Make It Your Mission to See It a Different Way!

I’ve made it my mission to be open and insightful enough to see it both ways, and all different ways. At first, I felt this way of thinking was forced upon me, and I’m sure you do too when you’re introduced to this line of thinking, perhaps in a professional development training at work, because it takes you out of our comfort zone, and it’s unnatural.

I hated growing up interracial, and I felt it was forced upon me.

I had a White father, and a Black mother, and our father‘s family disowned us! I never had communication with the White side of our family! Plus, my father was abusive to use! I grew up in an African-American culture!??

I felt I had no choice and it was forced upon me to live interracial!??I wanted nothing more than just to be one race, and specifically, African-American!

My CHOICE was to stay in my comfort zone.

You can likely see how that mentality was skewed and flawed based of the hurt that I endured when I was younger. It’s what I saw in my home when I was growing up, and what I saw and FELT it in my community, my Baptist church, at cookouts, all the above. I was not even “accepted” by most Black people in my community because they saw me as trying to be “better than them” because of my skin color!

I had to grow out of that limited view, and way of thinking because that was going to destroy all sorts of opportunities as my perspective would be skewed with lack, scarcity, and fear.

Thankfully, with the work I’ve done on my self, I was able to get married to the love of my life, who is White, and I’ve experienced several opportunities in my work because of the work I do on myself. And with the work that I CONTINUE to do on myself,??I’ve remained married for 26 years.

Now, I teach corporate leaders, corporate women, and organizations, how they can personally make it their mission, too!!!

Evidence of my continued work was experienced last night.

I attended my husband’s country club's 50th anniversary of their summer golf outing. It’s a great time for members of the golf club, to bring their friends, family members, as their golf partners to participate with them in the Golf league.

My son, and my husband, enjoyed a wonderful time. Plus, the next day was Father’s Day - pretty special time.

The culmination of the golf tournament is a gathering of everyone, their spouses, and any other guest the golf members would like to bring to a dinner celebration.

It was a great time. seeing friends, and enjoying a great meal, and celebrating those who participated in the golf tournament.

However, not surprisingly, I was the only, “seemingly,” person of color, besides the wait staff and our kids) who were there.

I say, seemingly, because my eyes can’t see all the diversity there, but the hue of the skin often gives away to the depth of diversity!

Years ago, that would make me so angry, and, I would just stew in it. I would often isolate myself, and not even have conversations with people.

But, over the years, I have come to realize just how difficult it is for ANYONE to step outside of their comfort zone and create friends with people that they do not look like you, act like, share jokes that they would understand, listen to the same types of movies, music, all the above … just people that are different than you

And can you blame them, right?

When it comes time for you to relax and enjoy some downtime, you just want to be around people that are easy to be around!

So, you can understand, in the workplace, how difficult it is for people to EASILY join teams with an open mind, work on innovation, enjoy time with them to create places of belonging, inclusion, and even diversity.

The reason is, these types of environments are CREATED by each person doing their own individual work.??Otherwise, bringing a trainer in or having a leader teach this in your organization feels unnatural, forced, and just fake - like checking a box.

Trainers and leaders need to equip employees with tools, strategies, and tips to work on themselves, to help them create a level of acceptance within themselves FIRST, before they can be accepting of others.        

Then, equip with the right tools to become open and insightful, employees can make it their mission to have this line of thinking, and not have it forced upon them. This is a process, and it takes consistent effort l to build this type of culture!!!

If your organization is interested in this type of training - helping your employees create their own mission statement, to be open enough and insightful enough to think differently, and see things differently, contact me, go to risewithdiana.com!