>> We talked to 2 Lexington authors and speakers about their female empowerment work first calling our ridge talks to us about leadership and work dynamics.

Then LaTanya Jones, activist and author talks to us about her new book called Black Girl at the intersection.

That's now on Connections.

♪ ♪ Thank you so much for joining us for connections today.

I'm Renee Shaw.

>> Work Dynamics, leadership, intergenerational workplaces, all of those terms fall under the expertise of our first guest calling Al Ridge with more than 20 years experience in human resource, talent and leadership development, helps nurture that talent through her coaching.

It's why she's called Lane.

I sat down with a recently to talk about it all and how her Monday morning pep talks are just what's needed every work day.

Calling it.

So good to have you here.

Always good to be paying now.

And you're always like a ray of sunshine, literally and figuratively does.

Thank you for just being who you are.

Thanks for having me know and matter.

Full disclosure, you have done some fantastic trainings for us here at for middle and upper management and senior management.

And we do want to talk about why workplace dynamics and things.

But I do want to ask you like a big question.

Yeah, about.

>> You know, we've come out of COVID and people are thinking about resetting and people are just wondering like what's life all about and your wonderful with these Monday morning pep talks that you do to kind of revive and recharge.

What do you tell people who just are seeming to be in a perpetual state of uncertainty and confusion?

Yeah.

So I've been joking that it feels like we're all kind of feral cats right now.

Haha, I kind of trying to figure out this new way of being post COVID and what does work mean and where my getting fulfillment from.

And I think again, a lot of people just some time too.

>> Pause and reflect on things that they hadn't been reflecting on before.

And so there's a lot of uncertainty.

Is this really the job that I want to be in?

Is this the career that I want?

Is this the lifestyle that want?

And so I'm having people just really take a moment and assess for themselves.

What's working?

What's not working?

That's as simple as it starts, right, sparking what's not working.

And then what, if anything, can you do to change?

What's not working?

And I think that such an important question because sometimes the things that are working have nothing to do with me.

Right?

Like we were just joking about gas prices.

And it's like I can't change that gas prices right?

But what in my life that may be is not working, cannot change.

Can I do something about?

And that's where you start and you can only control what you can control exactly right when it brings up an interesting question about even determining and saying out loud.

>> What you really want to be handy believe that's hard for some people to say you're so this is what I want, what I really, really want them afraid to say it out loud because they're scared.

Number one of what other people are going to think if they think 2 big Brian, I grew up in a small town in that always in the back of my head.

It's I'm worried that someone is going to say Collings gotten too big for her britches like to think she is.

And that scares a lot of people and to one not owning with their true drains are and to never saying them out loud had a fear that someone else is going to think something differently of them.

The other part that I think really makes people uncomfortable is of course, the fear failure.

If I go after this dream, what if that pet mile into it and it's still not enough.

And I fell, but I think we forget that a lot of people are scared of success like if it if all of my dreams do come true, then Well as be able to handle it, if all of my dreams come true, right?

What if things change?

Because my dreams came true.

And now I don't know how to manage this and that I think it's perfect example.

When someone wins the lottery, there's all this data that says that in 5 years there broke And it's for that reason rights like all of these rain and delay.

Ken, True, can you handle it?

And we don't think about changing the person that we are in order to grow into that.

We think everything else needs to change.

And sometimes it really is like, what am I scared have and how can I do it with fear and maybe for some, it's also part imposter syndrome to highlight one side.

Get fair it in today's society that runs 100 miles an hour all the time.

Like it seems like you always have to be better the next time and better the next time a better the next time.

And when you're like a.

>> This is his best.

And this is you of like always having to be better than the last time you did something exactly exactly.

>> So I love the breath and pass or because I do think that that is a part of this for so many people.

>> And one of the things that I always remind myself when I'm having imposter syndrome is people who are actually good at what they do now from your face that people who are not get what they do.

Dow have imposter only reason that you get imposter syndrome is because you are actually good.

It And when I remind myself of that.

>> Like the reason that I'm feeling this is because I know that I'm actually good at something.

I then is shifts everything.

And when you have the data to back that up.

So one of the things that I always encourage people to do is to >> keeping folder and a half.

And it's really just the data that supports that.

You are good at what you do.

Because everyone has doubts from time to time, right?

And so I can go back and look at awesome folder.

And I can see proof.

Oh, yeah, I did do that.

Yeah, I am good at this.

It's just like the mental game at it is that reminder of I'm good.

Yeah.

>> And you know, sometimes you get to a certain part of life or you've been leaning in for a really long time.

And then you decide based on familial situations or just wanting a change of pace that you want to step back.

I mean, you know, for many of us we bought into Sheryl Sandberg's in a lane is definitely present.

Go after it.

And then sometimes when you get to where you thought you were going your life is this.

All there is is not what I thought I signed up.

So for people who were thinking, you know, maybe I want to step back and I don't want to be so president and I don't want to be on all these boards is like being bored to death, right?

Like how acceptable is sucide to society make it for people to dip in and dip out yet.

So what's interesting is out now have this agreement with myself that I do not say yes to things.

>> And the moment that I'm asked because I'm a recovering people.

Police are you know this about myself.

Yeah.

And in the past, I would be out of an event and people would say we'd love to have you with this.

Can you can?

Yes, without even looking at my schedule without thinking about what else ahead going on that week.

So I don't agree to do that anymore.

And what I have to say no to something via email.

I will say something like.

Thank you so much for thinking of me right now.

My priorities are X, Y and Z in the future.

Please KET me in mind.

And should my schedule allow?

I would be more than happy to reconsider the number of times that people send me e-mails that just say thank you for giving me permission to tell someone that I'm at capacity.

Yeah.

They just forget that they can do that.

I can tell people they just don't have the room for it right now.

Doesn't mean I don't care about your cause.

It doesn't mean I'm not interested in supporting it just means I can't get that capacity and that's okay.

>> I love because you were the one who taught me.

So the previous week we Sarah Mic on you.

And as we, you know, kind of close the series of connections are really wanted it to be these women who have been phenomenally impactful in my life.

Yes.

And I remember you telling me No is a complete sentence.

Definitely.

That's hard for a southern girl apps.

Haha, I need to make them feel good about why can't.

But yeah, it helps me feel good.

Yeah.

>> Because I didn't let them down in a horrible way.

Yes.

>> And I do think that you want to make sure that you still relay a message that you care.

Yeah, but I know for so many women, especially a southern women, it's really hard to just say now.

And so I do love to remind people that you can just say now.

>> And leave it at Have to have the reason you don't have to have a million monologues about why he said now, you can literally just saying now and move on.

So I will say that I'm a failure of just saying no, yes.

Haha, can you tell me this like 5 or 6 years ago still can't do it.

Well, yeah, yeah.

Because you just feel like you need to explain.

Yeah, but I have noticed and not to to generalize here that men are much better at just saying oh, yeah, Dan women.

Yeah.

>> Without any explanation, yes.

See, like knocking do that.

>> Haha.

Yeah.

Always.

And sleep over.

It works sometimes.

>> As women, we will be like, oh, my gosh.

Can't believe I said no, I don't want to hurt their feelings.

And we're always trying to fix things.

Yes, that of just letting things be.

Yeah.

And one of the things that I also talk a lot about is knowing what your role is and knowing what their role is.

And that distinction really does help with like, what do I have the responsibility for this relationship and managing your feelings?

It's not my responsibility right?

>> Right.

Or are helping you out in a spot that you should have planned better things.

Yeah, my duty or obligation exactly.

So it also doesn't mean that that love and care about.

Yeah, it is interesting because in a group that we are and like, you know, it's like it's it's so freeing to be a sign.

I just can't do that.

Yeah.

And I was like okay workplace You and like I said, you have done a lot for us.

Literally hear akt and helping us get to the next level of thinking.

And so it seems like we're still recovering from COVID.

Yeah, right.

And you know, we some of the prices still have hybrid work environments where they're some at-home options versus being in person.

Are you addressing with companies had to deal with the ever changing workforce dynamics and what are the major issues that companies are dealing with now?

Yes, so it's so interesting because I'm very Flexible work, right?

So if there is the possibility for flexibility.

>> That is what people want, that it's what people crave.

So how can you support flexibility while still maintaining the work last year?

So that's something that some companies are still trying to figure out the other big pieces.

I just was looking at the data from Gallup and galloped as the state of the workplace.

And some of the numbers are really interesting to me because trust is at an all-time low.

switch waitress from employees to employers, cars at an all-time low.

Things like that feeling recognized and appreciated at an all-time low.

And so they're all these other factors when it comes to engagement when it comes to recognizing your employees that really I think people put on the backburner because they were just trying to KET their heads above water, right?

Right, which I totally get it right.

Like we had to figure out how to make work happened right?

Very quickly.

In a different way.

So I get it.

But now those are the things that we really need to go back to an layman on and really start to figure out how do we do this in a hybrid environment?

How do we do this with the changing demographics of the workplace, right?

Yes.

How people want to be appreciated is different from person to person.

The also the vastly different from generation to generation.

And so we have this influx of not just millennials now, but the next generation that's come in after Millennials Gen Z that really expect different things from work like quite well like flexibility.

Yeah, like that's going.

That's a standard for the 100, right?

Yeah.

I'm one of the other big ones that have seen is there's a lack of connection to the mission of an organization.

And when people don't feel connected to the mission, that's when they start looking for other jobs.

So it's not just a paycheck.

It's not just a paycheck like it was in the past.

It is not just a paycheck that people are looking for and especially in the 2 younger generations.

Now, of course, people want to be able to pay their bills, right?

I'm not saying off for pennies on the dollar and sure we have a great Hey, you need to pay well, but then also people really want to feel a sense said what I do matters and not just in my workplace, it matters to the world.

So what impact might having in the broader scope of humanity and the work that I'm doing and what employers can tad, the work that someone is stealing 2, that they will have a loyal employee in them.

Wow.

So who is measuring the impact?

Is that from the employee standpoint?

Are they saying here are my metrics of impact and I'm either reaching them or not or they getting the directors from their employers about.

>> Here to show you, you know how you're making an impasse.

So they have this kind of internal filter.

Yeah, I think it's because of things like social media that really does make people feel.

>> Connected to society as a whole and global issues as a whole, too right.

And so then they're looking at their work and saying, okay, but Im in my having an impact and this way because I'm watching activists online.

I'm watching this person do this online.

What impact my having eyeball?

How am I making the world a better place?

>> Wow.

And is the company or organization I'm working for allowing me to express my way myself.

Yeah.

In a way that is different than how I view from 9 to 5 is actually which can a liability for one of hilly.

But then also am I giving getting an opportunity to engage in philanthropic events at Right?

As part of work?

Because >> does my organization care about the community that it's in and how are we showing that?

>> And that doesn't mean that that's such a big thing for these newer generation.

We do see them so stepping back a few years.

So as we see them as being more into self and because of all the social media a TikTok, some of you, I am videos that they're not thinking globally.

What you're saying they really are more can really our way.

Yeah, they really, really are.

Wow.

Wow.

So what's the other big trend that you're saying and what the workplace right now?

Of course, we have yeah, huge and Gallup and data.

They said over 50% of employees do not feel ready.

>> For any new technology.

So that automated any of that.

And that's coming.

That's it's here.

But it's happening faster in fan Fear at that.

And there's a lot of fear around it.

And so I think some employers have really just kind of buried their hand head in the sand with it and then like we'll get there when we get there and said of addressing it head-on and helping people merge into feeling more comfortable with that technology probably don't know what to say.

They doubt.

Haha, I don't even know what to say at times, but it's it's also just having that moment to look ahead, right to pause and look ahead and think where do we want to be?

How do we want in corporate incorporate this?

What would be a strategic way for us to use these type of technologies instead of just like waiting to see what comes in the door right?

>> And do you think this is going to create more autonomy wary like when I was coming up, we talked about self-directed work.

Teams like that.

You had independent ownership.

But you also, you know, collaborative spirit was a part of the workplace.

I change collaboration in the kind of what I think you will definitely make some big changes.

But I do think the thing that's going to distinguish employees in the future even more.

>> Will be those collaboration skills will be those abilities to effectively communicate, will be a has since of emotional intelligence because when you think about who's going to be the decision makers, who do I want on my team?

Yeah, I want the person that I know will show up that I know is able to communicate.

But I know I'm just fly off the handle.

And so those skills are really going to be even more important than what they've already been.

So that's a perfect ending question for us for those who aspire to be in leadership positions, what do they need to own?

What do they need to do?

I would say communication skills are number one.

The ability to effectively communicate a message to people.

It is imperative.

And then number 2, I would say that emotional intelligence.

How do you relate to that tether people?

How do you get buy-in from other people, Howard, how people relate to you?

Right?

Sometimes people think that they're really good at communicating.

But then you asked everyone around them and they say I never know what they're talking And so how the people are late to you and how do you relate to other people I think those 2 are still.

Yeah.

That is where the many is that well, and you got to have some self-awareness to be able to know that maybe my message isn't getting through or the way I'm presenting.

It is a yes or a right.

I think I've told you have to have this like a dream of doing a workshop called maybe it's me.

Yeah, because sometimes people are so unaware of the way that they come across to people that just I think we we can lack that self-awareness from time to time.

So I think let's have a moment of reflection.

>> If every time I walk into the room to people leave, maybe it Yeah, that's right.

And to know to say yes, to really take stock of it, not that you entered the room in the season parted, right?

But they're parting for different reasons.

And you're right.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to that and we should tell our audience, you know, she has a great Web site coach Coh Lane.

She has services that she provides for those who are at all levels of their career.

And this kind of advice can come in abundance to you.

Check her out on our website.

Sign up for the Monday morning Pep talks.

You will be encouraged to start your week.

Stay with us.

We've got much more coming up on connections.

♪ >> Thank you for staying with us.

We're joined now by my good friend, author and activist LaTonya Jones.

Her collection of poems called Black Girl at the intersection are brewing, haunting uplifting.

They're compilations of reflections on race, struggle, pain and redemption.

Her life's work pushes to the forefront.

Those who've been relegated to the margins.

Her book black girl at the intersection makes her literary debut and poetic form and she joins us now and we're going to try to hold this together gifts.

We are you are dear to me and this this collection of poems.

>> Are there >> They're transparent.

But there is also a journey that we're on and it gets to a hopeful place.

Is that an accurate description?

What's missing?

I don't think anything is missing other than I don't think it's just my my journey where the things that I've observed in my life.

I think that most of us have travel this kind of road where the we talk about it out loud.

Or not.

And so it is about evolution.

I think that it's about personal evolution.

And I think I find hope in it because it's also what I weighed.

Pray that each one of us would allow to unfold and saw offered up as an example of maybe how we may turn something that is very painful into love.

I believe everything is about love.

And so and many ways.

This is a journey of of love coming to love oneself.

Yeah.

And then to be able to love even some of the darkest things that also occur and ally 40 revealing in this.

Collection.

I think, you know, I'm often reminded of one of my heroes bell hooks.

She.

Hopkinsville from Paducah and I didn't know of her when I was a child.

I was governor in college.

I didn't even know that, you know, black women writers came from can from from Kentucky at all.

Ands one of the most beautiful work said she did is all about love.

And I'm just revealing that I think it's all about love, period.

And sometimes we're moving closer to it and allowing and sometimes we're moving further away from it.

So even the dark is story.

I working, you know, criminal justice.

My cases are difficult typically someone has taken the life of was accused of taking a life of someone else.

I look at those autopsies.

I Mize get to see the worst.

Sometimes.

But even in that, I can also find where love was lost and how this person was actually trying to move toward love, but confused as to how to get there.

Yeah, I'll share with you since this is our last original episode of Connections.

One of one of my a favorite interviews of the sister, Helen Prejean, dead man The one thing she said on this set was it's hard to understand this woman had escorted man to death row, right?

We all remember the movie and the She says when you walk with somebody on that journey to their graves, essentially.

You start to understand the dimensions of God's grace.

When you walk with somebody who's done something so right?

And so because there's some painful things in this book.

And you said, you know, it's taken you a quarter of a century, which is the wind, which is only to write >> Why?

Why so long?

Just fear.

>> You know what I think about my life.

I've spent a lot of time just being terrified, terrified.

I would disappoint other people.

I'm terrified that things that I've seen witness experienced would be taken as some sort of act of retribution, too.

Tell the story of them.

Challenging myself about is it something that is about retribution or is this about healing?

All those things can get I think as I've learned as a writer.

I actually was able to ask Alice Walker's daughter Rebecca, she was here for a conference many moons ago and I ask her how she felt about the biography that she wrote.

My and at that time she told me she would have done it because she didn't understand the damage that.

It could do to the family they have since reconciled.

So to me that it it just taught me that I have to tell.

As best I can.

The version of my story.

The question is, who story is it?

Yeah, you know, because it in your story includes other people right?

And so I think being able to just handled it with grace and with to visualize this being about peace and reconciliation.

And I think that's what I've attempted to deliver.

And I think that's what shows up.

Yeah.

>> Will you read a blessing for black girl become black woman?

I certainly will.

A blessing for black girl become black woman.

Black woman, royalty of Queens.

They will call you black and when they tried to feed you the poison infused in each letter of the word, may you always remember you possess the power to make the bittersweet may you know, you have been chosen by the sun and you will shine through what ever is defined as dark black woman you our dreams made manifest prayers, answered Wales witnessed and testimony through song.

Be it known.

You were spoken into life and life.

You shall live your coiled hair is your power.

Your crown is sacred.

You shall not be moved.

Bless said are you black woman and may you always cherish the black girl who brought you here?

That's beautiful.

My and your beautiful.

Thank you.

>> Maybe not on this stage but another.

You will be to talk with us and share more about the next book that's coming and it is coming and it is thank you so much.

Thank you, my son, for everything that you bring to us in this world, all the work you've done.

Domestic violence in the criminal justice pace.

It's tremendous.

And I'm proud and honored to call you friend.

Likewise, very proud of you.

That is all for connections.

The connections I've made on this program are priceless.

And I will KET on keeping on.

And you will still see me here.

Just a different space.

I'm Renee Shaw.

Thank you, sir, for much so much for watching and take really good care.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪