Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan - #462: KICK Bias to the Curb with Anu Gupta, Founder & CEO of BE MORE with Anu, Author of Breaking Bias, & Speaker

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

This episode contains discussions about sensitive topics, including suicidal thoughts, depression, bullying, discrimination (racism, homophobia, islamophobia), systemic inequality, and political conflict (Israel and Gaza). Listener discretion is advised. If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, consider seeking support from a mental health professional or a trusted resource. In This Episode You Will Learn About:  How to OVERCOME bias and internal struggles with compassion and empathy Ways to recognize and address bias to break harmful habits The difference between conscious and unconscious bias How to ENGAGE in mindfulness to combat bias  Resources: Website: https://www.bemorewithanu.com/ Instagram & Facebook: @bemorewithanu LinkedIn & TikTok: @anuguptany  Read: Breaking Bias: Where Stereotypes and Prejudices Come From - and the Science-Backed Method to Unravel Them Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/monahan Kajabi is offering a free 30-day trial to start your business if you go to Kajabi.com/confidence Get your KPI Checklist, absolutely free, at NetSuite.com/MONAHAN.  Want to do more and spend less like Uber, 8x8, and Databricks Mosaic? Take a free test drive of OCI at oracle.com/MONAHAN. Get 15% off your first order on www.jennikayne.com when you use code CONFIDENCE15 at checkout. Go to ro.co/confidence, and pay just $99 for your first month. Call my digital clone at 201-897-2553!  Visit heathermonahan.com Reach out to me on Instagram & LinkedIn Sign up for my mailing list: heathermonahan.com/mailing-list/  Overcome Your Villains is Available NOW! Order here: https://overcomeyourvillains.com  If you haven't yet, get my first book Confidence Creator Show Notes:  WOW, this conversation hit me in a way I didn’t expect. Talking with Anu Gupta, author of “Breaking Bias: Where Stereotypes and Prejudices Come From - and the Science-Backed Method to Unravel Them” and Founder of BE MORE with Anu, opened my eyes to just how sneaky bias can be in our lives. I’ve been calling myself out on limiting beliefs lately, but realizing that bias is woven into so many little choices we make–that was huge. The big takeaway for me? We can unlearn these habits. We can SHIFT our thinking, show ourselves some compassion, and start rewriting the stories we’ve been carrying around for way too long. Bias isn’t a life sentence. With the right tools, we can break through it and start living with a whole lot more CLARITY, CONFIDENCE, and CONNECTION. I’m fired up to keep learning and growing, and I hope you are too! If You Liked This Episode You Might Also Like These Episodes: #421: GO For It: Shattering Limits in Life & Business with Heather! #411: From Setbacks to BREAKTHROUGHS: Create Confidence In Any Situation With Heather! #408: BEST OF - The Power of Changing Your HABITS: My Favorite Strategies for Career & Relationship Growth with Amy Morin, Katy Stoka, & John Assaraf

Ultimately, we all want to live. We all want other people to be able to live. Why can't we all live together? Or why can't we come to an agreement so that we can live together? Right? These are kind of the big things. But there are reasons. You know, people will say, well, this is why we can't. This is why we can't. And people are so wedded and attached to their stories that they forget a bigger picture. Lives are at stake. So much stress, so much money being wasted, our environment being destroyed, right? But because of these big feelings, we can't get there. So this is why it's so important for us to be doing this work. Come on this journey with me. Each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals, overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow. I'm ready for my closeup.

Hi, and welcome back. We are getting into an incredible topic today with an amazing ecumen. I'm so excited for you to be back with me this week. Okay, this week we've got Anu Gupta. He's an educator, lawyer, scientist, and the founder and CEO of Be More, an education technology benefit corporation

that trains professionals across corporate, nonprofit, and government sectors to advance DEIB Education Technology Benefit Corporation that trains professionals across corporate nonprofit and government sectors to advance DEIB and wellness by breaking bias. We are gonna get into bias people. His work has reached 300 plus organizations training more than 80,000 professionals impacting over 30 million lives.

He holds a JD from NYU Law, Philadelphia, development studies from Cambridge University, a BA in international relations, Middle Eastern and Islamic JD from NYU Law, Philadelphia, Development Studies from Cambridge University, a BA in International Relations, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies from NYU. As a gay immigrant of color, he came to work of breaking bias after almost ending his life due to lifelong experiences with racism,

homophobia, and Islamophobia. The realization that bias can be unlearned helped lead him out of that dark point and inspired a lifelong mission to build a global movement for social healing based on principle of mindfulness and compassion. Oh my gosh, the world needs more of that right now. A peer-reviewed author, he has written and spoken

extensively, including on the TED stage, the Oprah Conversation, Fast Company, Newsweek, and Vogue Business. All articles I'm big fans of. He is the author of Breaking Bias, where stereotypes and prejudices come from and the science-backed method to unravel them. Anu, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you so much for having me. It's such an honor. Oh my gosh, it's an honor to have you. And as we were just talking about before we started

recording, it is such an incredible, not that there isn't always a good time to have this conversation. I've never had it on the show before. So I'm just, I'm really pumped that you're here because we're watching so much division in our country right now with the political landscape. It just seems amplified more than ever. I mean, have you always seen bias this front and center, or is it really amplified right now? It's definitely amplified. I mean, bias has been around for since the advent of our species, but it's definitely a lot more amplified. And this is what I talk about in the book is why is it so amplified?

And then what do we do about it? Because the way I define bias is that it's a learned habit. And just as it's learned, it can be unlearned. And that's kind of the goal for me is that when you think about bias, even if you reflect on it for a minute, like we think about bias, we've never talked about this openly on this show. Why is that? How does talking about bias make you feel?

It's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable, right? There's like shame arising. There's like blame. There's guilt. Did I say something wrong? Did I do something wrong? We're always walking on eggshells.

And that's the problem. We have made this topic too heady, but ultimately what I realized, from a lot of my research and as a social scientist working in the courts, as a lawyer before, the bias ultimately is emotional and we need to be our fully human selves and be vulnerable and open to understanding

how it impacts us, how it impacts others, so we can really unlearn it. And that's where the tools that I talk about in the book are called the prison tools that will be coming to play. But I'm jumping the gun. OK, well, so let's start here, because I know this, because just being totally honest and transparent before we were going to get on for I paused for a minute

to say, like, who are you, Heather, to even have this conversation? This guy is going to look at you and say, blonde hair, blue eyes, born in the US. Oh, give me a break. This woman doesn't know anything about bias. And the irony is, when you and I got on, immediately you said, Heather, oh, your story, you dealt with so much bias. And you had to explain to me how that was the case. Yeah, you shattered so many glass ceilings in your life. And also the fact that you're a blonde haired, blue eyed woman, right? A woman, fact that you're a blonde-haired blue-eyed woman, a woman, first of all, but blonde-haired blue-eyed woman,

there's so many stereotypes that come to mind around your competencies, your intellect, your abilities, you name it. And these are things that are happening oftentimes at an unconscious level, both internally. Even when you shared that, hey, Heather, these are limiting beliefs. Like, what do I know about this topic?

I'm born in the US. I'm blah, know, blah, blah, blah. But these are the stories that we really have to become intimate with and transform because bias is a human issue. And that's for me, it's so important because regardless of who we are, what we look like, who we love, what our political leanings are, we have experienced bias. I mean, you could just be a middle child or the youngest child in a family and have experienced bias from your parents or your teachers or your ministers at church, you name it, right? And the feeling of bias is something that's really familiar, it goes to exactly what

you said, it's uncomfortable. And it's not fair. And for me, I feel because of so much work that's been done around neuroscience, social psychology, positive psychology, it's time that we evolve our human consciousness beyond this thing called bias that we do to ourselves, like you would just unconsciously. And also we do to each other. So for anyone that's listening that's saying, I've never been biased against someone else, because I guarantee somebody is thinking that right now. And I understand why, because there's this negative connotation with it. I want to think you've been, but I know just based on what you were saying, like parenting and whatnot.

So how can we help people to understand that everybody's is this property, you've been a victim of bias thinking and you've also been the perpetrator of it? Yeah, absolutely. That's exactly it. Because bias is a learned habit. And just as it's learned, it can be unlearned. But there are two forms of biases, right? There's conscious biases, which are learned false beliefs, and there are unconscious biases,

which are learned habits of thoughts. And both of these types of biases distort how we perceive, reason, remember, and make decisions. So, for example, if I ask you to think of someone who's a surgeon or a yoga teacher or a lawyer or a leader, right? What are the associations that come to mind, right? You don't have to share them with me, but think about the gender, the race, the color,

the height, the age, you name it, the class background. These are all associations, these are unconscious associations that when becomes the lens to really perceive the world, it impacts the way we make decisions. You know, I've had so many students who are doctors who happen to be women. You know, they're surgeons, they're pediatricians, they're ophthalmologists. And at least once in their life, they've had patients ask them, can I see the doctor?

Right. It's not that patient doesn't want to see them because they're a woman, but like the assumption, even though like almost 50 percent of all doctors in our country are women, So these are the little ways bias plays itself out. And we're doing it, you know, we're doing it at the supermarket, we're doing it in our workplaces, we're doing it in our homes, even with our relatives. And unless we make the unconscious conscious, we're going to continue to do it and it hurts. It sucks. And it's kind of the root cause of every challenge we face, you know, in our own lives, social, political, economic systems.

Is there any way, and I'm just curious because I don't understand, I don't know much about this topic, is there any way bias can be helpful? So the way I define it, I'm talking about bias very much as a learned habit between human beings. So oftentimes bias gets confused at, oh, I'm biased towards puppies versus lions and I need that limbic signal in my own bodies to warn me that I'm with a tiger and not a cat. As a result, I have to act. But that's not what I'm talking about. And that's like how common the language has become around bias, that, oh, we're all biased. But actually, what I'm talking about is, why is it that we think of, you know, association between men and women, for example, that men are strong, women are weak, right? That's bias because that's the perception.

Or, you know, light skinned people are beautiful and dark skin is not beautiful. You know, rich people are hardworking and poor people are lazy. Like these are the little ways that, you know, we trivialize ourselves because if we're rich or poor or middle class, whatever, we're trivializing our own existence. And those are the limiting beliefs that we hold onto that become internalized biases that limit our own potential. I just have to share right now, this is wild. I don't spend a lot of time outside of the United States for whatever reason.

And I was invited this year to speak in Saudi Arabia and everyone close to me said, do not go for fear. They're projecting fear. Obviously now I'm understanding from bias that they had against Saudi Arabia, Middle East or what they don't know or what they saw on TV or whatever it is. It's so interesting.

I did my research and everything I found factually said it was safe to go. And I said, I'm so scared that I have to go because I just believe fear is a green light that means go and go faster. So I was very nervous. I got out there. And I will tell you, it was top two trips in my entire life.

I had the most unbelievable experience. I went to the palace, became friends with the princess. Truly remarkable. I'm going back in February. And I now have such a different feeling. And I love the opportunity to tell people about it because there is this complete misconception here in this country just because people haven't been over there

to see themselves. And I definitely had that bias. And people I love still have it and have a hard time believing me. So just wild how deep this bias concept goes. I mean, you just talked about four of the root causes of bias. So bias is a learned habit. and we learn it through five causes.

And some of the causes are a story, right? So there's a story about Saudi Arabia and people of Saudi Arabia that people are exposed to. How are they exposed to the story? Through social contact. So that's what happened to you through your friends, your family members, through anyone you talk to, like your colleagues are like, don't go. So they're already like influencing you.

And then where do they learn that stuff? I'll be from the media or education. So these are like four of the five root causes that shape how we learn about bias. And in this case around nationality, right around being Saudi or even versus being American. And this is the crux of it. And unless we make this conscious, we won't be able to come close together. Now, you said you were friends with people who were from there, right? You're going back in a couple of months. That's what you're doing. You're breaking biases by giving yourself the experience, well, I'm going to just go and see how it's going to be. And it was fantastic because you're like, oh, these are human beings. They, of course, believe in different ways of being. They have

a different system. That's cool. But we can still party and have fun together. What's so interesting is they're actually my people, my driver that I had for the week. He and I listened to the exact same music. We love Biggie and Tupac, all night Tupac and rap. We know all the same. He doesn't speak the greatest English, but he knows all the words to all my songs,

knows every NBA player. Oh my God. We spoke the same language in so many ways speak the greatest English, but he knows all the words to all my songs, knows every NBA player. Oh my God. We spoke the same language in so many ways that it didn't matter when we actually couldn't. It's amazing the friendship that we were able to develop because of music, because of sports, like these similar loves and passions that we have, that the issue of speech and language wasn't an issue at all. I agree.

And you know, you made me think of, after college, I lived in South Korea. I was teaching English there for a year. And I had a homestay family who didn't speak a word of English. So I had to learn Korean a little bit, my broken Korean. Except my second week there, they're like, we're going to take you for a surprise.

I'm like, OK, we're going to go. So we ended up at a karaoke bar, because karaoke is a huge thing in Asia and South Korea. And my homestay mom sang Celine Dion, word for word, pitch for pitch in English. I was like, what? You don't speak a word of English. How do you know this song? But she had memorized so many English songs. I was like, wow, this is a language of music that really like struck us.

Like that's the language of the heart, right? Because she was really trying to show me that this is what matters to her. And these are the things we share together, even though we don't speak the same language, we're from two different countries, and we have different backgrounds. And that's the work of breaking bias, giving ourselves permission to get to know one another and really be with one another as we are versus living in ideas of one another. When I started podcasting, an online store was the furthest thing from my mind. Now I'm selling my group coaching on the regular and it is just so easy, all because I use Shopify.

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Go to timeline.com slash confidence. Timeline.com slash confidence. Timeline.com slash confidence. 10% off your first order of might appear. Confidence, I asked you to try to find your passion. That is so true and so powerful. All right, so I love to get into people's story. Tell us a little bit about your story as to why you got into this work, how you got into

this. You know, my story is I came to the US when I was 10 years old. My family's from India and we immigrated here. And in India, I lived in a pretty like upper middle class family, like my parents are doctors. And of course, I'm a guy. So I just was always given a lot of preferential treatments. When I came to America, I became an untouchable because of my name, people can pronounce it, because of the way I spoke, the way I dressed,

and because a lot of people smelled or perceived that I was gay. I didn't know what being gay was, by the way, until one of my bullies actually asked me, hey, go look up the word gay in the dictionary. And I did, I was like 12 years old. I was like, oh my God, there's a word for how I feel inside. And oh my gosh, I am gay.

And yet the second I sensed that this being gay thing is wrong or the reason why I was being bullied, I like totally went into the closet. And for me, like these were the micro experiences that I had day to day, but I always like shoved them inside and I just pretended to be what others wanted me to be. So I kind of went through my life like this until I went to grad school, then I went to law school.

And in law school, I thought we would talk about these issues because you know, criminal law and towards all of this is about bias and how we can overcome it, you know, think about civil rights and human rights. And yet, you know, at that time, at least, there was very little recognition of bias as a concept,

unconscious bias in particular. So I started feeling like, oh, maybe what I'm feeling inside is wrong. I am wrong. Right before my second year of law school, I found myself on the 18th floor of my window about to jump off. Literally, I was like, I'm done with this life.

I was in the throes of depression. I had internalized all these false stories about myself because of my nationality, because of my sexuality, because of my age, you name it. But that was the moment of grace. Instead of falling forward, I somehow fell backwards and I can't explain it. You know, to this day, I'm like, wow, I'm alive because of God or some bigger universal force that I can't understand. And that minute I was like, shit, I almost like took my light. So I called someone, a friend of mine, who lived really far away from me.

She happened to be walking on my block. Literally she happened to be walking on my block. She showed up in my apartment within three to five minutes and she talked with me for God knows how many hours. The next day I started my breaking bias journey. Went to the counseling center and basically started looking at a lot of these interventions that I talk about in the books that basically help us break bias. But I was using these interventions to just like overcome the limiting beliefs, the self-loathing,

the self-hatred, the self-judgment I was experiencing. But the more I was helping myself go through my own healing journey, I started looking at the science, the neuroscience, social psychology science. And they were saying that these tools that I was using to help myself actually help us reduce bias, particularly unconscious bias. And that's when I was like, what?

That's crazy. But I was still, after law school, I was working as an attorney. I was working in the criminal justice system. And I started seeing a lot of inequities. Like I would be in the courtroom, for example, and I would just see like, you know, poor black boys being sentenced to prison

for like four or five years at a time for breaking cell phones, for like low level marijuana here and there. Where my classmates in law school were like dealing every controlled substance known to earth and working at some of the most prestigious firms in the world. So I was like, this is a weird discrepancy. But also the people that were doing this, the judges, the prosecutors, the security guards, they weren't bad people. I actually worked with them. You know, they gave to charity. They were really, you know, outstanding members of their community. But this is where unconscious bias really comes in. The association between someone who's poor,

someone who's Black, someone who's a man or a woman or a gay person. And that impacts the way, distorts the way they perceive, reason, remember, and make decisions toward them. And that's where I was like, wow, we can change all the policies we want in the world, but unless we shift hearts and minds, we can't move forward. And that's why we're still here. Like the reason for there was a Me Too movement is because despite changing the law, women still earn 70 cents to the dollar, right?

Despite the go. So intellectually we've done it, but now we have to really shift and go deeper. And that's what these tools, what I call the Prism tools are really helpful in doing. And I tested on myself, right? I started testing, you know, tools of mindfulness and individuation and stereotype replacement on how I felt, that emotional aspect, you know, that discomfort that we feel around

this. And over time with practice, they really help us cleanse the nervous system from, you know, just these afflictive emotions and be more comfortable in our own skin, but also be more comfortable with other people. So we're with people for who they are versus our ideas of them. So bias actually negatively impacts the body then. Oh yeah, oh my goodness. There's so much research around how carrying bias

gets toward ourself or other people helps, you know, basically raises our blood pressure, makes our hypervigilant, creates, I mean, all the negative thoughts we have, right? Oftentimes that manifest physically in our bodies. You know, there's a phenomenon known as weathering, which is basically the idea that the more we experience bias, whether it's unconscious bias or conscious bias, like little things, oh, you're too pretty, or wow, you know, you're smart because you're Asian or whatever it may be. But these are just trivial examples. These are micro cuts. But over time, when they accumulate, they reduce life expectancy.

It's been shown like five to 10 years, you know, in the case of African Americans, for example, you know, of course, creates depression and anxiety where people have to seek various things to cope, whether it's food, alcohol, sex, you name it, right? These are all addictive behaviors. And this is why, like, you know, a lot of times in our society, you know, socially in our communities, there are so many addictions that we see, because all of these humans are suffering and they don't have the words to describe what's happened to them.

And for me, this is why breaking bias is so important and how the work of breaking bias is actually rooted in compassion and mindfulness and really starting with ourselves. Oh my gosh, when you're just explaining that, I'm thinking of so many micro cut moments, just in the past two days that I never thought, one of my dearest friends who I love so much is an AI.

And so she's always tacking me in posts. And I was reposting her stuff today and calling her a nerd just because I don't understand AI. So I'm calling her a nerd. But then when you're talking, I'm like, oh, my gosh, because I don't know this or because I think that's, you know, too hard for me to understand. I'm labeling know this or because I think that's, you know, too hard for me to understand. I'm labeling it this. I never even understood that that's any type of bias.

Like this is, I just know for me, and I'm just thinking of myself as probably similar to a lot of people. I don't think people have any idea about this stuff. Yeah. And I think there's a difference there, right? Because since she's your friend, she already knows you. So when you're calling her a nerd, because a lot of my friends call me a nerd too. So like, and I proudly wear that title. I'm like, oh yeah. Because I think they're saying it to me in an endearing way. But the bullies in middle school and high school,

when they called me a nerd, it was like a nefarious intent there. They wanted to hurt me. So that's where context is so important, right? So it's really, you know, between strangers, of course, it happens so much, you know, on, in a workplace, of course it could be really hurtful, you know, and this is very true, right? You know, you're so articulate for a woman or a person of color, you name it, right?

So those are the types of things that can hurt. But I think within friendships, if there's a mutual understanding, yes. But if not, it can also hurt. I mean, this is why a lot of people are, I mean, I've been in therapy for so long because this is what my dad said, this is what my mom said, right? And I hold on to their words like it was the Bible. And I'm like, oh no, I got to let go of that, really loosen it. And also, this is what the work of breaking biases, when we break those biases for ourselves,

we're able to offer grace and benefit of the doubt to others. You know, I think about my mom, she became a mom when she was 24 years old. Heck, I didn't know who I was when I was 24. You know what I mean, right? So like, those are the types of things that I never think about, because for me it's just my mom. I'm like, oh no, like there's a human there

who's like beyond this title of mother, who has a full life and has had also a lot of her own struggles. So what are some of the steps people can apply to their life that you share through your teachings and through the book? So there are five tools, what I call the Prism Toolkit. And Prism is an acronym for each one of these five tools. We really start with M and then we move our way up to P. And it really starts with M is for mindfulness.

So really becoming aware, becoming conscious of anything that's happening, right? In our bodies, in our minds, well, especially in an interaction or with ourselves or others. So for example, right? I grew up in this cultural setting where being gay is wrong, right?

That was the story. And I didn't even acknowledge that until like I started my healing journey when I was 23, 24. I was like, oh, wait, who made up that story? Being gay is wrong. What? So becoming mindful of that, you know?

Knowing about AI is something that only smart people can do, whatever that means. That's a story, right? But we become mindful of it without judgment. Also if judgment comes up, let's become mindful of the judgment. Let's become mindful of the shame. Let's become mindful of the shame. Let's become mindful of the discomfort. So the somatic experience is also really important because it's telling us something. Because in the past, we may have been harmed, you know, bullied, or in some way felt marginalized because we were a certain way. So then we move to stereotype replacement, which is we basically bring to mind a real life example that doesn't

live up to that stereotype. So being gay is wrong, right? For me, for example, I think of Pete Buttigieg, right? He's an incredible, you know, former Marine, super accomplished, also happens to be gay. He doesn't live up to these stereotypes of being gay is wrong. There's so many Anderson Cooper, there's so many people. So really think of them and we're basically loosening the associations in our minds with those stereotypes. There's a famous saying, neurons that fire together, wire together. So that's what's happening.

And what we're doing is we're rewiring the brain by firing different neurons. So then we move to individuation, which is curiosity. We're basically dissociating the person we're with from the group-based associations that may come to mind. We don't judge the group-based associations, we just become mindful of them. So if I'm with Heather, who happens to be a woman, who happens to be a blonde, there are all these ideas. Cool, I'll let the ideas come, but I'm really with Heather for who she is versus the ideas I want to believe in.

So this is really interesting, right? Where we kind of really individually, and then we move to perspective taking and pro-social behavior. So those are the last two tools. And these are actually tools, they're heart tools, cultivating compassion, empathy through practice. So a lot of times people like be kind or be compassionate, be empathetic, but actually scientists have shown that we can build compassion and empathy or joy as a skill. And it takes anywhere from three to eight weeks to build these skills.

But the simple way we do this is affirmations. I mean, you're really familiar with this, affirmations. And what I did in my healing journey for two years straight, for 20 minutes a day, I would just say compassionate phrases to my cell phone. May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I be safe.

May I live with ease. Simple. Two years and just transformed so much of the self-loathing I was carrying. Of course, we have to do this earnestly, not just like you want something to go away. And at first it can feel really broke, but over time it softens the heart because what it's doing is again, neurons that fire together, wire together,

there's a negativity bias in our nervous system. So what this is doing is bringing those warm feelings to counteract the cynicism, the doubt, the hate that we've learned from our surroundings and really reaching in our soul level who we actually are. Love, compassion, you know, we are completely interdependent. So those are the things that this really brings forth. And that's for me, what the neuroscience has shown the opportunity for us to really evolve our way out of the stain, which we're seeing everywhere. But I'm really

hopeful we can get out of it through these practices. Yeah, I love that these are not only are they science-backed and based, right, which I mean, that's factual. So this can be done. You've done it, right? You've done it and worked with other people and seen these success stories. You have these success stories. You know it's all possible. Now it's just educating and spreading this message so that other people, number one, aware, because I think for me, that was the first issue, right? I didn't even realize I was being biased to myself as you were explaining this.

I didn't know that I was doing that. Once we know we've got a problem, then we can start, yes, patient to address it and fix it and implement it. And then it can start impacting, like you were saying, how we treat others and how we treat ourselves and how we approach things. I was also thinking when you were talking about dating,

oh my gosh, that is- Oh gosh, yes. But that's got to be one of the biggest issues when you're meeting someone for the first time and the judgment comes up and the bias, oh my gosh. OK, I'm going to share a story here, which is quite personal. It's actually not my story, but I hope my partner will forgive me.

But basically, so my partner was born and raised in Texas. He comes from a Filipino family. And his grandfather was the one who immigrated to the US. They're very Christian, Methodist. And his grandfather had a dream for him. Like one day, as they were walking to church, I think it was like seven or eight, he said, you're going to have a beautiful blonde wife, and you will have a white picket fence and you will live the American dream. So here's this like brown Filipino boy who's gay, but you know, he learned this from his grandfather. So every single person he dated

until he met me four years ago was mostly a blonde white man. I mean, of course he has a very diverse group of friends, of course, but it was so unconscious. And I think he actually was seeing a therapist because his last relationship hadn't worked out. And his therapist was like asking him to really go deeper and deeper into the type of people he dates and why he dates them. And that's when he discovered, he's like, Whoa, like, I only give chance dating wise to only one type of human. What's that about? If he hadn't done that work, if he hadn't broken that bias, which was on such a surface

level, he was like, this is ridiculous, but he wasn't even conscious of it. And it was dictating how he was making decisions. Thankfully, he looked at that. Thankfully, he swiped right. Thankfully, we met. And here we are. I love it. We're engaged, by the way.

So. Oh, congratulations. I'm it. We're engaged right away. So congratulations. I'm so happy for you guys. And I'm so happy for him. Did he pump the brakes and said some things not right here. I've got to go deeper because so many people won't do that. I'm just so proud of him. That's incredible.

And that he had a good therapist to help discover that. But now that you're telling that story, just hit me. It's so wild that you say this and guys, look into your own life peeps. Because here's the thing, as you're talking, I'm thinking to myself, my biological father, my mother left him when we were all little children. There's four kids in my biological family. And so I always had daddy issues my whole life. And I was thinking, yeah, that affects you in relationships. You know what I didn't think of for a long time? It was affecting me in business. And I would always find myself... The relationship that played me most in my life was the man I would work for in different corporate environments. And it wasn't

their problem. It was my problem. It was all about me. I could never do enough for them. I could never shine bright enough. I could never win, make enough millions for them. I had to drive that sale price higher and the pressure I would put on myself. And again, it's not about them. Forget each one of them. They were different, whatever, it didn't matter. It was about me picking men at work that I could go and try to get to see my value

and constantly praise me and nothing would ever be good enough unless I got them to be so ecstatic with me that it was killing me. And, you know, self-work, you start discovering this stuff and saying, wait a minute, I don't work for anyone else but myself. It's so true.

And like, this is what's running a lot of corporate America. Like at least I'll speak from my example, right? So, so many of my friends and classmates from law school, these were the daddy issues that they had. And they were mostly, some of them were mommy issues, but for the most part, these were daddy issues. Whether they were men or women or anyone in between, same issues, which is why they would overwork 80, 90, 100 hours a week trying to prove to themselves to the partner in charge that they were worthy, that they were good enough.

And I was like, wow, like this is that interpersonal play from their childhood. But these are also a lot of internalized biases, these biases of unworthiness, not being good enough, needing to prove themselves over and over again, overcompensation as it's known as. And also sometimes it can be under compensation, but they succumb to the stereotypes. I am worthless. I am good for nothing. So why even try? And that happens to us in different phases of life for some people, right? And so these are the ways it manifests, and it could be just heartbreaking and so painful, unless we make it conscious, like you did, like I did, right? Like my partner did.

Yeah, but it's so interesting, and your partner, much like me, I didn't know that's what I was figuring out. It sounds like he didn't hear. He was kind of stumbled into it to say say something's going over here with dating. What is that about? And that was the same for me. Why am I making myself so sick at work all the time? But it doesn't matter where I ends up working.

I'm falling back in a negative work environments where I'm not treated well. And then I try to get these people to love me and praise me. What's broken here was finally, you know, what changed things then, you're not gonna be surprised with this. When I did go out on my own, I had this paralyzing fear of failure

that how can I succeed without some man telling me what to do when, PS, there was not one person I worked for that I didn't outrun and out deliver on. I knew intellectually, I was the one always calling the shots. So of course I can do it on my own, but something physically within me, my own limiting beliefs were telling me, wait, you can't do this without a man leading. That was the hardest breakthrough for me becoming an entrepreneur. And I didn't realize it initially.

I wish more and more women are listening to you, like, because that's it. I mean, that's the reason why my mom has been where she is all her life, because to this day, she makes more money than my dad. I mean, they're both wonderful humans. But the fact is she's always needed to feel like she needs a man in her life to validate her existence. It's a learned story. And it can be unlearned people. It's so can be unlearned. And I'm so glad that you're doing this work because you know what's interesting, I'm kind of having this epiphany right now is that the work you're doing is not so different than a lot of psychologists that are out there. You're approaching it from a very different perspective. But it's very similar in that

you're talking about mindfulness, meditation, self-awareness, you're talking about tactical tips and strategies from psychology that you can implement into your life, but you're approaching it. And so important, I'm so proud of you too for doing this because some people are only gonna relate to it with the science-backed approach and they're only gonna relate to it. You've been a lawyer and your background is so, you're so educated that some people will only listen to someone like that.

Some people will only listen to a woman's perspective on it. But all voices need to be heard in order to connect and reach the masses. And this work, as we know, just has to be done. Yeah, and I think we've, like you said, it just seems like it's everywhere, right? And why do neighbors hate one another? There's ruptures within our families

where we believe these stories people have told us about each other because of our beliefs that we completely break our relationships. And for me, that's the sad part. For me, writing this book, because I have family members who are across the political spectrum. And through these practices, I'm like,

oh, I can be curious, I can be loving, and vice versa. Some of my family members don't share much of my political beliefs, and yet they still buy me Christmas presents. They still take me out. So there's that love that's present there. And that's what I want to remain, believes, and yet they still buy me Christmas presents. They still take me out, right? So there's that love that's present there. And that's what I want to remain that these are just little things like little things that become big things, but we have to make them

conscious and really break them. And eventually, hopefully people will be able to talk to one another, you know, across the aisle. So we can actually create solutions that benefit all of us, move away from the negativity, move away from the divisiveness. One of the things that's coming to my mind is that, yeah, this stuff is important. And of course, everyone understands in their own life, you know, how could it affect their family negatively, their work negatively, as we're talking about relationships, etc. Okay, but let's talk about the elephant in the room,

which is Islamic culture right now and Israel. Some topics are harder. Is it harder to address bias on something so big like that? Do you not even start there? Because I'm just thinking I have friends on all different sides and from different. So I hear all of the different viewpoints and anger and upset. I can also sit and empathize with each of them when I'm sitting with them.

But then I empathize. Do you address it or is it too heated to address right now? You know, it's so interesting that you asked me this because, yeah, like you, I have friends on all sides, you know, and also I lived in Israel after college. I worked at the Holocaust Museum in New York City. I was an Islamic studies major because I went to Israel. So like, it's been something that's really personal to me. And even though I'm not Muslim, but I'm often confused for one because of the way I look, again, those associations.

But I think none of these topics are too big because the root cause is the same. These are learned habits, learned stories, right? That can be unlearned. The reason why it's so challenging with this particular topic around Israel and Gaza and the Middle East in general is because the emotions that arise are really big feelings.

They are really big feelings. And folks don't have the tools to manage those big emotions. And that's why I feel like let's start small and really build the resilience and really train our nervous systems because that's what's going to be helpful in resolving these bigger conflicts.

Because ultimately, we all want to live. We all want other people to be able to live. Why can't we all live together? Or why can't we come to an agreement so that we can live together? These are kind of the big things, but there are reasons. People will say, well, this is why we can't. This is why we can't.

And people are so wedded and attached to their stories that they forget a bigger picture. Lives are at stake. So much stress, so much anxiety, so much money being wasted, our environment being destroyed. You just name it. It's like a lose, lose, lose all over. But because of these big feelings, as you would know from any of the therabics, we can't get there. So this is why it's so important for us to be doing this work internally.

And of course, for me, my hope is that one day I'll be able to talk about these big feelings and really get to the root cause. But that requires a lot of patience, but because people can get so quickly triggered, you know, and they can resort to fear and run away. And when we shut down and run away, we just go to fight, flight or freeze, right? And that's what we're seeing, sadly. Meet a different guest each week.

Money's on the table. Confidence cleared. Confidence cleared. I ask you to try to find your passion. So if people find themselves, especially during this time right now with all these political conversations happening, and you know you're going into an environment, whether it be business or family, it doesn't matter. Like you said, we're going to find somebody on one side and the other on the opposite within any room we could walk into.

If something starts getting accelerated and people are getting really emotional, is there something you can do to calm that bias down? And what's the best strategy for somebody to if they find themselves in that situation? It's such a great question, Heather. So start with mindfulness, become aware that, oh, it's getting heated and there's just agreements and this could be a sense that this could go in the wrong direction. So the second we become aware of it, I think we start with ourselves and really feel like, oh, how does it feel in my body? Just a quick somatic check. Ooh, I feel tense in my chest.

Okay. And then basically then we move to like breathing or whatever we need to do, but then we move to stereotype replacement. Like, I have some really wonderful mentors who are just so skillful. They're able to just, you know, change the conversation, change the topic, laugh it off. You know what I do sometimes? I excuse myself and I do 10 jumping

jacks. I literally set up my timer and jump for 30 seconds. It moves the energy around. That's the stereotype replacement because we don't assume to do that. We're basically doing something that's completely different. And then we move to just curiosity. Curiosity is really important because part of why these conversations become diatribes and arguments is because we lose curiosity and we want to be right. So for me, I've had to do this quite a bit. It's like, I don't need to be right. You know, I don't care about being right. You know, I don't care about winning. I just want peace, particularly with my parents, particularly with my sisters or my best friend.

So, but I'm also curious, like, where are they coming from? Three words, tell me more. And I talk about this incident in my book because my dad, for example, he has this like weird notion that anyone who's poor or anyone who's like not doing well, it's because of their genetics. I was like, this is like so dumb for like someone who's a doctor, because it's so simplistic. But and of course, I've had like

fighting matches with him like my entire life, except one day, this was like eight or nine years ago. I was like, Okay, tell me more. Where's this coming from? So I was very hard, but I was like, breathing in practicing what I preach basically. And I eventually learned that he had a teacher in grade school who he loved. And this teacher really inspired him to become a doctor. And he's a very successful doctor, now my dad is. And his teacher believed in this simplistic view of the world, education and social content.

Because this teacher is someone he worshiped, right? Or revered, he adopted his views. And for him to drop those views is to drop his teacher. It's that little. It's just so simple and so little, right? And this happens to all of us. But for me, the conversation has since been, it's like, oh, this says nothing about your teacher that you really respect. What a wonderful person and role model for you. And he can be wrong about certain things, as the science has shown since the time, right? So that's where we can meet if people really want to move into like, but it requires transformation in ourselves first, because I'm not trying to change my dad, not trying to make him anything

he's not, but just being curious with it and being present to him. But I'm sure he was completely unaware that that's where this all stemmed from. Yeah, it was wild. That's an incredible realization and just, it's so powerful because it's making me think what beliefs and stories am I telling that is keeping somebody alive that is no longer here or keeps you in your mind in some positive way to someone

that you're not working with anymore or mentor. I mean, I can't even imagine. I've never thought about the power of those connections and what you might do with that. Some of it is like so harmless, like it happens in such harmless contexts. But this is why we have challenges around sexism and race, because these are just little stories, you know, what our dad said or our minister said or our teacher said or what have you, right? And we respect them, so we believe them. But there is a big information gap and there's a lot of misinformation out there, so this is the importance of breaking biases to correct that misinformation. And I hope that's what more and more of us can do. Like, I didn't even know what being gay was until I was 12 years

old, you know, as someone who felt it, because in the culture I grew up in, there was no word for it. Right. But then once I learned it, and once I broke my own biases and like, oh, there's nothing wrong. There's been people like me for millennia, right? Ancient Greeks, ancient Romans, ancient Egyptians, ancient Indians, ancient Chinese, you name it. They've always been around. Like it's just, I was just born this way. And it was like, oh, okay. So a lot of the narratives that we get stuck in are just stories that some person came up with. And then they infected our consciousness with it. And for us now, the goal is, are we going to let them rule over our consciousness or are we going to become the master of our own destiny? I choose the latter. Okay. so I want to hear with all of the people

that you have worked with, I want to hear a success story of something that you've seen that you feel really proud of or like a transformation around bias, whether it be a company, an organization, or a person individually. The first one that came to mind is, you know, she's a woman executive at a large healthcare company. And basically she was the only woman at her role at a first unit of them.

I think she's VP or even senior now probably. Basically, she always felt out of place, not only because of her gender, but also because she grew up in poverty. She comes from a very working class background. She had imposter syndrome. And as a result, even though this is someone who's like high achieve a talking to lobbyists and basically has people on her fingertips, you know, inside there was a lot of turmoil.

And the way it was manifesting, this is interesting because this is part of the some of the work that I did with her, was it was manifesting with her two kids. Her two kids who are, well they were at the time, four and five. She was extra hard on them. They were going to like a private school, but she was like, you have to work harder and just like really tough on them. And of course, she felt really guilty about it all the time. And yet she couldn't get out of this pattern. So this is what we did. We just practiced prison, starting with mindfulness, particularly doing those compassion practices just for her for herself and the little girl within her for like several weeks. And then she started also teaching those same practices to her kids, the four and five year old. It's transformed. It's transformed who she is.

She walks differently, she talks differently, she behaves differently. She doesn't have to be the man in the office anymore. She's not trying to be someone she's not. She's more of an authentic version, more successful than she's ever been before at the workplace, and more successful as a mother, as a parent at home. And I would say I'm not supposed to have any favorite students, but she's one of my favorite ones because every six months she'll send me an update. So that's why she's so top of mind, because she'll tell me like how her life has changed with such simple tools. Right.

We also worked on some of the stories, right. Stories around gender, stories around race. She's also a woman of color. So, you know, just like stories she'd learn and internalize about ourselves. That are just not true based on the signs. Not true whatsoever. She was like, oh, that's how my dad or my teacher or my co-worker learned these stories. They're not true whatsoever. She was like, oh, that's how my dad or my teacher or my coworker learned these stories. They're not true.

How do you even begin to identify what those stories are and before you even figure out that they're not true? I talk about the story in the book, but basically, like, I'll give you an example. Like oftentimes, and you'd be surprised how many doctors I've been with, how many teachers I've been with who believe that race is biological,

that there's a gene for being black and white, a being Asian or Latino. There's no genetic basis for race. Race is not biological. It's literally a story that some humans made up less than 300 years ago. It's just completely made up. And actually, the science has shown that people who are in different visual categories might actually be more genetically identical than people in the same visual category, because their categories, they're made up, these labels. So like to really explain how this story comes about, basically a bunch of guys who love to collect skulls, human skulls, came up with the story of race in the 1700s. And they basically said this one skull is so beautiful, it must be the best type of person, and they named it Caucasian.

And then they created a really silly hierarchy. But this is the power of story because this hierarchy that they created infected all of our human consciousness. They sound like a bunch of wackos collecting skulls. They were wackos. They're called skull cabinets. Like there's so much research on this. They were complete wackos, narcissists, megalomanias, insecure, you know, probably lonely, you name it. And we are stuck in their story. And for me, like, when I first discovered this, you know, last year of law school, I was like, Are you kidding me? This is why I was bullied all my life. This is why I was othered all my life. And the more I

share this with people, they're like, crap. I remember I did a training at TED. I was a TED resident. I gave a TED talk. But they also wanted me to do a workshop there. And I led one of those workshops with their entire staff. People just couldn't get over it. They were like, this can't be true. You're lying.

I'm like, no, look it up. And then they were like, oh, crap. Everything I said was true. Of course, I simplified it a little bit. And then they were like, crap, like this is what our kids need to be taught in the first grade, but it's not in our education, it's not in our media.

And as a result, because there's such information gaps, we continue to perpetuate these false stories about ourselves and one another. And just how much time we spend wishing we were thinner, wishing we were lighter, wishing we were more beautiful. Oh my God, waste of time and energy. Can you believe, what could we do if we just like loved ourselves and just accepted ourselves for who we are?

The answer always will be the answer. And that's why people need to read Breaking Bias. Who did you write the book for? I wrote the book for basically everyday Americans and actually everyday citizens, so like parents, grandparents, teachers, doctors, anyone who's a professional, anyone who's a leader. And the way I define leader is not just someone who's like running a corporation or a nonprofit or a government sector, but a leader in their lives. They're the leader of their home.

They're a mom, they're a grandmom, right? They're a step-parent and they deal with these issues with their kids. Mental health is such a big challenge for our kids nowadays, bullying. So it's really for people like me, basically, everyday people who are struggling and are also struggling not just to make ends meet because of financial reasons, but struggling

with their mental health because of these stories, these lies that we've learned about ourselves and how it's impacting the way we make decisions, the way we interact with ourselves and one another, and to basically inspire them to find more compassion for themselves and others and let's build a world where belonging replaces bias, you know, and that's the vision. That's such a beautiful thing. And this book is for me, I mean, having that realization that I think, this is the work I do all day long, and yet I was bullying myself and telling myself false stories

before I got on with you today, beating myself up, and I'm so grateful you shared that with me, had no idea I was doing it. So there's always more work to be done. Yeah. And I think one of the things that I want to advise folks is like, you know, there's no shame or blame in this game. Absolutely none. And if it comes up, it's wanting to be looked at.

It's wanting to be uncovered. And that's the beauty of this because unless we really unleash it and really kind of pierce through it, it's going to restrict our lives. So this is why compassion and mindfulness are kind of the two wings that are holding the work of breaking bias. Where can everybody get breaking bias? Cause I know everyone wants to get the book right now

and they want to apply prison to their life. Yes, anywhere you buy books, you know, whether it's an Amazon or a Barnes and Noble or bookshop.org, you name it, or your local bookstore, whoever you want to support. It's available everywhere in the US, UK, and Australia and Canada, of course. Well, Anu, thank you so much for writing the book. Thank you for working to break bias in this world today. It is so needed and thank you for being here today. Thank you so much for having me. It

was such a gift to be with you. Oh my gosh, you're such a sweetheart. Okay, guys, get the book, Breaking Bias Now. You can get it anywhere. I will put it at the link in the show notes below. Keep creating your confidence and start working on breaking your bias. Prism is gonna teach you how. Until next week, keep creating your confidence. Hey team, if you're enjoying this podcast where we delve into high achieving people with transformative lives, then I have an exciting recommendation just for you.

Introducing the Tyese Gibson podcast, a show that dives into creating long lasting change by starting at the subconscious level. Did you know 95% of our conscious decisions are actually determined by our subconscious? Tyese, an expert in attachment theory, is the creator behind this podcast. She uses her expertise to help you transform your relationships, health, career, and every other area of your life by leveraging the power of your subconscious mind. So if you're ready to break those limiting patterns and create the life you truly desire, tune into the Tie East Gibson podcast. You can find it on all major podcast platforms. Trust me, you won't wanna miss it.

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