“In a world that tells us to whisper, I choose to yell.”
Luvvie Ajayi Jones, TEDTALK
If there’s one thing I love to do while I drink my coffee and set my intentions for the day, it’s to watch and jot down mind maps on TedTalk’s (I’ve attached my mind map below). I’ve been trying to choose speakers and their topics that relate to what we are learning in E&I. For the past couple years I’ve been focused on how I can improve my speaking in order to confidently show up for whatever situation I’m in. I hope you get the chance to watch Luvvie speak. I hope her words inspire you as much I as they did for me.
You guys know by now that I’m a huge fan of Marie Forleo and her YouTube challenge. Luuvie was a guest speaker on her show as well and the duo is amazing. I highly recommend watching this video as a follow up to the TedTalk.
How have I deepened my understanding of secondary and market research?
I have deepened my understanding of secondary and market research by re-watching the learning tool kit video’s has significantly helped me gain an understanding of the two types. This past week my team and I gained much needed evidence by conducting initial interviews with one of the co-owners of the business we are consulting and also with other local business owners. After the secondary research we started conducting market research on what we were hearing in the interviews. I hope to continue to learn about the different types and phases of research as we progress forward.
How have I deepened my understanding of empathy and customer discovery?
I have deepened my understanding of empathy and customer discovery by ACTION. The more we talk with our client, customers and other business owners the more I practice empathy. So in the case with VP2 I began the interview thinking I had an idea of what the clients pains would be but after practicing empathy and appreciative type interviews I was able to hear THEIR pains. Rather than responding with sympathy I practiced responding with, “Tell me more.” And that has been the key ingredient to really gaining customer discovery and connection as we continue to build our relationship and come up with innovative solutions.
What resonated with me in Oscar Edwards storytelling workshop?
“Speak more from the heart than the head.”
Oscar Edward’s Workshop to E&I, April 19th, 2021
This is a HUGE question with an even bigger needed response and I personally feel that it should have been a prompt that was asked to answer for the entirety of a blog post. I have mixed feelings on how E&I followed up with Oscar’s POWERFUL and NEEDED workshop.
This workshop brought about a lot of emotions for me and the realities of what was being said and not being said especially among my peers. When we were in our breakout groups, while there were some great vulnerable and brave voices that spoke up, the majority were silent. I understand that there was silence because maybe they had never been asked to address discrimination or truly weren’t aware of when discrimination could have been happening but I was shocked. When I probably should not have been shocked.
I am EXTREMELY grateful that Meg and the E&I community brought Oscar to lead a workshop. I think a follow up of this workshop would have been really meaningful and important next time tho. It seems that we had the workshop and then nothing else was said….
I read a book this summer called, me & white supremacy by Layla F. Saad which I would highly recommend reading. I have included a summary below:
“Based on the original workbook, Me and White Supremacy leads readers through a journey of understanding their white privilege and participation in white supremacy, so that they can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on Black, Indigenous and People of Color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too. The book goes beyond the original workbook by adding more historical and cultural contexts, sharing moving stories and anecdotes, and includes expanded definitions, examples, and further resources.” Me And White Supremacy (meandwhitesupremacybook.com)
It is not an easy read because it’s not supposed to be easy. Have you heard of Layla’s workbook on healing racism?
You, yourself, must be true and prepare the energy and effort in healing racism.
Oscar edward’s true storytelling workshop
How might I apply this week’s learning’s to my venture?
“Everything is a no unless they have said yes explicitly.”
Johnathan and Rebecca during 4/21 class lecture
What I really hope to apply to VP2 is something that Johnathan mentioned in lecture about during the ideation process there is going to be a lot of no’s and those no’s are the aim. Without the courage to go for no’s how would one come to find those explicitly yes solutions and offerings? I like this because it gives me space to be really creative striving for progress not perfection.
Other, but very relevant content:
The format for how I set my intentions each morning! 
An example 🙂
E&I Goals:
1.Begin Change Leadership by 4/26
2. More market research on how a Virtural Assistant could benefit our client.
3. Develop and ideate on a more concrete prototype
Personal Goals:
1.Start building a circle of strong women who also want to lift and create non-silenced lives.
2.I have an interview for my dream job in Atlanta for the summer and I want to be prepared and open going into the interview.
3.Say yes to two things I’ve been avoiding due to fear.
Kristina,
I love the quote “Speak more from the heart than from the head” from the story telling presentation, I was thinking about my own venture and its really crazy too again myself look back to a point where I came into this venture to make money but then through discovery I have been able to identify that by me expressing my own heart and passion I can then create a more clear understanding of what I want and a more developed venture can develop. I had no clue they didn’t follow up with the speaker after –like you I can imagine others wished it could have gone that extra mile and ended more clearly, sorry that happened, I unfortunately couldn’t make it to this workshop!
To touch on Market research I also believe that just interacting and connecting with people is the best source of input and honest feedback that can initially help the business grow and become a foundation for growth. I know that I had a lot of things I disliked about my current venture market options and now I seek to improve them as people/ customers are also seeing these defects in their current options!
Also just wanted to say your physical engagement with the gym has defiantly motivated me to get more active and find time to treat myself in this aspect, so thank you for that boost of motivation. I actually start the gym this week and hope to maintain a consistent routine.
Regards,
Saul M.
Kristina,
Again a wonderful post that has gotten my mind active in many ways, each week it feels difficult not to respond with something as long as your original posts as you leave me with so much to think about lol!
Thanks for sharing some of Luvvie’s voice with us because, dang it is a powerful one. I think a lot about how to be more of a troublemaker (in my space I tend to use the term “disruptive”, though I like troublemaker more from a narrative standpoint) Luvvie’s outlook and mindset add a lot to the thoughts I have in my space and inspire me to dig deeper in terms of motivation behind the desire to be a troublemaker… and relating those feelings of wanting things in my surroundings to be different to the experiences in Oscar’s workshop. While it may be a bit cliche and not within my place to adopt the mantra for myself as an oppressor, I am reminded of the late Rev. John Lewis’ term coined “good trouble”. This concept is of deep resonance to me, as resistance to normative structures in the pursuit of liberation for oneself and others is of incredible value both internally and externally.
I appreciated your voice and willingness to be vulnerable during the workshop with Oscar, thank you as well for plugging White Supremacy and Me, it is always good to interact with a more concrete resource in doing this sort of work, as it feels uncertain to work from a place of internal reasoning and feeling when the whole point is that the ingrained is not necessarily pure and is quite thoroughly tainted by the systems of capitalist white supremacy that imposed our internal monologue in the first place.
I also so appreciate you sharing your thought process and routine with us, it is always fascinating to see where the inspiration and foundation of someones actions comes from. I wonder, is it empowering for you to show us the work that goes in, do you get a boost from sharing that process? I often find I feel a lot of emotions around sharing process and am curious how you feel about it? This is really inspiring to see all the work you do for yourself, as a classmate and fellow entrepreneur, you’re KILLING it and I am so stoked for your future on this path.
all the best,
-Gavin!
Kristina,
Another great entry for us to read this week. You always share awesome resources and links to amazing videos and articles that are great to spend some time looking at. You do a great job at relating outside people and resources to what we have spent time on in class.
One of the things I really resonated with was Jonathan when he talked about searching for the no’s. You mentioned it as well, and that is something I wanted to talk about more because it something I haven’t been very good about accepting. This is very important because like you said, knowing that no’s are good, strives for progress, not perfection. Learning that these no’s lead to that progress is hard for me but something that I’m working on, and I’m sure we all are. Understanding that no’s are not bad or getting discouraged by them is becoming more and more beneficial as I get better at accepting them.
Once again, thanks for the great read this week, and I hope you have a good and productive week this week!