Let's Connect with Laura Miller

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon the MOST AMAZING community on LinkedIn.?It is a place where people connect freely, support each other, engage in posts of their new connections, help them build their profiles, find jobs, do virtual coffee chats, and create a community.?

Founded by the fantastic Victoria Tokarz, #SocialSaturday is now a force on LinkedIn. Through this community, I have met some incredible humans who deserve to be seen! Our lives would all be better by knowing a bit about them.? As a writer, I am starting my humans of LinkedIn project.

Each Friday I highlight another up-and-coming professional whom I have connected with.?I am having a blast meeting these talented people. I hope you do too!?

______________

Laura caught my attention when I first started on LinkedIn with her Let’s Talk Tuesdays. She put out a post encouraging anyone who was interested to schedule a coffee chat with her- as I am sure many of you are aware by now, I will chat with anyone! In truth, I just really love meeting new people and LinkedIn provides me with a neverending quality supply!?

I booked a call and we just couldn’t stop talking! Laura is so incredibly talented and has such amazing life stories. She is articulate, interesting, engaging, and has an incredible life story. I was only able to touch on a small part of it here.

She is an ethicist, if you are not sure what that is, keep reading! She livens up LinkedIn with her thoughtful posts about the world and how we look at it.

Without further ado, I present Laura Miller.?

Who are you??

When I was younger, I was said to have my head in the clouds. My mom recounts the story of a commercial for margarine with the tagline that said, “You can’t fool mother nature.” She asked me if I understood who mother nature was and my reply was God’s wife.?

Later, as a teenager I created art about starving children, that was so controversial – it was banned from the art competition for which I created it. I was in college, majoring in art education, before I learned about philosophy and that it was home to ethics, Unfortunately, a car accident would end my college career before I could explore all that philosophy and ethics had to offer.?

As a result of the car accident, I lost the use of my dominant side (left arm and leg). It would be years before I would recover. However, all was not lost – I learned to shoot photography onehanded. I also learned to draw with my right hand and became a certified designer using a one-handed keyboard.?

Following my recovery, I moved from NJ to IL – and took a job at State Farm, in Creative Services. I continued to shoot as I worked in design. However, even at State Farm, ethical projects appeared in the form of awareness projects coinciding with social justice issues. And I was the chosen designer for those.

A marriage and a move just outside of St. Louis led to me opening my own consultancy business focusing on cultural training materials and presentations (race, religion, cultural practices, traditional greetings, gendered interactions, etc.) for international corporations in partnership with their HR departments. That work was made available to companies in over 24 countries.?

By then, I realized that not having a degree was holding me back from positions outside of my own business. I was now a single mother and my needs had changed. I returned to school to finish the degrees that the car accidents interrupted. The only difference was that this time I would major in philosophy and embrace the studies that supported the work I’d done since my first art project was banned from competition in my teens.

During this time, I graduated summa cum laude, presented my food research at a campus symposium, was accepted into my graduate program (also in philosophy with an ethics specialty), and presented a paper idea on the right of the vulnerable to have their choices honored to a conference in Portugal.?

And throughout it all my photography was my outlet but also my teacher since I shoot struggling neighborhoods in the most dangerous areas of St. Louis.

I’ve also begun the process to address homelessness there through The Debra Project (using an AI solution) and I am partnering with the local prison to help residents there overcome their past and begin a new future. I’m writing lessons for an organization to help others teach about climate change’s impact on developing nations. Of course, I still teach (I began that when I transitioned to my master’s program and through Covid) because it allows me to challenge every person in my courses to see their world differently.?

The most unique thing about me, perhaps, is that I’ve been consistent. People matter and the world somehow misses that point. It seems my life’s work is to remind others how to value and care for the people with whom they share the world.?

Top 3 accomplishments??

1. Mosaic Café, a cafe I created on campus to help feed the students. At Mosaic I created policies that I believed the campus should implement such as no proof-of-need requirement, we included infant/childcare products from diaper ointment to formula, and we included personal hygiene products for women too. We received donations from the St. Louis Area Foodbank. It was then that Mosaic Café transitioned to Mosaic Community Center based on the needs of those I sought to help.?
2. Portugal and Dr. Jaggar (a well-known philosopher I met there) helped me to overcome imposter syndrome, in my professional life. Philosophy is the home of ethics – but also logic, rigor, discipline, critique, and it’s male-dominated. Being a woman and an ethicist, the struggle was real to be both empathetic, logical, and not devalued because my specialty was the “emotional stuff”. Jaggar helped to remind me that I had held my own against men in my field. And that I was worthy of the accolades and the conference that led me to her. She and I had the best talk that I didn’t know I needed.
3. Teaching – Imagine having deep ethical conversations about the world’s most pressing topics – with hundreds of different people every 16 weeks. Imagine how much you could learn about people and our world doing that.

Why are you on LinkedIn??

I’d love to find more ways to give back and to drive change. If you know of those opportunities, please share.

What services do you offer?

I don’t sell anything - even my services. I offer them for free to those who are interested. I mentor, do coffee chats, and find people where they are in the moment that we connect.

Favorite quote?

?Amor Fati - Love your fate. It’s not so much a quote as it is a motto. And then there’s my own – Ponytail up (I say that when I am about to do something unexpected or that others might not choose. Teaching at the prison is definitely a ponytail up example.)

Most transformation book??

Yes. All of them. If you look, you can find transformation and inspiration anywhere. I still love reading philosophy – Heidegger is a fun read. Ha!

Favorite person/guru you follow and why?

• Philosophers Martha Nussbaum, Alison Jaggar, Dr. Eric Wiland, Dr. Jill Delston and thought leaders Simon Sinek, Dorie Clark, and most recently Nate Shalev. Cinematographer – Wim Wenders

Advice you would give someone starting out on LinkedIn or in networking?

The ever-dreaded “talk to people” - in person or on Zoom or smoke signals but you have to talk. No one can help you or connect you with others, provide guidance, give insight, etc. if they don’t know who you are or what you need.

Tell me about Let’s Talk Tuesdays- what inspired you to start it and your vision for it??

This was to address the above. I couldn’t find a way to talk to people either. It was awkward and I’m a talker if you get me going. But cold starts feel awful to me, and I don’t want to feel like I’m selling myself – I’m not a car. So, Let’s Talk Tuesday was a way to connect that was low pressure and low risk but high benefit. I hope it changes the way people interact and come to know others.

3 ways we can help support you on LinkedIn??

Do good things. Be a good person. Do the best things for you and take care of yourself.