CEO
Ashley Brundage (AB) 0:01 Because if you’re going to be driving empowerment for socio-economic class, as someone who was homeless for a year and a half, I surely wanted some socio-economic class empowerment, and I had to be strategic about how I was going to get that. But if you’re going to be driving empowerment for someone’s socio-economic class, that’s a different type of empowering action than if you want to do gender empowerment. And doing gender empowerment requires different actions than if you want to do racial empowerment. Those are different actions as well. And if you’re going to be doing communicational empowerment, right, because people speak different languages, well, that’s a different type of empowering action as well. And obviously, you need to know exactly which action you should be doing based on the empowerment that you want to be providing for yourself and others. And so the ultimate dichotomy here is whether you are disempowered or empowered. If you’re disempowered, then that means you need to be focusing on self-empowerment for those differences. So you need to be doing the actions for yourself and for self-empowerment.
Jolene Mei (JM) 1:10 Hello, everyone. This is Jolene Mei, your host for the DIVERSEEK podcast, where we talk with real people doing real work in the diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging space. If you want to explore what people are doing right, what positive impacts are happening, or even how positive changes can be done, you’re in the right place. We welcome you to join us.
Today we have Ashley Brundage with us. Ashley is a speaker, author, founder, and president of Empowering Differences and a well-loved keynote speaker. She is passionate about the empowerment of people and our differences. Ashley founded Empowering Differences in 2011 when she recognized the need for leadership-based training to empower people and drive organizations to see measured impacts. Ashley and her team provide training and development for leadership programs based on the 10 empowering actions and the 10 empowering differences. In 2021, Ashley and the Empowering Differences four-step empowerment process was used to win Linkage’s Executive Impact Award and the Stevie Awards Global Social Impact Gold Stevie for the LGBTI community. In 2022, Ashley received a Gold Stevie Award again, the 2022 Visibility Award from the National LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce, and was congratulated by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for her recognition by the Florida Commission on the Status of Women Spirit of Community Award. Ashley has been described as a dynamic, insightful expert on how to empower differences in the workplace, hailed as among the absolute best public speakers, electrifying and simply inspiring. Ashley is also a mother of two teenage boys. Without further ado, welcome, Ashley. I’m excited to talk to you today, learn more about your background, and yeah, just welcome.
Ashley Brundage 2:56 Oh my gosh, I’m so excited to be here. Thank you for inviting me, and it’s really neat that we connected in a non-traditional connection way that was very popular when we were all stuck at home.
JM 3:07 Yes, yes. I was like, Yeah, I think I saw your profile. And I was like, Yeah, I’m just gonna message her. We’ll see what’s gonna happen, yeah,
AB 3:12 Hopefully someone from her team will message her, and then I’ll actually get to reach her. Yes.
JM 3:17 And it was, you know, it was so fast. You’re just like, on top of it, you know. But without further ado, I just wanted to ask more about your background. I know we said some things in your intro. There’s a lot there. You’ve done so much great work, and honestly, just reading about the experiences people had attending your talks, I could tell that, you know, you bring this energy with you to public speaking. So just, you know, gonna give the floor to you to talk about your background and you know, what’s brought you to where you are today?
AB 3:45 So I have actually overcome homelessness for a year and a half. I’ve overcome harassment, discrimination. I live in the world as my authentic self, which includes me using she/her pronouns as a proud, out woman of transgender experience. I got a job as a part-time bank teller after transitioning my gender, and when I realized that while moving through employment and trying to grow in my career, a lot of people immediately thought that my gender differences were the items that needed the most empowerment, but it really was my socio-economic class. It was my religious differences, it was my physical ability, because I have three hidden disabilities. It was empowering those differences that actually was the biggest thing that I needed the most support for along my journey. And I decided to not just empower those ones where I was disempowered, but I also worked to empower my differences for other people, because there were differences that I held on to that were already empowered, like race and my ethnicity. And so realizing that if you are empowered for any one of your differences, you could be driving empowerment for other people, thus ultimately empowering yourself by being a good human. And so I started working as a part-time bank teller at PNC Bank. And then in four years, I went from part-time bank teller to being a full-time teller, then a banker, then a senior banker, then a business banker, then an investment banker, and then ultimately, I became the National Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. And I built a whole career surrounding connecting my research on differences and empowerment and brought that to my work as a DEI person. And this was, of course, well before DEI became very problematic communicational items when we’re talking about for people. And so that led me to, you know, to doing that work which was really connected to the research that I was already working on for my own company. And then eventually my research and my company overtook my career development, and I became full-time in my working in my company as the third employee of my company, which is kind of fun as well. And I’ve been doing that ever since, and cultivating relationships with organizations, helping them better understand empowerment, measuring people’s empowerment. These are all the things that are incredibly important to the development of all the people.
JM 6:39 Definitely, and I’m excited to talk about those little things that you shared, the little seeds you shared in your response. And, you know, just listening to you, I just got this feeling of like, you know, everything happens for a reason, and I think that you’re a great example of that. Like, where you’ve come has really built you to where you are today, and just capitalizing on your situation and who you are and the little unique differences that you have as a person, and how that’s, you know, translated to what you’re doing today. So that’s so cool to hear and learn more about you. And I know that there’s so much more we haven’t talked about today because we are going to be talking about, you know, empowering differences, your process and stuff. But yeah, just thanks so much for, you know, opening up and sharing about your journey, because I think that is important, especially today, for today’s conversation. So I know this next question might seem a little basic, but I still believe there is an audience out there who would benefit from this, because it’s good to talk about just differences. So, you know, phase one, first base. How would you define differences?
Ashley Brundage 7:39 I love this question, because honestly, the reason we call it differences is strategic in nature, because the word diversity is evoking lots of problematic responses from some people in the world, which is really ironic, because if someone were to Google the word diversity, you would magically find some sort of definition that says the presence of differences that make us each unique. And the really funny thing about that concept, and the fact that diversity is differences and uniqueness, is that there are, right on approximately 8.5 billion different people on the planet, and no two people are alike. Even sometimes twins are born as identical twins, but yet they are not 100% alike. They have different wants, different needs, different desires. They might take different grades on a test, they might communicate differently. They might use different sentences, different words, they might speak a different language. They very well could walk differently. They could, you know, all of the things that bring us as different humans. They could have a different religion, right? They could have a different sexuality. And I think that this is what’s lost sometimes when we think about differences in lieu of diversity, right? This is why we try to always think about the word differences, because that’s not a problematic word. You could walk up to anyone. You could be at a Trump rally or a Biden rally, or wherever you are in the world of politics, right? You could be at any one of those rallies and talk up, walk up to somebody and say, “Hey, are you different from this person sitting next to you?” And they will totally agree, right? They will totally agree. But if you said, “Hey, by the way, are you diverse?” Then they’re going to be like, “I don’t we don’t follow that word.” Or, “No, I don’t think I am.” Or, “Yes, I am.” You may hear, right, a differing opinion. And so this is why the word choices you choose are so important, and how you brand and market what it is that you’re going to be doing, how you’re creating a platform to help people is so important. All of these things come up to why communication is their make or break moment so many times in the world.
JM 10:00 Agreed. And, you know, great response for the times of today and where, you know, rhetoric and politics sometimes take different words and semantics. You know, it’s good for us to just be aware so that we can better understand each other. And that’s up to you. That’s up to every individual person, how they want to speak, how they want to communicate. You know, I just like going back to the core of just differences. I thought that was interesting to see. And you know, for anybody, I think when people hear diversity, they automatically think like race and religion.
AB 10:30 Well, depending where you are in the world, right? Because if you’re in America, yeah, race and then gender. If you’re in Europe, it’s gender and LGBTQI rights. And then depending upon if you move into other parts of the world, then you’re going to get a different response on what is diversity, right? And that response differs based on the priority of the region and who lives in the region, and how much efficacy or advocacy is being done for the people who are different.
Jolene Mei 11:03 Agreed totally, and it’s great to have that. Thank you for sharing that global perspective. By the way, you know, like the demographical differences that we might be hearing and associating or hearing different words. So next question, I’m curious about your answer for this one. So where do you see individual differences and empowerment intersect? And I know we’re probably going to talk a little bit more about that today, but there you go, giving it the mic now. Yeah.
Ashley Brundage 11:26 I mean, the intersection point between the two is where all the emotion lives. You know, part of my research was asking three questions to more than 1000 people around the world. Question one was, what is empowerment? And the reason we were very vague. We gave a short-form answer field as well because we didn’t want to give people too much of a paragraph to write. And when we asked the people, what is empowerment to them? Well, 85% of the people told us something that was very emotionally charged in nature right off the gate. They said that empowerment was communication, saying, I love you to someone, saying please, saying thank you, showing empathy, validation, trust, understanding. A free mom hug was one of the responses we got of what is empowerment. And we realized that the most common types of answers were emotionally charged things that people connected to themselves. For the rest of the answers, the 15% of the answers were emotionally responded, but their emotions came through with something that had a measured impact or measured value first. So they said, Well, when we said, What is empowerment? They said, Oh, empowerment is a billion dollars in my bank account. Or empowerment is not having to work any days of the week or having double the amount of vacation days so I could spend time on my family. Right? The meaning behind the things that were controlling them, or the things that had the emotional control over them. And this process of whether something is emotionally driven or not, it’s applicable to all people, even somebody maybe that is a narcissist or someone that showcases no emotion in the world, it’s still emotionally driving them. It’s just driving them through the data or through the number. That’s how they’re driven. And so realizing that people all around the world are all emotionally, 100% emotionally affected by empowerment, it really comes into this is why my research intersects those two words. Because the second question we asked people around the world was, what about you? Limits your ability to have more empowerment? And of course, right? The answers we got were wide-ranging here as well, but we were able to put all of those answers into the 10 categories that sparked the 10 differences that we have as humans. And what we found actually some of the unique data insights from our research was that 63% of the people in the world, when we asked them, what’s limiting their ability to have more empowerment, they told us that it was something that they took ownership of with some sort of I statement, meaning I didn’t speak enough languages, I didn’t go to enough college. I didn’t go to I didn’t get the best grades in college, or I didn’t work to take the right kind of classes, right? Or I haven’t worked out enough to lose weight, or I need to have more confidence, or I, right? It was all of these types of I statements that people were saying 63% and actually 37% of the people blamed society. As the thing that was impacting them, which is not false in many ways, if that’s how someone feels. But of course, there are systemic disadvantages for marginalized identity groups or historically marginalized identity groups, and how they access resources to drive themselves having more empowerment. So this is why these two words come together, because the intersection really is up to each independent person based on their perception. So if you’re listening right now, think about what is your perception of your reality about your empowerment, and how your empowerment is impacting your differences. Because whatever that is that is 100% up to you. No expert in the entire world can tell you what empowerment means to you or how your differences are impacting it because only you know that. And that’s why this is so important, and that’s why that’s the ultimate intersection between my research.
JM 16:04 So interesting to see the interaction of what is lived and the perception of thought process of empowerment to get there, right? So like what our situation is, and what individual differences and uniqueness we’re bringing to the table, and how that affects how we’re thinking about empowerment too. So super interesting to hear about that. Curious. I don’t know if I’m framing this question right, so you tell me when we’re talking about empowerment. You told me a lot about really interesting data points through your four-step process of empowerment, where we will, you know, dive into that. But like, how are you looking at, like, the growth or measuring that empowerment through those steps? Or how are we talking about it with the people, for them to check back on it, yeah,
AB 16:42 One that actually stems from the last question we asked people in our global research study, because I did say it was three questions. The third question was, what do you do to actually drive empowerment for people? And so by asking people that question, we got a litany of answers all over the things from, “Oh, well, I got a scholarship,” or “Oh, I got a mentor,” or “Oh, I went back and took our classes. I learned another language.” Right? So people talked about all the things that they were doing to impact people themselves included, obviously, because self-empowerment has to happen before you can start empowering others. If you’re disempowered, it’s very sometimes very difficult to drive empowerment for people. So really, that’s what came from that was the 10 empowering actions came from that last question. So we landed on the 10 differences from question two, and then question three gave us the 10 actions. And obviously, we got way more than 10 answers. We got 1000 answers, but ultimately, we stemmed all of the answers into what became the 10 actions. And there is lots of things to unpack within each of the 10, the learning curriculum surrounding each of the 10 actions. You know, just because one of them is mentor does not mean that, okay, that means I should just be a mentor. No, you have to understand that if you want to make an action an empowering action, this is different than just an action. An empowering action requires you to know what is making it empowering? How is it empowering? You have to be able to know the three parts of what is empowerment in order to do that. And so from our research, from the question one, the what is empowerment to people, right? We know that the emotional side is 85% of whatever that answer is. So we call that the authority, and then the 15% is the power. And so power parts of empowerment usually have some kind of metric attached to it, right? Luckily for you and I, we’re recording this podcast that you’re listening to together. The three of us, okay, are all in an environment where we have some sort of powered-up device that’s connected to an internet, device that’s connected somewhere, and it’s being tracked, right? You know exactly on your iPhone, or whatever phone you are listening to us on, like I have 67% power, it’s being tracked every moment you know exactly what you have. You could go right outside in the building you’re in right now, and you could go to the power supply, and you’ll see a little thing ticking on it, and it’s counting kilowatts, probably, and it’s being measured. It’s always being measured, right? Because those things are so easy to measure. So you could also measure the things that you do to drive empowerment for people as well. So if you are going to do mentorship, being the first example, right? If you’re going to do mentor me, you’re going to be a mentor. And obviously, that goes both ways. That means you need to be able to communicate. How is this emotionally affecting me and the other people involved? What are the metrics surrounding the mentorship? I.e., how many times, how many meetings, how many people? Did someone get a promotion? Did someone how much more money did someone make because you were mentoring them and guiding them on the process? Did you help the nonprofit organization raise more money? All of these things matter. And then the last piece, the three parts of empowerment, authority, power, and the last one is people. So the people are the easiest one, because you should be able to put someone’s name there on that list, and by putting their name on the list, now we know that this is someone we’re connected through empowerment together, and you can remember that really easily, especially if you’re driving right now, you could be like, it’s the app of empowerment, A, P, P, authority, power, people. You don’t have to download it. You don’t need internet. Doesn’t need to be tracked. It’s operating in every single communicational conversation you have with other humans on the planet. And then you know that there should be some sort of empowerment happening.
JM 20:57 What a great answer. I was like, when you’re talking about the charging. I’m like, looking at my current charging status, and I feel kind of like, invincible right now, because I’m like, 100% and currently charging over here, at least in the technology space. So, yeah, okay. Thank you so much for that. That was really interesting. I’m curious to get into the nitty-gritty and the little details and examples we have for today in our questions that we have lined up. You started talking about the actions, the empowering actions. But before that, let’s go back to the four-step process. So I wanted to give you room to talk about that, because I know that’s really important and pretty big. So go ahead and talk us through what that is for you and your program.
Ashley Brundage 21:33 Yeah, definitely. And so obviously, knowing what empowerment means to you is a big part of this. And so that’s why Step one is to know yourself. So we often say, hey, you know what? Find the coolest, greatest mirror somewhere in the house. And if you don’t have one, just turn your camera on and your phone, right? And just, you know, put it on selfie mode. If you need to put it on selfie mode, put it on selfie mode, right, and look in the mirror. And obviously, when you look in the mirror, start to ask yourself open-ended, emotionally intelligent-based questions. So for the show notes, we’ll supply the link, and you can go in and check it out. But we have a 21-question empowerment self-assessment questionnaire form. You go right on our site, you can download it for free. It doesn’t cost you any actual empowered resource, treasured, measured resource of money, because you’re going to invest the treasured resource of your time to ask yourself questions about your own emotional intelligence and, obviously, about what in the three questions, those are three of the 21 questions that we just talked about from our research. So you’ll be able to answer those questions. You’ll be able to answer other questions about how your differences really impact your lived experience because that can set you up to know exactly whether you’re disempowered or empowered for any one of your differences that you have. Because that’s, of course, going to be a question we’re going to ask you to put a numeric value for your empowerment. And so step two is to know others. This is where you learn about the differences that we have as humans. Hopefully, you’ve garnered some emotional intelligence in step one to see that, hey, wait a minute, maybe there are people that are different than me, but this is a great time for you to realize that there are people that are different, and then maybe you actually might have to work a little bit harder to open up your sphere to meet people who might be different. And then this helps to build more emotional intelligence, but it also helps to connect you to the reality of the world. And the reality of the world is that you are different, right, from the 7.499999 other true billion people on the planet, right? And so navigating those differences and seeing how you are different from other people helps you in this framework. Now we provide our resource for that is the best-selling, award-winning book that I authored, called Empowering Differences, trying to make things super easy for you to remember them. It’s called all the resources are called Empowering Differences because I actually interviewed 15 people from our initial research study, and you hear about how they drove empowerment for their differences that they have. So you get to learn a little bit about their 10 differences as well, which is exciting. And then step three is to develop your strategy. And developing a strategy is never easy, of course. And so one of the things that we try to do is help people measure their empowering differences, because this will help you to decipher whether you’re disempowered at zero or you’re empowered at 100 that’s our scale that we use for our company, is pick the number between zero and 100 for your 10 dimensions of differences, those 10 empowering differences, and from there, we’ll give you a pathway towards which actions you should be focusing on for your empowering differences and empowering actions. Because if you’re going to be driving empowerment for socio-economic class, as someone who was homeless for a year and a half, I surely wanted some socio-economic class empowerment, and I had to be strategic about how I was going to get that. But if you’re going to be driving empowerment for someone’s socio-economic class, that’s a different type of empowering action than if you want to do gender empowerment. And doing gender empowerment requires different actions than if you want to do racial empowerment, those are different actions as well. And if you’re going to be doing communicational empowerment, right, because people speak different languages, well, that’s a different type of empowering action as well. And obviously you need to know exactly which action you should be doing based on the empowerment that you want to be providing for yourself and others, and so the ultimate dichotomy here is whether you are disempowered or empowered. If you’re disempowered, then that means you need to be focusing on self-empowerment for those differences. So you need to be doing the actions for yourself and for self-empowerment. And if you are empowered, then that means you should be doing those empowering actions for other people’s differences, so that that way, you’re making the world better, hopefully. So those are the four steps, know yourself, know others, develop your strategy, and then the empowering actions is the last step.
JM 26:38 That makes a lot of sense, yeah, when you put it that way, yes, no, that’s so great. You know, it’s interesting that you were saying that because, you know, I myself, how I was taking that in was like, currently I’m in the era of empowering myself so that I can better empower others. And sometimes that waxes and wanes, right? Sometimes I’m like, Oh, I’m great. Let me go help you, my loved one over here. And then sometimes I’m like, I think I need to spend more time with myself, you know, so things happen, right? Especially during the pandemic. That was like something that I’m like, I was realizing for myself during that time. So, you know, hearing you is so interesting. I know I’m just applying it to a personal case, but I’m so curious to see how that’s been put and applied in the professional space and workplaces.
AB 27:17 It’s interconnected, right? Because your personal life always is part of your work life. Yes, you could separate. You could set the bags down when you walk in, but you’re still the same you no matter what you go through. So it’s important to know that these things are interconnected. And so when you’re focusing on an empowerment journey, it affects your career. It affects your personal life as well. All of that is interconnected. And also one more point too, is that the four steps are not static. You could be doing them, you know, and you could be working on all of them, and then all of a sudden, something happens, and you’re like, oh, maybe I should go back to step one, right? Because remember, your 10 differences, most of them can change every single second. I don’t know about you, right? But my abilities and my attributes, my weight never stays the same. It changes every day. Okay? My hair starts getting these things that look like blonde hairs, but some people may know that they’re gray hairs, but they’re blonde on me, so it’s all good, right? So, you know, my age changes every second. I haven’t figured out how to stop aging. Okay? If someone has, please definitely message, message us, so that way we can be ahead of the curve on that, right? So you’re thinking that just those, those are just two. Your socio-economic class changes every second also because you’re either spending money or earning money every second that you’re on the planet, so your status is changing every moment as well. In that scenario, obviously language that can change every second too. If you chose to learn a new word every day, potentially, right? You could change that. You could change your education every single moment of every day. Am I learning something new every single day? And obviously there are some that don’t change ethnicity and race, and then there are some that people can argue whether or not they can be changed, right? Sexuality, gender, religion, right? I can tell you that I’ve transitioned my religion three times, but my gender only once. So, you know, in this grand scheme of things, the differences, please remember that they’re not static. You are not tied to the same differences that you have as a human. You can evolve, and they can change over time based on how much work and emotional intelligence you put into step one and two.
JM 29:37 Yes, and speaking of that, that goes well with my next question because I was curious that in your work with others during Step one, know yourself, like, can you share a time where you saw someone that came to maybe, like, an enlightening finding about themselves? I was just curious if you’ve come across that.
Ashley Brundage 29:52 Well, I mean, I have, like, personal stuff from people I’m personally connected to, but we actually, as an organization, we don’t collect any data or any information about step one on purpose because it’s so crucial to keep that confidential. People’s empowerment and their perception of it and their perception of their own self is so revered, and if you are collecting that information as an organization or a corporation or any entity, you’re not going to get a trust level factor that’s really necessary in an empowerment journey for people. So we tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to that because we don’t want to make that a public cry or a public promotion, either angle.
JM 30:37 Yeah, that’s really interesting and totally understandable, for sure. So I guess, like, for you, then you know, what was something that you found that was enlightening when you were doing step one or something you want to share about that?
AB 30:46 Yeah. I mean, for me, yes, I can definitely share mine. But my mine was really kind of like the aha moment for me was when I started, I was actually working on developing these questions, really as more of a transgender empowerment program, actually. And trying to empower gender is kind of how this started. And then I started realizing that the implications of looking at these questions, I started to realize that it wasn’t just about one of my differences, that all of them mattered, and for me, that was kind of like that moment that I said, Oh my gosh, wait a minute. Why am I short-sighting my own self? And this is a very common thing that happens from my research in relation to women. Women, oftentimes we tend to see and things and minimize our efforts in some ways, or only try to put it in one box, when in actuality, really it could be so much more beneficial in a larger scale for people.
Jolene Mei 31:48 That’s so true. Thanks for sharing that. That was good, and you’ve talked a lot about the empowering actions, so wanted to make sure to talk about that. Tell us more about the 10 empowering actions as well.
Ashley Brundage 31:57 Yeah, so obviously the 10 actions all connect people through their differences and driving impacts for others. So each one is kind of a different learning framework. So empower is the action that helps you to track and measure your own empowerment and being as a connected person to others and some more historically marginalized identity groups really have to focus on this action first because it’s a way of providing this as a value to the people who don’t believe that that they exist, or don’t believe that there’s an issue, right? You know, a.k.a. systemic racism is real, and especially in America, right? If you look at the marginalization and acquiring of wealth right around the fact that white people could own property and nicer areas, waterfronts and other areas of America, whereas black people weren’t allowed to and men could own businesses, but women were not allowed to own businesses and acquire wealth from owning businesses. And you look at, you know, the length and average cycle of a woman-owned business versus a male-owned business, right? And seeing that, right, and obviously these are kind of systemic oppression stuff that exists, and having that general awareness is why empower is so important. Inspire is the communicational driven action, and that’s where we learn about how to make empowering communication this one really is the top action for language empowerment, but it obviously ranks high for a lot of the empowering differences that we have as humans. Educate is the top statistical empowering action in the whole framework, right? Because every single person, every moment of every day, has a learning opportunity. And so educate isn’t just go out and learn something as the framework of how to make education educate, how to educate in an empowering way. So people learn that intersection of those two items. Inclusion is one of the actions. I had a long debate about how to frame this, because I didn’t necessarily want to use the word inclusion because it’s been looped in with the word diversity as a bad word, but it was the most economical way of making it only 10 actions because we looped in, belonging, culture, representation, inclusion, all together. And so that action obviously teaches all of those constructs as a learning framework. Then we have motivate, which is, of course, a self-driven action. So like, if someone ever brands themselves as a motivational speaker, please run the other direction because motivation lives in the eye of the beholder. And so that action is all about self-motivation and all self-preservation and connectivity. It teaches lots about ways to connect motivation for yourself, to fire yourself up, and gain amplification if need be. So as we move through each of the actions, right, you’ll see that there’s kind of always a theme developing here, that each one has that connection of empowerment with the action. Invest is another one of the actions. That one teaches about, obviously, time, treasure, talent, but also around financial investments, because for marginalized identity groups, right? So obviously, you know, invest is a high-level one for socio-economic class empowerment, and then just kind of bouncing off influence is another one of the empowering actions. That’s the one that is about branding and marketing yourself. So like, if you were going to be building a resume or going through a job hunt or trying to do career development that’s going to be a really top high, a high action for you and your empowering journey. But another one that’s really fun is access. And so access is the top empowering action for abilities and attributes because access teaches people about accessibility and equity. So if you’re wanting more of the DEI, the E free for a DEI lives in my program. It lives within access because creating access points is how you can actually address inequitable situations for people. That’s a big part of that program. Plus also networking is a big part of that program as well. And then one of the last actions that we have as an empowering action is enlighten. And enlighten actually is the top action for religious differences that we have as a human, religious or lack thereof because you could also be atheist and be a part of that program because everyone has a religion or lack thereof on the planet. So it’s important to understand that that difference is a difference that you have for everybody on the planet, and can make a huge impact when you start to realize that you know your coworker could be Christian, your other coworker could be Jewish, like me. And so realizing that those differences matter and how you have to be able to work together in your journey is so important. So this module really teaches validation is the ultimate goal that that module teaches so each one kind of stems around ways to build connectivity, but we took all the learning from our research to really apply it so other people could understand the connection point of an action, right? These actions and empower because you have to be able to make them an empowering action. So it has to be connected to people.
JM 37:34 Wow, I think you did an awesome job going through all of the like, really interesting interconnectedness of the program that you have, right with the four-step process, what that means for each individual person is not the same experience for every person. And then talking about the 10 empowering actions I could really see, you know, when I was listening to you, I was thinking about how I apply that in my everyday, you know, just bringing those up. So that was super interesting for me. And the enlightening part, I’m like, Oh, that’s really interesting. I didn’t holistically think about all these little things that you brought up. So that was really interesting and aware. It brought more awareness to me for today. So yeah,
AB 38:10 Actually, I started the interfaith employee resource group, and was part of the group that started that. And, yeah, I mean, not every company talks about that and doesn’t always make that part of the discussion, but it’s really important. And obviously the only other one I didn’t mention was mentor because I had mentioned that one earlier.
JM 38:33 Yes. And also, these are all on your website as well when I was doing research, so you guys will put a plug in the show notes. You guys have that there as well. We talked a lot about just all the good stuff that you have in your program and your step process, and where that connects with the person. So I wanted to end this on a more personal note. I wanted to ask you, you know, what’s an empowering action that’s on your mind today for you to do? And also, like, you know, is there a time that you received like empowerment from other people? So I wanted to ask that first,
Ashley Brundage 39:07 Yeah. I mean, obviously, I think a lot about the empowering actions and how I can drive empowerment for others. You know, I obviously love them all right? Because I’m not the one that created the program, right? But I took it from what people told, you know, told me was important, and then I just kind of framed that, especially having been a DEI person at a big bank. I’d probably say the one that I think is the most impactful for today, in this moment, is and now that there are some that are better than others, I think that most of the people understand that they need to learn something, and this is probably why you’re listening to the podcast now, right? Because you gotta educate, you get it. So since you’re here, I’d probably definitely expand upon access as a point of reference. People who are suffering, people who don’t have access to resources, this is the action that can ultimately make a difference. Think about like tomorrow. Think about who you can create an access point for, and if that means you’re going to make a strategic introduction for someone, you’re going to use a contact in your database to, you know, to champion for a social issue. That’s you creating access for someone. Maybe you’re gonna bring them to a meeting. You know, maybe you only got one ticket to an event, but you call the organizers and you say, “Hey, I have someone that really should get a scholarship.” You know, these are perfect examples. I mean, I host an annual convention on a cruise ship. It’s not the most inclusive place to host a conference, but I make sure that if someone really wanted to be there, they would have an access point to be there, because I do scholarships, right? I make an investment, and I create an access point for anyone to potentially be on that ship. And every year, it’s always a few people who have never been on a cruise, or never would even be in a situation to be on a cruise, and then they’re there. And in actuality, those people end up giving some of my other attendees, the most educational information they would ever realize. I mean, as a homeless person, I can tell you, like the things that I did to survive, to make ends meet, no one else would have ever even thought about using some of those pathways. And you can really learn something from someone who’s in a different systemic position than you. And that’s what I would say, because the world is built on people who have systemic access and people who don’t. People who don’t, they want to be in that category most of the time. So in that scenario, when you can actually help somebody along that journey, that’s so empowering.
JM 41:51 Yeah, and going back to inspiration, I’m feeling very inspired by that response. Okay, so we are changing the diversity signature question. It’s kind of funny though, because I feel like you kind of answered it with your previous response. But just in case, there’s probably another there’s probably another answer in there. So our new question is, when was the last time that you realized a challenge was also an opportunity for growth? And again, I felt like you kind of answered this one, but I’m sure…
AB 45:27 Yeah, no, I think that every day should be a challenge and every day should be an opportunity for growth. You know, I’ve been presented with opportunities to grow my brand even larger than it already is and oftentimes, you know, if you want to put yourself out there even more, you know, there’s a weight that comes on that, and you have to balance that every day. So, you know, I often think that going back to the four steps right as remember that you could be already on step four of doing actions for people, and then something can change in your life, and then all of a sudden, you need to go back to step one and reevaluate where you are in the world. And I think that that’s probably the biggest thing that I’ve learned as a takeaway, is don’t be afraid to go back to step one. Don’t feel like you failed. Okay, because you could be at step one, but be working, you know, and going back to work on yourself. So you’re even stronger again when you start empowering others through the four steps. And sometimes, sometimes every other week, I might go back to step one just to reevaluate where I stand and what has changed about my position? Because as my company grows, as the revenue grows, as my follower count changes every single week, these things matter, and it always gives you an opportunity to go back and reset to where you are in the world. And resetting to where you are in the world is an opportunity that you should seize as often as you can, whatever you have time for, make sure that it’s something that you have time for, because if it’s just, you know, lip service and stuff like that, then that’s not going to be really beneficial to your ultimate message. So taking that step and realizing what’s changed about your position, because it changes all the time. I’m telling you, I’m really serious, and your empowerment is tied to your existence of how you perceive yourself. It’s mostly, in my opinion, is largely connected to your perception of your confidence and how you frame yourself and how you communicate to others.
JM 47:40 I love that. Reset to where you are in the world. Love that. Thank you so much. Yeah, it’s huge. You know, I was thinking, I actually just came back from a camping trip, and I did a lot of that, you know, I was like, resetting where am I at? I’m just gonna enjoy the little things today.
AB 47:56 Some people use yoga for that too, and other connected. I’ve been studying a lot, a lot about Asian culture and Buddhism and peace and serenity and breath work. These things can be very powerful in how you center yourself and really also motivate yourself as those, those are big parts of the motivate, empowering action.
JM 48:21 I will also encourage the yoga thing, because yoga, every time I do yoga, I’m always like, man, it’s going to take 10 minutes, but then after I do it, I feel so much more productive the rest of the day. I feel so much more satisfied the rest of the day. So yeah, thank you so much again for being here, existing in the space, sharing your perspective, your journey, the program, your creations, and how they’re all interconnected to who we are as people, and what that means for what happens for those around us. So yeah, just thank you so much for being here and sharing everything today.
AB 49:09 My pleasure.
JM 49:11 Thank you for joining us today. As we continue to explore how we can enable diversity at work, follow us and get notified of our latest episodes. Also, we want to hear from you. Please like rate and review us on your podcast app or wherever you’re listening in. If you want to contact us, please visit diverseek.com – that is d i v e r s e e k.com. This episode was produced by Madhu Nair, edited by Cansin Dalak, researched by Jolene Mei, music composed by Nicholas Lang and our production team includes Keisha Williams, Prashant Balbar, and Maria Querina. I am your host Jolene Mei and you have been listening to DIVERSEEK.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Diverseek serves as a platform for meaningful conversations, education, and advocacy surrounding issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace.