups do see it within a community. So the black and brown community. There's some groups that see that they're like, why aren't you guys donating? The other side is like, we're not donating because they're not going to give us the right blood. There's like that conflict within each community but there's no perfect way to be like, okay, you're right. You're right. Or you're wrong. You're wrong. How would you say for those, that part of that community that does not want to go to hospitals that have that fear that hear about those best [00:55:00] stories? How are the ways that we can communicate with them, whether it's bringing in new people or getting that survey, how you said and asking those correct questions. How do we get that? How is a way that we can get those group of people to donate, to want to be part of the blood world or that hospital world? What are ways that we can find kind of like that equal middle and be like, okay, we need blood. We need to be out there. We need to push. We need to find ways to attract that community. What are some ways do you think that could be helpful for us to try or for other blood centers to try within those communities?

Liz: There's two things I'm thinking the first one is when you're having a conversation, you have to address the problems. You have to address the context of the impact. So depending on the community, you have to think, what has the impact of the narrative around medicine been for this person? African-American people [00:56:00] rightfully so can be very distrustful of the American medical system. Rightfully so. There is a feeling among, and it's, it is in the story, the African-American story. In the United States, the whole history of the United States that you give and you don't get that you will give labor, but you will never get the results of that labor that we need you for all these different things, but you will not actually get the benefits it's for the benefit of someone else. I can give you a whole bunch of information that's that is it's the truth. It is not just a view, it's the truth. So because of that, that conversation has to be, to bridge the gap of the distrust. You have to be able to say to someone, here's the thing. If you give your blood, I guarantee that it is going to go to the right person and that we have to build representation in that you have to look at, Indian people, let's just say, I'm just gonna use the other side of it because there is no [00:57:00] real history of taking advantage of Indian people. That's not a narrative, but they don't necessarily feel like. They belong to that situation. So you have to find out how can you tell someone, what are the numbers, what are the things that are happening? Because that person doesn't have the right blood, doesn't have the connection to the antigens that you're speaking of. The other side of it is a bigger picture, which is that representation is also in media. So what do you think Indians are? Well, you think they're engineers, hotel owners and doctors. Why? Not, because you have a bunch of friends that are doctors, but because that's how they've been portrayed. What do you think about African-American men? Will you think they're violent? I would ask people to do an audit, just have a notebook and watch movies and look at the characters and what the color of their skin is and what their role is. So, bigger picture, you want to reach a ton of people, find a way to get a [00:58:00] storyline into a movie or a television show and people will buy it. I mean, people, there was this storyline in This Is Us where the dad Jack died, we found out because a slow cooker went up in flames. Did you know that people stopped buying slow cookers because of a imaginary thing that happened. You don't even have that brand anymore, but it's so powerful. How media, how the storylines impact us. That's like another thing that I really, really believe in, if I want America to do something, I'm putting a movie out, I'm going to find a way to put my thought process in every storyline I can cause eventually they're just going to do it because they see it because they think that that's something that's normal. There's kind of two ways to think about it.

Edgar: Yeah. Do you think culture plays a role in it as well? Because I've reached out to certain groups and you know, this recently just happened. I won't say any names, but I reached out to this one donor. He was a proud [00:59:00] African-American man and we were talking, he was donating blood and I was like, would you like to be put yourself out there and be a story, be part of it and kind of give why you donate. Why are you part of this world? Why do you donate, what do you want to help back? And his direct answer was I would love to, but I don't want to, because I'm afraid of how people are going to react. And I'm like, what do you mean? His family doesn't know that he donates. Because he was like, all they've taught me is you shouldn't donate because your blood's not going to go to someone in our community. It's going to go to someone else far, far away or to some white person. He was trying to explain to them that at Versiti we try to keep our blood as local as possible. We try to help your community. You know, we're here in the community. We are part of your community. We are trying to help. But he was very afraid almost, like he was afraid of what his family was going to think of him [01:00:00] almost as if it was betrayal. It was shocking to me. It was really shocking to me to hear that. He was trying to help the community, he's trying to bring his family together and try to push, but his family is completely against it. I'm wondering, is it culture? Is it because we're all maybe first generations and is it like that family that came from somewhere else or maybe they had a bad experience in the past, or maybe it is due to our past history that prevents them from spreading that word it's always like in our culture, it's like that grandmother or that grandfather that has that heavy hand or heavy word on, we do this, or we don't do this. Is it culture that prevents people in those communities, black and brown community, Spanish communities, Indian, Asian is a culture that prevents our current diverse communities to donate or to not donate.

Liz: I think it's in the way that that marginalized culture [01:01:00] interacts with dominant culture. So I used to say white culture, and then that really just doesn't get me anywhere. People try to find the devil's advocate in the thing that I'm saying. So how does that culture interact with dominant culture and what are the rules that are being passed down and what are the changes? Then representation is everything. You know, there was a kid that came up after I had finished a speaking engagement, this Indian kid. And he said, I think I want to be a speaker, but he had never seen an Indian person speaking. So he didn't know. It's strange because it should just be humans, right? The human is speaking, then you can speak if a human's a millionaire, you can be a millionaire, but that's not the way we're trained to see ourselves. We're trained by dominant culture to see ourselves as a marginalized group. So black and brown people, that narrative is super negative and they have to be able, there is some [01:02:00] insulation. Little capsules of behavior that are sometimes they're overt and sometimes not. You know, I didn't know until, which is really insane, in considering what my background is, but I didn't know that African-American women, that when they did their hair, that it could take up to four to five to eight hours. I didn't know that, like, I really didn't have any idea and I'm not seeing it. So representation is what informs me. I have to be exposed to it in order to understand it. I wouldn't even know what the question is. So you bring up a good point that maybe your focus is one person at a time and to realize that as good as you feel about that behavior. That person may not have a family that feels the same way. My daughter's boyfriend, you know, we're all vaccinated and they're anti-vaxxers and he's going to hide that from his family. He's not going to tell his family that's something that's foreign to me. Why would you think that that's a [01:03:00] bad idea because everybody in my family thinks it's a good idea. Until we have to stop thinking that well, because I think it's normal everything else is weird and we have to start digging into the fact that people really do look at it differently. Then how can we get those leaders to, you know, it takes one person and then five people and then a hundred people, you know, there was one person, there was a first person that came from India to the United States and they got a good education and they were able to make a different level of money. Then another person came and another person came, there were 175,000 Indians in all of the United States in 1975 and now there's millions. How did that happen? There was one person and then five people and then 10 people. So there is a definite grassroots approach that needs to happen because of marginalized cultures, relationship with dominant culture.

Edgar: Well, I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us, to talk to the fans, to the viewers here at Stand Out From the Inside [01:04:00] podcast. Thank you so much for being here. You've been inspirational. You've been amazing. Real quick question, before we had to let you go, because you've been amazing. How do you stand out from the inside? This is one of our key questions that we always ask our panelists. How do you stand out from the inside?

Liz: Thank you for having me Edgar, first of all. How I stand out from the inside, is that I have committed myself to learning more about how to interact with people who are different than me and not just because I'm a person of color and it connects with me easily, you can see. But because there's so much to learn about how to truly mine the talents of people and how to, I can't understand the world unless I understand people, and it's just going to keep splintering. I mean, the latest thing is identity, but there'll be more. So we have to learn the [01:05:00] skills to be able to learn. I'm committed. I have, you know, 10 books at my bedside table at all times. I'm enrolling in classes, I'm having hard conversations and I'm expressing myself vulnerably. I'm exposing myself to potential hurt so that I can get comfortable being in the world that is not requiring conformity anymore. I want to be part of that process. It's a change for me because it's really easy to be a likable person of color and you just get to be that nice person. I'm standing in a different space because I want to learn and support other people for the betterment of my community.

Edgar: Amazing - guys, Liz, thank you so much for joining the podcast. I want everybody to follow her on all of our social media. We'll tag her social media sites down below, and also grab her book on Amazon. Currying It Up; catch it, enjoy it, read it. Go home [01:06:00] and try out some of those recipes. I know I will be. Liz, thank you so much.

Liz: Thank you.

Edgar: Once again, thank you Liz for joining the Stand Out From the Inside podcast. Guys please check her out on her website, YouTube, TikTok and please go check out both her books on Amazon. She has Currying Up and then she also has 1440 Principles - How to Stop Wasting Time and Make the Most of Your Life. Go check out our books. Once again, I want to thank you all for viewing the Stand Out From the Inside podcast presented by Versiti. I'm your host, Edgar Daggett. And again, I want to ask you for all of our new viewers, how do you stand out from the inside and make the most of it? Go donate blood, go host a blood drive, find out all the information that you need on versiti.org. Thank you all for joining me this evening, morning, afternoon, whatever time of the day that you're enjoying this podcast, subscribe, and we'll see you all next time.[01:07:00]

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