How to Talk About Differences Without Making It Weird

How are we supposed to talk about differences?  If differences make a difference, how do we celebrate them in the workplace and in the community without harming one another?  This week, our hosts discuss the implications of our human nature to notice differences between us and our interests in naming them or calling them out.  What types of differences are off limits, and how do we know?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, let's get into it. Welcome back to the Beyond the Trading podcast. Hey Jamie, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 0:05

I'm good. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Awesome. Awesome. Uh, I would love to hear something good that's going on in your life right now.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Something good. It's raining outside. All of my something goods are weather related. So it indicates that I'm getting older and all I know how to do is talk about the weather. Um, but it's raining outside and it's, I realize that might be a bias, but old people and weather, and it's raining, but I'm enjoying it.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

I think it's not about age so much as it is about what's important to you. And I recognize that what you're outside outside your house is looking like is important to you. So that tells us a little bit about you.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Appreciate it. What's what's good in your life? What's happening with you, Mr.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Robert? When you talk about being old, I think about adulting and just being able to make adult moves. I still feel like the 15-year-old that uh uh I was running around in many, many decades ago. I still feel like that guy's inside of me. And to be able to be making some adult decisions um around investing and around entrepreneurship and certainly even mentorship and building inside the work that we're doing. It's just really cool to be an adult sometimes too, because I wouldn't have been able to do all the things I'm doing now when I was 15, even though I thought I probably could have, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yeah, and I think that that could be a great podcast episode in the future. I was just talking to some friends the other night around financial literacy and the ways that I'm trying to set up my family now at my age. I wish I would have done that 20 years ago. I wish I would have been putting money into this account and doing this 20 years ago. Um, but I wasn't and I didn't know any better. Uh, and so potentially we could talk about in a future podcast the impact of access to financial literacy or lack of access to financial literacy on historically and traditionally marginalized communities.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Yeah, that's a generational podcast. It makes me think there's some folks in our uh listener set and our spaces who could probably help us talk about that even deeper. And actually maybe connect a little bit to what we were going to talk about today when thinking about differences and commonalities. When we're talking about differences and commonalities here in the beyond the training podcast, Jamie, what comes to mind for you?

SPEAKER_01 2:21

When I think about difference, I think about what is unique to you that I don't experience, what are ways that you engage that I don't engage, what are behaviors, values, beliefs that you practice that are not similar to my own. And that's some of the differences that I think about. Differences in skin tone, gender, identity, gender expression, who you love, who you don't love, all of those things.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

I mean, all due respect. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've heard that before. Like the differences that make a difference make a difference, or differences make a difference. We've said that a couple of times on this podcast.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

What are our listeners supposed to do with that? Recently, I had an experience with one of my kids where someone pointed out something that was different about them, and it was something that is not commonly seen on TVs, in the media, in you know, everyday people. Um some people do you see it, but it's with intention. And I know I'm being intentionally vague here. I am being intentionally vague. Um, but when you say what are we supposed to do about it, what comes to mind is I whenever people point out difference for my kids, I'm like, why? And it's often white people, people with power and privilege that are like, oh, I love your fill in the blank, it's so unique. Oh, your name is so pretty, it's so different and unique. And so the again, the question of what do we do with it, it's almost like just let it be. Don't judge it, don't disparage it. Let the difference be. Now, in workplaces, there's opportunity to leverage some of the difference as it relates to perspectives, lived experiences, but sometimes, especially when it's differences, and maybe I'm this podcast is helping me even clarify and narrow my own thoughts around this. Oftentimes it's body difference that we judge.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Interesting. Okay, so you might be suggesting that we don't talk about or highlight body differences when we interact with each other. So before I go further, is that is that what I'm hearing?

SPEAKER_01 4:58

That's an example.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

I you know, I here's another example if this is okay. And it have it relates to you. So if you want to talk about it, great. If not, somebody in a training came out to you and was like, hey, I see you're wearing a necklace. Tell me about it.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Right. I thought that was pretty cool. I'm I'm a big fan of the giving keys. For those of y'all who are not familiar, you could Google the giving keys. And they I I wear one around my neck almost every day, and it's important to me. It was given to me by my my wife, and and she told me the story about the giving keys, and I'm I'm a big believer in that. And so, yes, somebody did point that out. Now, you and I are different people, and even though there's a 15-year-old on the inside of me, I'm older than that, and so different than your little truth tellers. Maybe I have enough life seasoning that I respond differently when somebody points out a thing about me on my body or or with my body or things of that nature. I what I thought you were going to say is that some people don't know how to talk about my blackness, even though I'd be the first one to say, Yeah, I'm a black dude. Most people don't come over and go, Man, you're so black or you're so brown. And it just happened to come up this last week. We were comparing um suntans and how dark a person was how dark I am versus another person that I was talking to. And so we were talking about those body differences, and I'm an okay, I'm okay with that. But I get because we're different people, we we don't we we don't want to always be talking about it. There is a danger in highlighting the differences between us, and I think the danger, as you're naming in vague in a vague way, is that there might be some danger in how that person sees their differences or is dealing with them. And there might be a danger we step into by pointing it out, and that's the one thing that they were hoping we wouldn't point out, or that's the one thing that might have some trauma connected to it, or it's the one thing that everybody else sees when they first see me, and therefore now you, this new person is bringing that out and just adds and piles on perhaps microaggressively. Is that the danger that you're hoping us that hoping that we might start to become more aware of?

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Yes. And let I'll let me talk about a different example that feels a little bit better to talk about on a podcast. Um, and my hair is naturally curly. Um, I've most months I battle whether or not I want to straighten it and make it look more appealing um to people that makes it look more common to people. And um often people will say, when I so there's been like years where I've didn't straighten it and it was all always curly. And then the second I straighten it, people are like, different. Your hair looks so good today. Or when I wear makeup versus when I don't wear makeup, different. You look so tired today. Um, and and so it's maybe the meaning that we put behind the difference, or the good and the bad that we put behind the difference. And so instead of saying things like, I noticed your hair is different today, or but we we add your hair looks so great today, or um, and I don't know that I want anyone to say I noticed you didn't wear makeup today. Uh um, but it's just different. So, how do we just see difference and just say it's just different today?

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Um Okay, all right. So, oh Jamie, you look different today. Are you doing something different with your hair or your face then?

SPEAKER_01 8:35

That's not what I said. That's not what I said. I said, How do we see difference and just let it be? Oh, you might notice that my hair is different, but do you need to bring it up to me?

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Well, okay, so here's what I've been thinking, as you've been sharing. We often talk in our trainings about the beginnings of implicit and explicit bias. So, for those of you who have not heard us say that talk about this or um haven't been able to dig into brain science as much as we have, all brains that are functioning uh uh the way that neurotypically can tell the difference between things, right? Uh, differences between colors because of the way that the senses are receiving those colors to tell the difference between temperatures, noises, touch, all of those senses, we start to discriminate between the two. That just means choosing when I use the word discriminate. And so, even as early as six months, we can see that the brain activity discriminates between one color and another. And that includes color of skin, color of hair, and even texture of hair, things of that nature. And that's a part of what's going on in utero, that's part of what's happening in the womb. And so when we come out of the womb, we have already some implicit biases that we don't, to your point, which you made a moment ago, we don't have anything that tells us darker is better or not as good as lighter. We don't know that until we get socialized. And so our parents, our communities, our education, our media, uh, even as early as six months starts to say, aha, all of the dark characters in your life are bad, and all the light characters or light things in your life are good. Think about what we swaddle our babies in. Most times you don't go to Target, Walmart, or uh the child's place and you're going to get black clothing for them. It's not what you do, it's a lot of light colors. And so even that starts a program not only the baby's brain, but our own brains about what is good, light, and what is not good, dark. And so we already know these differences. From a very young age, we can start to tell the differences. And so when there's a scary noise, we know what scary is because when it startled us, it startled everybody in the room. Aha, I'm supposed to be sad or scared or crying about that or elated about a song or happy soothed. Anyway, anyway, anyway. So we already know these differences. So what I hear you saying though is how do we just recognize those differences, acknowledging our brains are doing that on a regular basis, and then not do the thing that we typically do and say something out loud about it, especially with regard to that person, because it's likely connected to some kind of judgment or value that our brains are already doing safe versus unsafe, friendly versus unfriendly, trustworthy versus trustworthy. Is that what you're thinking or getting at?

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Yeah, I that sums it up. Um, that we have to, as human beings, recognize what we perceive as deviating from our normal. So what's my normal in my culture and recognizing that everybody else's normal is different, and that's okay. I don't need to point it out. I don't need to draw attention to it. But when to your point, when my brain says different, I have to make sure that I'm not saying different bad or different great. I want to tell you that I love the how you pronounce your name because it's just so beautiful and exotic and different. Um, and just recognize that it's different.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

I don't think all of our listeners are like this, but I know we have some folks that have been in our trainings, they're gonna say, see, that's that DEI stuff. We're not supposed to say anything now. We can't even talk about how nice you look or how nice your hair is, or the fact that I've noticed that you're doing something different with your makeup or lack of thereof. And now, if I say something like that, now you're gonna call it a microaggression or some kind of bias, and I can't even say the thing. But if you look nice, I should be able to say that, or especially if that's different than usual. That's not about you, JB, but I'm just, you know, my brain's running. And so I feel like what you're sharing is a complete departure from, at least here in the United States, American culture, to point out that which is different, especially because we run in so many spaces of commonality. We run so many spaces of what is the same. And I'm used to those things, and that looks normal. You used that word earlier. This, if it's something that's not normal, I'm going to name it because I'm so used to whatever that is that's typical. So you're asking us to do something that we don't typically do, that we don't naturally do. And you might also be tapping on the nerve of some of those folks who are just like, I'm just trying to pay you a compliment because I notice a thing about you that I happen to like.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

What do you think, Robert?

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Uh, what's the word? Nuance. It's it's so complex. And and I uh what I agree with with you is that we all have a job to do of paying attention to what it is that we say. Watch your mouth, as my mom used to say. Uh, you need to pay attention to what it is that you are saying because what you say might harm someone, even if you don't intend it. That's that's a huge message that I think it's important to note. And differences, that's where we started this conversation. I'm different. I do want you to notice if I've done something different with my hair. I don't want you to touch it or reach out for it. Uh if I've lost weight, I want you to notice. Or even if I haven't lost weight and you think I did, I want you to notice that because that is something that's important to me. And I don't necessarily walk around with a sign that says, hey, check me out. And because I'm 240 pounds today, and because I have this black skin and I'm almost six foot tall, I do know that people can see me. And so the way that I dress, the way that I cut my hair or cut my face, the length of my nails, uh the jewelry that I'm wearing, all of it. I know everybody's looking. We even if they're not like trying to pay attention, like, oh, what's Robert wearing? That what they're doing, which you is the normal thing to do, is notice people in your surroundings, and especially if this body doesn't look like normal to you or typical to you, what's normally in your in your space, then you're gonna look. It's just our natural way of being. So I prefer that if people are gonna point it out, it'd be nice if it was positive, if it's like, oh, I'm noticing this positive thing, I really like it, rather than, oh man, I can't believe you're wearing that, or whatever the things might be. And at the same time, I get that you and for your family, things might be different, and you prefer that people don't point anything out that might strike a nerve, that might feel as uh is connected to some trauma, or or maybe even not, you just don't want folks to get into it. So here's the question for you when we interact with you or your family and we're noticing these differences, you want you would like us to just hold on to it. But if we've never say anything about what it is that we notice that is different about you, how will you know that we're paying any attention to what is going on in your life?

SPEAKER_01 15:33

You shared a few things that I want to be able to respond to, and I'll start there.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

Please.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Um same to what you said about our trainings. When we're in our trainings, we tell people what do we tell people to ask their colleagues, the people that they work with?

SPEAKER_00 15:49

What matters to you? What's important to you?

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Ask me that question. Through our engagement, you'll learn about what's important to me. If I name that I'm working really, really hard to get back to my college body when I played basketball, and you notice that, great, say something because I've said that to you. I've indicated that that's a space that we can be in together. Um, so that's how you can get to know me and others is one, you can just directly ask what matters to you, what's important to you, and just listen and people tell you what's important. Everybody on this podcast that is listening, I often talk about my what?

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Uh your dog. You talk about your dog a lot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

I do not talk about my dog.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

No, that's I'm I'm joking. You talk about your little truth tellers, your kids.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

I miss the joke. So, what can you infer from that?

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Well, other than the fact that you're a mom that is important, the life, their lives and your life with them is important to you.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Right. Also, we started this that I often talk about the weather. So, how the weather is is important to me. I love rain, I love warmth.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Well, so okay, here, Jamie. This is gonna dig a little deep. And so if we had to hit the pause button, you just let me know. At one of our trainings, our uh DEI 101 trainings with this a particular new client of ours, not only did you start the conversation, uh, have started our trainings with a joke about your height, you've also talked about wearing a color, wearing their color, like you make sure to uh wear the color of the their brand. And so if I'm paying attention, if if they're paying attention, because I know more, I know more than they do, if if they're paying attention, they might think your height or your body stature is important to you because you start at the beginning, like a thousand people have heard that comment, the joke that you tell. And then all of them who heard you talk about the color of the shirt that you're wearing or whatever the piece of clothing that you're wearing, they might also hear, okay, well, how Jamie dresses is important. So if I'm following the logic that you've named, there are at least two things that are open to talking about the differences. Now, you're not likely to have a lot of height difference, but let's say you have heels on, you know, somebody's like, Oh, Jamie, I'm noticing you're a little taller than you were when you were at Red Robin, for example. Or you're not wearing blue, or you're not wearing this color. You're wearing blue today. I'm noticing what you got on. Now we have a whole different conversation that I would want to avoid personally myself, but because of what you just said, people will tell you what it is that's important to you. So is that what you're telling us?

SPEAKER_01 18:41

How would you avoid it yourself? You just said it was okay for people to talk about your body size.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Me, so me personally, I am trying to avoid the HR issues. Like, I don't want to be uh called into the HR office because I talked about the dress that Jamie was wearing or how tall Jamie is. Uh, so I would be wanting to avoid that. But yeah, somebody, so just the other day, somebody uh was I was walking by them in the parking lot and they're like, Hey Robert, you look like you're working out. And I was like, Yeah, bet you I am. Thank you so much. But at the same time, a little awkward. And and the team members who were standing there, they were looking at me like, uh, that's interesting, remembered. What's up with that? Because we were all like, whoa, somebody's pointing on a difference. Was a compliment, yes, but it's also one of those things that HR uh human resources often says, like avoid those kinds of things. So for me personally, I don't want to talk about your height, or uh I sometimes avoid what it is that you've dressed in because I feel like that can be really gray area. Again, I'd rather talk about your hair length or uh whether it's got curls in it, because it feels better than what you got on today.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

To your point earlier, it's nuanced and complex. And so I can't just say Jamie said this in public three times, so it must matter to Jamie. So now it's fair game. No, maybe I'm sharing trauma that I've experienced so other people can learn. That would not be fair game. And so we have to be incredibly thoughtful around what am I noticing? What differences am I noticing? What have I heard this person tell me? What is it that I want to say to somebody? What is behind my compliment and what might be the impact? Now, people might say that's way too much when I pass somebody in the hallways and I notice that they look different today. I don't have time to go through all of that. Then great. Don't make a comment that may have unintended impacts. And there's a thousand other things that we can say to people to uplift people that is not based in appearance. So glad you're here today. Great to see you. What are you doing later? Would love to have lunch. I hope that project you're working on is going well. So there's a thousand other conversation starters that aren't rooted and based in differences that we maybe aren't aware of. Now, if you're aware of it, great, talk about it. Hey, you've you've done this before. Hey Jamie, are you okay if we talk about X, Y, and Z? You just said we might go deep and you you don't have to answer it. Hey, I really like your how your hair looks today. Um, is that something that's okay for that that I noticed? Somebody might say like or yes. So to back to a previous podcast that is a bit similar is consent matters.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

Yeah, it's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

What started this podcast I this podcast topic is that more often than not, Robert, it's the people who say we have more in common than we have. Difference are then the same people that point out differences negatively and or disparagingly andor what's the word that it's like you point something out and you're like, oh, you're like exoticizing the difference. Um and so it's a little bit of like you can't have it both ways, people. When difference gets hard, when we're talking about harder differences, you want to revert back to commonalities. But if it's a difference that feels fair game to you, compare names, name pronunciation, dress, et cetera, et cetera, then it becomes fair game. Apply out your why. Ask yourself, why am I making this? Why is that different? Um, self-reflect across commonalities and differences more than you just name them out loud.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Because then the the ending impact, regardless of your intent, might be one that uh makes folks feel bad, that you might be interrupting the possibility of a great relationship or great communication or conversation rather. Um, because your intent and impact might be misaligned, even if you're doing the best you can to let somebody know something, provide them a compliment. I feel like this is this is mad sticky uh to go along with the nuance or the complexity of it. But I do like you connecting to one of our uh ways of being curiosity over certainty. So being curious with oneself about why why do I want to even name that about Jamie's hair or Jamie's height or Robert's weight? Why do I even want to do that? And and for what? What for what's what am I going to benefit from that? What I what am I going to get from that? Is it really about me or is it about them? And you said what are the thousand conversations we could be having, other than that particular compliment about the difference between us. So, Jamie, I would love for you to close us out with one more thing to be thinking about. But and as we do, the one thing I want to just say, we didn't get a lot into commonalities, but you were starting to say talk about those things. Differences do matter. And so I don't want folks to walk away from today's conversation thinking like we don't talk about differences. I think the thing that I want folks to come away with today is that talking about differences matters for a number of reasons, which if you follow along with us, you know why many of those are, what many of those are. And you got to pay attention and be reflective on what are you doing with those differences that you're noticing, because sometimes the things that we say might hurt. So I want to make sure that I leave that on the table too as we close out.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Wholeheartedly agree. Differences matter. We want you to recognize and notice difference and be thoughtful around difference. We have to be incredibly cautious around where are we placing value judgment on difference? Are we saying good, better, worse? What are we doing with that difference when we notice it? Are we making a comment that might have caused harm? Are we not doing anything with the difference that we're noticing that is causing harm? So it's really the the what are we noticing? Why are we noticing it? Is it because I have a bias? Um, and what are we doing with it? And sometimes the what coming back to how we started the conversation, sometimes the what is I just notice it and I don't do anything with it. This has been a very interesting conversation with a lot of complexities, and some listeners might walk away with still the questions of what do I do? And that's okay. Robert used the term earlier. This is sticky um and hard. And yeah, life is sticky and hard, and we're humans and we're complex, and that's okay. Let's let's lean into the sticky and the hard. Um, so thank y'all for listening uh to the Beyond with the Training podcast. As usual, hit us up if you have any feedback at impact at seven focus.com or any of our socials, Instagram, LinkedIn, uh um, reach out. We'd love to hear from you. Hope y'all have a great rest of your day.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

We'll see you out there.