Growing up amidst a kaleidoscope of languages and cultures, Sandra Hill, a trailblazing career coach and best-selling author, brings a wealth of diversity to the table. Her personal narrative, imbued with the challenges and triumphs of navigating multiple identities, sets the stage for an enlightening conversation on how these experiences can enrich the professional coaching landscape. As I reflect on my own journey as a white, cisgender male, I realize how our backgrounds shape our interactions and the ways in which we can all contribute to a more inclusive community.
Throughout our dialogue, Sandra and I tackle the delicate dance of honoring cultural heritage months and the representation of ethnic identities in America, without inadvertently deepening divisions. We share stirring stories from coaching workshops and peer interactions that spotlight the need for greater cultural awareness and the active dismantling of biases. Moreover, we broach the topic of respectful communication, including the evolving etiquette of pronoun use, and discuss the four A's—awareness, allyship, advocacy, and activism—as vital tools for listeners to integrate into their own practices. Join us as we invite you to step into a world where diversity is celebrated, biases are confronted, and every voice is heard and respected.
Watch the full interview by clicking here
Find the full article here: https://bit.ly/btpSHill
Learn more about Sandra Hill here.
Learn more about this topic here
Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/
In this episode, I talk with Sandra Hill about her article published in our December 2023 issue.
Growing up amidst a kaleidoscope of languages and cultures, Sandra Hill, a trailblazing career coach and best-selling author, brings a wealth of diversity to the table. Her personal narrative, imbued with the challenges and triumphs of navigating multiple identities, sets the stage for an enlightening conversation on how these experiences can enrich the professional coaching landscape. As I reflect on my own journey as a white, cisgender male, I realize how our backgrounds shape our interactions and the ways in which we can all contribute to a more inclusive community.
Throughout our dialogue, Sandra and I tackle the delicate dance of honoring cultural heritage months and the representation of ethnic identities in America, without inadvertently deepening divisions. We share stirring stories from coaching workshops and peer interactions that spotlight the need for greater cultural awareness and the active dismantling of biases. Moreover, we broach the topic of respectful communication, including the evolving etiquette of pronoun use, and discuss the four A's—awareness, allyship, advocacy, and activism—as vital tools for listeners to integrate into their own practices. Join us as we invite you to step into a world where diversity is celebrated, biases are confronted, and every voice is heard and respected.
Watch the full interview by clicking here
Find the full article here: https://bit.ly/btpSHill
Learn more about Sandra Hill here.
Learn more about this topic here
Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/
In this episode, I talk with Sandra Hill about her article published in our December 2023 issue.
Welcome to the choice Magazine podcast, Beyond the Page. choice, the magazine of professional coaching, is your go-to source for expert insights and in-depth features from the world of professional coaching. I'm your host, Garry Schleifer, and I'm thrilled to have you join us today. In each episode, we go beyond the page, go figure, of articles published in choice Magazine and dive deeper into some of the most recent and relevant topics impacting the world of professional coaching, exploring the content and interviewing the talented mind behind the articles, like Sandra Hill, and uncovering a stories that make an impact.
Garry Schleifer:choice is more than a magazine. For over 21 years yes, believe it or not, we built a community of like-minded people who create, use and share coaching tools, tips and techniques to add value to their businesses. And, of course, what do we all want to do? Make a difference and impact our clients' lives. In today's episode, I am speaking again with career coach and best-selling author, Sandra Hill, who is the author of yet another article, this time in our latest issue entitled "Neuroscience and Coaching Separating Myth from Reality. Her article is entitled Rising Awareness the Journey Towards Celebrating Unity in Diversity. A little bit about Sandra she combines her knowledge and change management expertise with that of coaching to help prepare tomorrow's workforce. As a career coach, she has a 98% success rate with expiring expiring let's call them aspiring client leaders.
Garry Schleifer:We don't want expiring leaders. They're not fun to coach. She's the best-selling author and also hosts the podcast "Grow Your Voice, Overcome Your Fears, and writes career coaching articles for Forbes and life coaching articles for other industry magazines, including Choice Magazine, thank you very much. Sandra, thank you so much for joining me again today. A pleasure, as always.
Sandra Hill:Listen Garry, the pleasure is all mine. I really appreciate the opportunity and I love, love, love writing for choice, so thank you for having me.
Garry Schleifer:Oh, and don't stop writing. I love your articles and, speaking of articles, what inspired you to write this one career coach, Sandra Hill?
Sandra Hill:Well, I don't know exactly, because I wrote this article and then I forgot I wrote about it until I was contacted by you. Something happened that triggered. A situation can trigger me writing an experience, or just because I write a lot easier than I can put my words out in vocal because English was not my first language, so sometimes I struggle. But I can write it.
Garry Schleifer:Hold on, what was your first language?
Sandra Hill:Oh well, you know what this gets into our article, because so many times on the outside we make assumptions just by looking at someone yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have inherent biases that we don't know about, and I know personally, people look at me and they make an assumption English is my first language. It is not. French was my first language.
Sandra Hill:I lived in France as a child, grew up there. My foundational years were there. That was the first language I knew. Even though my dad was career military, we spoke French at home because my mom had made up her mind wherever we live, we want to practice that native language and learn about the native culture. And I remember for a year we took a break, came back to the States. It was very confusing to me.
Garry Schleifer:I'll bet.
Sandra Hill:So in school you're a kid, you have to stand up, address the teacher, address the students, answer questions. I had to think in French, which I sometimes still do, and then translate my head quick enough to respond. The problem was I wasn't quick enough, so I was labeled as a slow learner and retarded. Oh, my goodness, I would never succeed at anything.
Garry Schleifer:Wow, all because of that.
Sandra Hill:Yeah, my mom still has this report card and when I became a valedictorian she found a way to contact this one teacher. Kind of like see, see you were wrong. But that's what happens to us. It's human nature and we can't help it. And I know sometimes as coaches, we get clients who don't want to go on screen or they want to find someone similar to them, who resembles them, speaks their language so to speak, has the same cultural background, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, rather than take that leap and find someone completely different.
Garry Schleifer:Well, you found somebody with this commonality here, my friend. English was not my first language either.
Sandra Hill:Really.
Garry Schleifer:See, so I was born in Canada but my parents who like literally immigrated seconds before I was born, sort of thing, didn't speak English at the time. So my first language was German. So in my formative years they were the same as your mother. They felt that when in Rome do as the Romans do, as my dad's saying so we're going to learn English.
Garry Schleifer:And he did. They both did and they're very good. However, at the time, there was safety in numbers. They connected with other German families, so my upbringing until I went to school was mostly in German. Now, unlike you, I don't think in German, but when I go to Germany and I'm coming back, I'm thinking in German by the time I get back. So I'm starting to have struggle in responding in English with some words. I still remember a plane flight and this lady asked me something and I could not remember the English word.
Sandra Hill:English word yeah, I can relate, I can relate. Yeah yeah, and I did go to Germany. I spent several years in Germany. So one year in America, then back to Germany. So I did French, picked up a little English and then German.
Garry Schleifer:Wow.
Sandra Hill:And then I served as an interpreter for French and German people, so I was like all over the world.
Garry Schleifer:Good for you.
Sandra Hill:Then my mom made me learn that. She said that'll help you learn English.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah, whatever. Wow, that's great. Well, listen, I want to get into a topic that I've known about for a long time, and that is the rising awareness movement. Now, our member of our editorial board, Perry Rhue, made me aware of this many years ago, and I was delighted to see that you were also a part of it from the beginning, and so tell us a little bit more about that and why it's similar to core competencies and coaching.
Sandra Hill:Most definitely, most definitely. I gave a small coaching experience, okay, and I'll get a little bit more into that, but at the time, rising awareness was birth. There was a lot going on, universal, globally, if you will.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah.
Sandra Hill:All right, we had COVID hit. Everybody was all over the board with COVID, all right. Then we had a lot of racial injustices, inequities, social injustices, financial, I mean, you name it. It was like one after the other after the other, and coaches were being sought out more and more. It was like all of a sudden, the coaching industry tripled. Okay, not only with people being coaches becoming coaches, but people seeking out coaches. How do I do? What do I do? One of the clients I write about, she had somebody come into the office and have an outburst and she didn't know how to react. She called security and fired the person, then contacted me later to say okay, what should I know about you people?
Sandra Hill:Famous phrase you people. You people. Another situation, and it was they did this, they did that, blah, blah, blah, blah. As coaches, we were being bombarded, and some coaches did not know how to respond to the clients. I actually had two clients who were diversity, equity, inclusion officers, if you will, because that title or that framework started to explode, and they were like so what do I do? You know, was I selected just because I'm a different race, ethnicity, you know, have a different cultural background? Am I the poster child? Am I the face now of all of this? So everybody was all over the world and two individuals. well one of the persons who actually birthed it, along with another individual, they were being contacted as well and they said you know what? Let's do something about it.
Sandra Hill:So myself and several other coaches got together and we started talking, and these were not coaches who were located in one particular area of the world. These were individual coaches who have various niches that they coached in, and they were spread out globally. All of them were being impacted in one way or another. So rising awareness was birth. It was an effort to try to help coaches, corporate clients, consultants, as well as others help them navigate, if you will, the waters of diversity, helping them instead of pointing fingers. Celebrate everyone's diversity. There's unity and diversity, trying to find that commonality, trying to find that common ground. Risingawareness. org is the website where we put a lot of information to help individuals and corporations. Because those of us who work with corporate clients, the corporate clients were like what do we do? We now have a strategic plan that requires us to do so many diversity efforts. What does that look like? They would select a diversity equity inclusion officer, maybe for the first time, and say do your thing.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah, exactly Not knowing what that thing was. Yeah, exactly.
Sandra Hill:So we were all over the place. So rising awareness was that effort to bring and foster that unity using some of the coaching competencies. Even though there are terms that we use in the rising awareness framework, they cross-reference for what we do in coaching. Developing, advocacy, allyship, awareness.
Sandra Hill:One of the first things I was taught as a coach was find out about your client. You sometimes have to ask those questions to find out what makes a person tick. Kind of like team P. prior to me being a coach, Garry, I taught a series of classes, actually workshops, crucial conversations after the book, Crucial Conversations. It was to help corporate leaders have those sensitive type conversations. The book came out, all these workshops and then nothing. So I totally could relate because I had done this training in another world, if you will. So it was just crossing over and talking about how you become aware, how you create those allyships, those partnerships, how you become an advocate, how you help others as you are helping yourself because, you know, as coaches we're not perfect too. You know we sometimes step on each other's toes, step on our client's toes, things of that nature. Step on our own toes, yes.
Sandra Hill:Yeah.
Garry Schleifer:Put our foot in our mouth. Yeah well, and you know to your point about the advocacy and allyship, the thing that we did a number of years ago, around the same time as the beginning of Rising Awareness, was this column that you've written for Kaleidoscope, and it's our support and continuing the conversation in the coaching community through this, pretty much the only publication for coaches, unbiased for diversity, equity and inclusion.
Garry Schleifer:So thank you again for writing for us. I have a question from your article. I need some help with this one. Ok, we have all kinds of diversity celebrations that seem to fan the flames instead of celebrating unity in diversity. Can you tell me, break that down for me? What?
Sandra Hill:Right, right, right right, totally get it, totally get it. This came to light. I know the article is being published now, but it was written a while ago. There are several months or weeks that are designated to celebrate some type of diversity.
Sandra Hill:Native American, which I am part of Native American.
Garry Schleifer:Another thing we don't know abou o now.
Sandra Hill:But you have Native Americans. You have Black History Month. Ok, it's now a month, although it didn't start out as a month. You have Hispanic awareness. I'm part of a Hispanic group. eople are like, are you Hispanic? And I say, well, what do I look like? What's an Hispanic look like? That's my usual report.
Garry Schleifer:Mm-hmm.
Sandra Hill:OK, but there are so many designations and sometimes those designations help splinter or fracture a community or a culture.
Garry Schleifer:Oh my.
Sandra Hill:OK, sian Pacific Month OK, have some of that in my background too, all right. When that happens, there are certain events and I was hearing people say, oh, here we go again. All the commercials, all the advertisements are going to be on this and that, be so glad when their month is over. And then you have people who are trying to have workshops to help teach people like Native American. Depending on where you are in the country, there might be some workshops, there might be some tribal dances, ok, and sometimes the Native American people, depending on what tribe, they'll explain. We didn't walk around with feathers in our head Exactl.
Sandra Hill:There were some articles in the news where educators were cutting off the long locks of Native American little boys, not understanding. it's like you have to adhere. You live in America now. You have to adhere to what we do. There were African-American students who, because of either the way they wore their hair, they were getting expelled. So it was like it didn't bring people together. It made people more aware of their differences.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah, ok. Well, thank you .
Sandra Hill:I saw it from where I sat because I'm in a metropolitan city and every day. here was something in the news about just different issues that were going on.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah.
Garry Schleifer:So yeah, yeah, well, thank you for that. I was rereading your article this morning and one of the things that for me, and that's why I love doing these podcast because I get to be about me on some of these but might be the same situation. I'm, no okay, so let's not use the word obvious. I am a white man of privilege, cisgender male, and first language not English, so there's that one that we talked about earlier in a pre-call. I don't face those conversations in my coaching and I coach a lot of people these days. Is there something that I'm not aware of about me or my methodology, or am I just lucky that there's no such situations like you pointed out examples of in the article?
Sandra Hill:You know that's really tough because I'm not with you 24/7 and individual perspective clients select coaches based on their comfort level. I am mentoring an individual who lives in an area where there not a lot of people like that and she asked should I take my picture down because I'm doing great and then once people see my picture it's kind of like a wall comes up and it could be she's more sensitized to it because of her area. There's a lot of different aspects that go into it. So one of the things I did to kind of informally test my theory all right, as coaches we have different forms where we can sign up for peer to peer coaching to help people get certification.
Garry Schleifer:Right.
Sandra Hill:So I signed up for one of those and refused to show my picture and said we have to do it over the phone. No Zoom, no Skype, no Meet, no nothing. Have to do it over the phone. And do you know, I found myself subconsciously developing a picture of what that individual might look like, based on their voice, their inflection, maybe some of the words they used or didn't use.
Garry Schleifer:Right.
Sandra Hill:Okay, and I didn't mean to, but I caught myself doing that and I think we subconsciously do that.
Garry Schleifer:I think we do. We kind of want to know who we're talking to. Makes sense.
Sandra Hill:Yeah, yeah, yeah and then I do a workshop and I say I need to see your face. I need to see your face. Now does that mean and I've been told for some people this is bothersome. Somebody came on camera and they immediately type me. They had a lot of tattoos and they had nose piercing, okay, and their hair, your hair is nice and neat. They had, I'll call it, punk rock style. Now here I am stereotyp ing. It might not be a punk rock style, but that's the best way I can use. And if I say that word, you probably can visualize how their hair was gelled.
Sandra Hill:A little different and everything, which is fine, but I was getting so much flack behind the scenes, you know, and everything. This individual chose to dress that way. They got piercings and tattoos. Doesn't make them any different from anybody else. Yeah, okay, but we were doing this workshop for new coaches and I had to stop the press because somebody sent me a private make fun joke. I wonder what this person's niche is, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I kind of had to level set. These are new coaches.
Sandra Hill:I kind of had to level set the playing field. You know, as in, all are welcome, we are not all going to be alike.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah.
Sandra Hill:That's what makes this so special. So the long way to answer your question is I don't know.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah. Well, and I will go back, though, to your point about the core competencies. So there's a place of and I've added to it with the council of some coaches right. In a lot of respects, I represent a dominant or formerly dominant culture for a lot of people, and so the one thing that's really become clear to me is I live in a neighborhood that is predominantly Indian, from India and I'm aware of the history, the British rule in India, and one of the things that I work on without being disrespectful, because I know that's their upbringing, they always call me sir. I make a point of finding out what their name is and saying it to the best of my ability, because sometimes it's a bit of a tongue twister for me, but I want to know their names, and then they'll short form their name or they'll give me what the anglicized I think is the best way to say it version of it, and I'll be like, well, what's your real name? Well, people have trouble pronouncing it, and I'm like, yeah, that's not me. What's an example of, I do a lot of work to level the playing field and understand without insulting, because you have to be careful. It's a fine line.
Garry Schleifer:And I think the other thing is to the core competencies, again, there's a space in there that I think you refer to as getting to know who they are. I work a lot with that in the beginning because of how I know I could be seen as a white man of privilege, this gender, blah, blah, blah dominant men in particular. If I were coaching someone like you, I would literally say, "So I see that you're very much different than I am. How do you identify?
Garry Schleifer:I don't ever want you to feel like you can't talk about any issues that you think someone like me or that I represent might be offended by. Or don't assume I can't talk about those things. So I'm not saying exactly how I would say it because, again, like you say, in 24 hours, if you're with me you'd say you'd hear what I say.
Garry Schleifer:But now that I know and there's another article in the issue, talking about equality of the coaching and because there's an inherent power dynamic immediately that you're smarter than they are. So I work really hard to bring that down to a level playing.
Sandra Hill:Yes.
Garry Schleifer:And that includes culture, background et cetera.
Sandra Hill:So yeah, yeah, yeah, so I'm a working partner. That is a great point. Yeah, that's a great point. And you know, you reminded me of something, Garry. I do not know when this happens, but LinkedIn, a lot of people are on LinkedIn. Linkedin, added under the profile add your pronoun.
Garry Schleifer:Yes, I saw that the other day, yeah.
Sandra Hill:Okay, for a long time I struggled with that. I struggled with adding a pronoun. I thought it was more, I mean, I think I get what they were trying to do. But then I thought, well, I don't think that's going to work. And I was going through a workshop to improve my LinkedIn profile and they said, oh, you have to put that in because if you don't, such and such will happen, blah, blah, blah. I was like, really, you know, and I get it, you know, people want to address people correctly. I caught myself the other day. I went through a drive-through and I'm one of those people who tends to be polite. I'll say thank you ma'am, thank you sir. And then I caught myself because I don't know if that's a ma'am or a sir. I don't know, I don't know. So now I try to read their name tag.
Garry Schleifer:Exactly, I find that's the easy way out. Just call by their name.
Sandra Hill:Exactly, exactly. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, you know, whatever, and if I can't pronounce their name, what I do is I'll look at their name tag and I will say, thank you. Can you tell me how you pronounce that? It's really unique. Are you named after someone? Is there a special? You know, I try to have a conversation to make them feel special. You know, not just somebody in the you know next, next, next that type of thing and everything.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah, yeah, same here, same here. Sandra, we're running out of time, but I have another important question, I know. So back to a similar point of I don't see those situations, but I really don't think I could handle them either. What's the easiest thing that I should say or do when somebody brings those situations like you said? You know we talked about earlier about 'those people," like that kind of conversation as a coach. What's the best thing to do in that situation?
Sandra Hill:Number one acknowledge and be honest. Okay, Just say to your client I hear you, but I need for you to help me because I've not been where you've been, I've not been through what you've been through. So together we can work through this and then start your coaching. What would you have wanted to happen?
Garry Schleifer:Yeah, okay.
Sandra Hill:What would you have wanted the individual to say? But I find, because I've been there too, you know. I find when I've acknowledged I've not been there, that's not happened to me. Tell me how you're feeling and let them use you as the sounding board and then find out what were they expecting, what would they have liked to happen, and then help them. So now that we know it didn't happen that way, how can we make sure it doesn't happen again?
Garry Schleifer:Yeah, exactly, wow, thank you. Yeah, starting with that very first and it's so duh. It sounds so much like coaching. Acknowledge your client, acknowledge your listening, ask the client. Awareness, awareness. My favorite phrase, tell me more. I think that's an easy way. It's a very easy way to handle the situation, and then there's always this thing called silence. Just let them breathe, process and, I would imagine, reflection. So, and being very careful, don't reword it. Word it back exactly like you heard it.
Garry Schleifer:So what I'm hearing you say is because sometimes when they hear that stuff come back to them, they're like, and I've heard this over and over again, oh my gosh, did I really say that? They don't even remember they said it in the coaching conversation, let alone in that conversation. It was a challenge.
Sandra Hill:Yes, yeah, yeah, you hit the nail on the head. That is so so, so correct, and that's why part of the rising awareness journey starts with awareness.
Garry Schleifer:Yes.
Sandra Hill:You don't know what you don't know, you don't know how you feel or don't feel, but you've got to start somewhere and it's with that awareness piece. Then you work together to get that allyship and then you become an advocate. How can I help this from happening again? How can I help you from experiencing the way you felt? And then it's activism. Those four A's, those are the critical components of the rising awareness framework.
Garry Schleifer:Yes, thank you for that reminder. You squeezed that in quite eloquently.
Sandra Hill:Trying to, trying to trying to. Risingawareness. org. That's the website.
Garry Schleifer:Well okay, you beat me to it, Sandra. What would you like our audience to do as a result of the article in this conversation? Read the article, be aware of it.
Garry Schleifer:I'm going to interject here because I think it's through people like Perry that are activists. I would call them an activist. I feel more like an ally. I learned what an ally means. I didn't know that before, so you know the conversation and the awareness about diversity, equity, inclusion and the issues and the stories. The stories are what really blow my mind. What's going on? I'm like, really, this is 2023 and things like this are still going on. So our work is not done and I thank you very much for going through those points, truly embrace those and see where you fit in. I would say to our audience if you're really passionate about diversity, equity, inclusion and change in the world, acceptance and love, pick one of those and play with it, and awareness is an easy one to start with for coaches.
Sandra Hill:Yes, most definitely, most definitely. And I do have to say, a lot of the feelings, the animosity, is birthed from fear. We've got those inherent biases, but we've also got fear. So what's the opposite of fear? And fear has a lot of different connotation.
Garry Schleifer:Yes, yes, yes, those are the things I'm making a heart and pounding it on my chest with my hands.
Sandra Hill:Yes, love, love, love. Find that common ground unity and diversity. There we go.
Garry Schleifer:Thank you. Well, and how would anyone that wants to reach you? How would they reach you, Sandra?
Sandra Hill:Yes, the best way is via email shillcplc. com. I'm sure you'll have that in the article as well, yes.
Garry Schleifer:Yes.
Sandra Hill:That's the best way to reach me.
Garry Schleifer:Thank you so much for joining us again today, Sandra. It's always a pleasure. We look forward to your next inspired article and I'm glad I asked it that way, because that's a biases right away to to assume that you were inspired, but kind of sounds like you were. So thank you for your inspiration to us, always a great learn.
Sandra Hill:You are quite welcome. Thank you so much again for having me and you know, I guess I'm going to you in the next couple of months because I'm already writing another article.
Garry Schleifer:Yay. Well, that's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe to your favorite podcast app. I know that we rate very highly on Apple and Spotify. If you love what you hear, please tell your friends and have them take a look and listen. We're also on the YouTube channel. If you don't like what you hear, tell me and let's talk, let's get you writing.
Sandra Hill:That's the beginning.
Garry Schleifer:Yes, If you're not a subscriber, you can sign up for your free digital issue of choice Magazine by going to choice- online. com and clicking the sign up now button. I'm Garry Schleifer. Enjoy the journey of mastery. Thanks again, Sandra.
Sandra Hill:Thank you.