Speaking and Communicating Podcast

We can use words like value base.

How do we lead into values that work and identify with each other and still have the exact same conversation?

Because the work is still going to be needed, right?

Is your work environment still going to be respecting people, creating that space for people again to thrive, to build relationships, to be more resilient and more collaborative?

That's still going to be needed, right?

Not because we had the term that was doing it.

It's the fact that we need these things that created the term.

Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating Podcast.

I am your host, Roberta Ntela.

If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning in to.

Communication and soft skills are crucial for your career growth and leadership development.

And by the end of this episode, please log on to Apple and Spotify, and leave us a rating and a review.

Now, let's get communicating.

Let's get communicating with Mathias Lemos Castillo, who is in Wisconsin, right next to us here in Illinois.

He is a diversity, equity, and inclusion expert, also known as DEI, which is a hot topic right now since the ushering in of the new administration.

And he's here to help us bust some myths, clarify some misunderstandings, and help us to understand exactly what DEI means and what the future holds with the scrapping of this policy.

And before I go any further, please help me welcome him to the show.

Hi, Mathias.

Hi, Roberta.

Thank you so much for having me as a guest on your show.

I'm truly happy to be here, and I appreciate the compliment.

I wouldn't call myself an expert.

I'll still say, you know, learning like everything else here in the world and a learning curve, but happy to be here.

And I'm so glad that you're here.

It's my pleasure to have you as a guest with us.

Yes, you're actually right.

Everybody's learning and growing, and there's so much that we are going to learn from you when it comes to this topic.

But before we do that, please introduce yourself to our listeners.

Definitely.

Thank you, Roberta, and thank you to the listeners for turning in.

It's cold here in Madison, Wisconsin, today, so trying to stay warm.

My name is Mathias Lemos Castillo.

I'm originally from Uruguay, so I'm not used to this cold weather that we have in Wisconsin, but I've been living here in Wisconsin for about 20 years.

Madison is very dear to my heart.

What can I say about myself?

I started, I went elementary through college here in this cold state, and after college, I had the opportunity to work nationally at MIT, doing community engagement conversations around what's working well, what's not working in our country, what could change, and DEI is a really hot topic in there because we were really having conversations around all topics, healthcare, immigration, food, you name it, and really trying to create an environment where we can bring people together.

So I think for me personally, as always been a person that works in community, likes to bring people in together, and I started my own business back in 2022, yeah.

Coming up to three years now, really focusing on community engagement, diversity, equity, inclusion, and leadership development, and how to bring people together and amplify unheard voices.

So I'm really excited to hear that.

I have a cat named Bakugo, a black cat.

He might make an appearance here too on the screen.

When I'm not hanging out with people, I'm not hanging out with my cat.

You know, I like to play the ukulele or do yoga to de-stress from everything going on in our society right now.

So it's a little bit about me.

Certainly much needed, the de-stresses.

I'm very intrigued by the fact that you were interested in working with community.

Did you go to college to study community-related stuff, Joe?

Interestingly enough, I studied political science and sociology.

So not necessarily community directly.

It was, but I do like to say that it is both feels very people-oriented.

So I think people and how to do social good with those two areas has always been something that front of mind I had had growing up here in Mathis.

And I think I've had a strong sense of community.

Originally being from Udenwe, I didn't have a lot of family members here physically.

So who became my family?

They were the people that, through community, hanging out and meeting.

They're my people now.

They're my family.

So that's why I really leaned into the community aspect, into my business, and really be able to see how to recreate those aspects that we may be different, yet we still can treat ourselves with respect and honor and even see ourselves as friends or families.

I like that because since coming to America, because I'm also from South Africa and we are very community oriented.

But since coming here, it's been such a cultural shock in that aspect because it's more individualistic here.

And that's why since COVID, at least I heard that there's a loneliness epidemic.

But then you've got 330 million people, you think to yourself, how can there be a loneliness when there's so many people?

What is it that you find because you're also from a different culture, is the reason people struggle to create community here?

Yeah.

Roberto, that's a great question.

It could be a number of answers.

I could say from my experience, all I need is not having access to these community hubs or those places where people can just convene outside of work and school, right?

And third-place families, so I haven't seen very few places that intentional third space where people can come in and just convene, hang out, kick it with each other, and have conversations.

Less and less, I think those are always seen as community-based organizations or nonprofits, and those are not things or places that people have experienced and like that don't have a negative connotations around like, you know, this is for a specific type of person, where in fact, it's for everybody, and that's why it's community space, and creating those intentional places for people to come together again.

Additionally, libraries could be another of those spaces, I think.

I had to, and culturally, I haven't seen a shift for people to come and be in these spaces intentionally, and what my work does is really shift that and be like, you know, actually, these are resources for you.

These are places where you can come in and just have a cup of coffee with people.

So that long-lensing factor that we're seeing more and more can be easily eliminated if we start intentionally seeing these spaces and more of the social hubs than kind of what traditionally haven't thought to be places for specific people.

I think we all can become a part of those community and ways to collaborate, right?

We all bring something to the table that might be needed.

And how do we lean into those hidden talents that we all have so our community can thrive together and not lean into that sense of individualism that culturally is seen a lot in this country?

So sociologists, you see that individualism pops up a lot.

And many studies here in the United States, and I think a lot of that sense of like, I need to do it by myself or that pulling up the bootstrap ideology that has served that one moment, and we're currently seeing right now that it's not serving anymore.

We are very much social creatures, and we do depend on each other and on our presence to thrive.

And a key component in there, which I love about this podcast, that once we're there, is how do we communicate, right?

Which is really important too, like not just when we're there, is, okay, how do we do it when we're there?

Yeah, that's my take on it.

I think just culturally, there hasn't been a lot of the spaces.

And in BIPOC communities, you see that intentionality of, okay, you're going to go hang out at either, whether it's a faith-based group like a church or you got a community center.

I grew up in a lot of those places because my mom was always like, okay, you're going to go there.

You're going to go hang out with some kids outside of school again.

And as an adult, that's how to work.

How do we find the third spaces?

With the caveat that it's not a bar because when you're including alcohol, it brings a different mix into the conversation.

Nothing wrong, but how do you build those intentional, meaningful conversations?

So for the adults, I always like to say, have you tried the library?

Because it's a good public space.

Right.

Norman is an island indeed.

And I think, like you said, that pull yourself by the bootstraps rhetoric, it lends people to thinking, struggle by yourself.

And as you mentioned, it's funny you say that about nonprofits, that it has the stigma of, if I go to those organizations, it means I'm poor, I'm needy, I'm not pulling myself by my bootstraps, instead of seeing it as a community-based organization.

It's very interesting that you mentioned that.

Now, let's talk about the work that you do.

Okay.

So you said that MIT got involved.

How did that happen?

Yeah.

Right out of college, there was a non-profit work.

So I dumped my toes into the non-profit realm for right before COVID happened.

I think it was 2018 through a little bit past the pandemic, 2021.

So I got to see both the pre-COVID and during COVID, slightly post-COVID effect.

The project really engaged around bringing people together around this device, having recorded conversations around, again, like I said, what's working well, what's not working well.

And what changes will community members want to see?

And at the heart of the project, it was bringing the rural and urban divide that was happening here in Wisconsin.

So it began here in Wisconsin, and then very quickly, we were traveling around different states, having these similar conversations.

So I visited a number of states in person and virtually, and we were asking folks, you know, let's come together and focus on lived experiences, over opinions, social security.

There was conversations around food, farming, and the land, which was really interesting.

So we were having all types of conversation, and I think I facilitated over 150 conversations, both in person and virtual, with strangers and really being convening.

That's where I got a lot of my experience, doing public facilitation, especially with strangers.

Because, you know, when you're having to hold space for people that know each other, there's an extra layer of, you know, okay, how do we make sure this doesn't explode?

And it turns into, we're going to scream at each other or, you know, those end up in the news.

None of that happened, I think, in the whole project timeline before it closed.

Because of the pandemic, we only had one heated conversation.

And it was in New York.

So I'll give it to the New York folks being very passionate.

No offense to anybody.

If anything, it was the facilitation style that happened.

And a lot of it really focused on how do we, again, see each other as people and focus on the systems that are intentionally created to create these problems and perpetrate everything that is happening here in society.

So a very interesting project.

Unfortunately, once the pandemic hit, we couldn't do in-person conversations.

So we were doing it through Zoom, similarly to how we're doing it now and having similar conversations.

And then after a while, it was not doable to do virtual conversations.

So I started my own firm, MLC Consulting.

It stands for my name, but it stands for three acronyms.

Mobilize, listen, and connect with individuals, so we can still amplify under her voices and be able to bring those who are often not heard into the conversations that governments are having, community organizations are having, or even just private entities to have a better understanding around what's happening, who's being affected, and what solutions are emerging.

I love that you brought the theme of individualism.

There's a lot of, and especially in this field, that you need to come up with the solutions inside a closed room, in a conversation room, or maybe in a circle with a bunch of men in suits.

But my take is, I think the solutions are already in the community, and we just need to give the opportunity for community members to come share their experience and what they think, because they're the ones that are really being affected, not the ones that are making the decisions.

So decisions are not made within four walls.

They're made in community.

That is so true.

Let me just dissect one of the things that you mentioned was talking about lived experience.

I'm very interested to know when you used to have these in-person conversations.

What was different between what people said to you in person, versus what they were told in the news?

Because I think the media here in America, at least has been accused of driving whatever narrative it's driving.

When you say lived experience, what did you find with people saying, oh, I thought the news told me this, but then the real life is different.

What were some of the examples of that?

Yeah, Roberta, I love this example around health care that I ran into during my time in that process.

And we were having a conversation about health care, and really someone said, you know, I don't believe health care is for all.

I think everybody should do it by themselves.

And I followed up with the question saying, like, you know, then can you share an experience around when health care has worked for you?

Individuals said no, no experience, just an opinion.

The opinion was informed by?

But something that they might have heard rather than news.

So they had an opinion about health care.

And the beautiful part about this project is that you can bring a clip from a different conversation.

Let's say you had a conversation.

We had a conversation about health care in a different state.

And this individual shared an experience they had around health care, around saying, you know, it worked for me because it allowed their parents to, and I'm here synthesizing what was shared, you know, it had worked for their parents to have accessible health care because of an existing condition and because there was public health care allowed for them to be healthy.

Right.

So the difference there was just because something didn't directly impact you doesn't mean it's not impacting someone else.

Individualism again.

Individualism.

Right.

I'm really trying to lean into that.

And you might not have a direct experience with immigration, for example.

The beautiful part about the project was that we were able to share experiences that people had leaning into it because we would ask the intentional questions.

Can you share an experience you had in regards to access to food?

Let's give it right now.

And someone can say, yeah, eggs are $10.

A cart now, a dozen, when they used to be $4 at the market, and they're getting really expensive.

And that's an experience that we can share.

It could be really leaning into, how do we shift away from the opinion, the individualism, to what are other people seeing?

And in a sense, it requires empathy to really lean into it.

Empathy, a huge buzzword, especially in the leadership space.

Now, let's talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion.

How did you decide that your life's work is now going to be in the DEI space?

Yeah.

Thank you, Roberta.

My life's work actually started in the DEI space, working for a corporation.

This was during college, being their diversity, equity, and inclusion individual, as Fetwood put it.

We had a department.

It was four people, and I was the fourth one.

Thankfully, I can say that the organization is thriving, and they have at least 20 people in that department now, so years later.

But taking you back 10 years ago, when I was in college working, DEI was still something that was new to folks.

So as DEI was emerging and growing, I was able to be part of that growth with it.

So to my statement earlier, I'm still in that learning curve, because I don't really think DEI is quite defined yet.

It's the thing that has, from the beginning, since I started, at least in my experience, has always been changing and will continue to grow and change.

So I was doing that work for the corporate setting.

Once I switched over to the nonprofit realm, I noticed that a lot of the same practices around the cultural intelligence and the critical skill to bring diverse community members was really crucial.

And now, post-COVER, you can see that DEI is really important and fundamental to have that effective cross-cultural communication that is needed in today's world.

Because we're all, as in some shape, form, or way, have a diverse factor, and we need to lean into it.

We're very complex people, and we live in a very complex world.

So to try to fit it into specific boxes doesn't do justice to the complexity that we're currently living in.

And that's where I think the AI has been really misunderstood, is that it is complex, yet it's just mostly looking at what are the internal realities that we each have, and how does that relate to each other?

And there might be some differences between, you know, not just the race factor, the color of our skin, but also, you know, you can see accessibility, language, cultural norms.

You and I both shared around, like, we were very much community-oriented, and we were family-oriented growing up, and even coming into this country is very different.

It's not that it's just individual.

There's also a lot of pockets of communities that are very, very alike.

They just haven't had the exposure to others, and provide that exposure to seeing, oh, there's a lot of common denominators, and oftentimes, we're focusing on what's not the similarities, but we can look at the common denominators and go from there.

Even if it's one thing, I think that unites us.

I think there's a game called Ubuntu, actually South Africa.

My language, actually.

From my Zulu language, Ubuntu, which means humanity.

Yes, and I love that because if you think about it, you're always looking at what's that one commonality, but in every card in the game, all cards are different, but there's always one thing that you can match with every card, which is really interesting.

It's funny you mentioned Ubuntu.

Yes, I'm Zulu by heritage, and it's a Zulu word.

And I always explain Ubuntu this way.

So from Zulu culture, first of all, in Zulu vocabulary, we don't have the word stranger.

It doesn't exist in my language.

When you ask someone to say, what's a stranger in Zulu, you explain it in a sentence, you say, somebody you don't know.

But in Zulu culture, we did not have the concept of, just because I haven't met you, you're a stranger.

That's why the word doesn't exist.

Back then, we didn't have flights or even buses to get to long distances.

So we used to walk.

You would walk from the morning, and then when it's sunset, you would look around whichever house is nearby.

You walk in, you tell them which village and who your people are and your clan name and everything.

And they will give you dinner, a warm place to sleep, and wake you up the next morning for the next legado, and give you lunch for that leg of the trip.

And you will do that repeatedly until you got to your destination.

Because none of these people, even though it's the first time you meet them, none of them are strangers.

We are fully, fully connected.

That's why we don't have the word stranger in our language.

And Ubuntu, humanity, I am because you are.

We're fully connected.

And that's what that is.

And that's why, I mean, I know over the years we've been colonized and, you know, some of us try to be westernized, but we still have that because that's literally communities where we come from.

I love that, Horta.

Thank you for sharing that.

And I agree 100 percent, you know, we're not meant to be socially isolated.

I think that piece is by the sign in the system, right?

That wants you to be isolated.

And I love it because growing up, it's always been, you know, how do we help each other?

Uruguay is a very poor country, and community is definitely all that we had.

And, you know, neighbors would take of other neighbors' kids.

Well, the parents had to go grocery shopping.

You would buy people.

If someone's sick, you know, you will go and get them some soup, get them some bread.

Do you need anything?

And it's not saying that there isn't a sense of community here.

It's more of the who gets that warmness and that welcomeness is very selective.

And how do we break down so everybody can see that humanity, that Ubuntu and focus on the commonalities rather than the differences?

Because if you're focusing only on the differences, you're only going to see different.

That's right.

If you're focusing on the commonality, you're going to see, what do we have in common?

It could be something simple.

We both like a cup of coffee in the morning, or I like tea in the afternoon, and you like tea, or whatever it is.

It's really focusing on that and having intentional space to create that.

Because oftentimes, again, it's, you see, I'm going to work, I'm going to school, I'm going home, and where is that space to come together, come as a community, and it doesn't always have to be, you know, we're going to have this very intense conversation.

Can there also be that space for us to just, you know, we're going to hang out.

I want to get to know you and find more of that commonality.

So I love that.

Let me give an example, Mathias, and I think this is very key, because sometimes I think, especially here, people have this fear that does community mean, I must only, I'm an introvert, I must always talk to these people, or I must give them my food.

It's not about that.

Let me give an example.

So the other day, first of all, I hate changing purses, because something is, I'm going to forget something in my old purse.

I hate changing purses.

I always carry the same purse.

So we have a friend two blocks away.

My friend and I, we're South African, like I said, we're community-based.

And we made a friend to the extent where, you know, sometimes we visit her and we stay at her home, and we watch movies and sleep on the couch and come back home the next day.

She's two blocks away.

The other day, I left my key in the old purse when I switched purses, and I couldn't get in the house.

My friend is not home.

And she said to me, go to our friend, two blocks away.

She has a spare key.

If I didn't have that in this Chicago cold, can you imagine how cold it would have been?

Oh, I can only imagine.

Oh, man.

That's the power of community.

It's not even about the fact that I want her food, or, you know, people are afraid that it's not about that.

Just knowing that I can knock on someone's door and get in, and she has the key.

And even if she hadn't had the key, I would have been able to go into her house and stay there and be warm until my friend came home and I was able to get my key.

Little things like that can make a huge difference in alleviating the stress because you have community.

A hundred percent.

And I'm glad you were able to find a key, especially in the cold.

Don't want to be outside right now.

Not in Chicago for sure.

So let's go back to DEI.

Another thing you mentioned, I was wondering, what do you think makes people afraid of this idea of DEI?

Whatever misinterpretation of it they have, what do they think they lose by having DEI policies in place, especially in the workplace?

I love the loaded questions, Roberto.

Just straight to it.

My pleasure.

That's a really interesting one.

I think there's just been a misconception around DEI and what it really is.

DEI has also been used as a term to identify people.

I think when you think around how folks traditionally, historically, have used the word woke to define for, you know, black people, I think we're seeing a little bit of that being used with DEI where it's identifying black and brown.

So I'm naming it because there's that one piece.

The second piece that I want to focus on more is the looking at the differences, right, and not having an understanding around why this is here, right?

DEI goes beyond the race, beyond the way that we communicate.

Like I mentioned, wheelchair accessibility, for example.

If your DEI encompasses that, Veterans Affairs, right?

People that identify as a veteran.

You might be seeing DEI as more as just a race, but it's actually more around like, how do we create that equitable space and that access so everybody's thriving?

Again, I mentioned earlier, it's been changing for a number of years.

So what people might think of a field like, you know, a doctor, for example, that doesn't change, you're a doctor.

Great.

It might not go into specific, so you're a surgeon, you're a do eye surgery, whatever specific.

DEI is not just that.

It's more of the, how do we have the people?

And people change.

So naturally, I think the field is going to change.

It's not a specific profession where every day you're doing the same thing.

DEI really looks critically around like, how do we build stronger relationship with individuals and our global partners?

You're looking at that, our customers.

How do we create more resilient, adaptable teams?

And it looks in like, how do we improve if you're looking at a corporate level, for example, where it started, like that employee engagement and retention around cross-cultural groups.

So we're not constantly having to fill positions.

We're actually clearing an environment where people feel welcome and feel respected.

And all those things really encompass that realm.

So it's been a changing field for a number of years and just makes the problem that a lot of folks are seeing right now is that they don't quite understand it, just because it has changed so much.

And one piece that I always joke around is like, you know, the word Hispanic has changed to Latino and then Latinx to Latina.

It's a new generation that's getting it.

And now you're part of this realm that the I really is having that generational intelligence, right?

How do you communicate effectively to each generation?

So they understand this is not just about, you know, letting black and brown folks into the workspace or giving opportunities.

Who are not qualified?

Because I think the myth is you just want to check a box and say, I have, you know, three black people and five brown people in the space.

And then we check the box, but it's not like they have the qualification.

We just need to take the race box.

Two things with that.

One, a white South African and a white American are two different people.

They're going to have two completely different perspectives.

So that alone is DEI, even though they are racist, the same.

And then two, when it comes to, oh, we're just checking the box and, you know, we just want to have this.

One thing I can think of, I remember when Kamala Harris, Vice President Kamala Harris was running for president, a lot of elected officials, there's somebody who went around interviewing them in Washington, DC and asking, are you going to vote for Kamala Harris?

And they used to go, oh, no, she's DEI.

I'm like, huh, let me Google head credentials because I'm an outsider.

I'm not familiar with her that much.

Like, okay, Bachelors and Howard, Uri Stokter, elected to the Senate, Congress, elected here, elected there, Attorney General of California.

What's DEI about that?

You know what I mean?

Like, how much more qualified do you need to be if you're Black and Brown to not be considered DEI?

I don't know the answer to that one because Kamala didn't even get the residency.

So I'm like, okay, what?

Branded a DEI, like you said, they make DEI a race thing instead of accessibility when you have the qualifications.

Now, since the new administration has scrapped DEI, what are the implications and what's going to happen going forward in that space?

Yeah, that's a great question, Roberta.

You can see the immediate reaction as people are following suit in a sense and saying, okay, we're going to rebrand it.

And you've been seeing a lot of rebranding happening recently.

That means that this also has been happening before.

So what's been happening now is has been part of that change that I mentioned, right?

And I keep pointing upwards because I think naturally, this is a field that you are required to move like water, and every change is actually opening more opportunities.

You have to see the challenges as an opportunity.

And DEI has been renamed and rebranded.

I think the one right now might be Opportunity and Inclusion.

So there's a name change that immediately happens.

What doesn't change is the people, right?

The people are still there.

So what we're seeing really is a name change, and how our company is aligning with it is the other piece that we need to really critically analyze.

I think you can use different language to really adapt to the audience.

If it's the diversity that they don't like, if it's the equity, if it's the inclusion, that's on them, fine.

We can use words like value-based, right?

How do we lead into values that work and identify with each other and still have the exact same conversation?

Because the work is still going to be needed, right?

Right.

You can have rid of the DEI, but is your work environment still going to be respecting people, creating that space for people again to thrive, to build relationships, to be more resilient?

And more collaborative, yeah.

And more collaborative.

That's still going to be needed, right?

It's not because we had the term that was doing it.

It's the fact that we need these things that created the term.

The diversity is what brings the people together from very different viewpoints and experiences to come together and have those innovative solutions and know a better decision-making process.

The equity ensures that fair access to opportunities and resources across the cultural groups are being done.

And then that inclusion piece is critical because it creates a sense of belonging where voices are being heard and where regardless of that cultural background, you can come in and say, this is my experience and this is how we can change it.

So, yeah, it's because there was this happening that it created the DEI, not because DEI was created that the collaboration was happening.

And I think that's what we're seeing, the narrative change.

And we need to remind people, you're still going to need to work with each other if you want to succeed.

We are better together and stronger together than separate.

But if the word is not working, then can we adapt it to something that fits?

Yeah, it still continues to drive the vision forward, which is how do we create these spaces?

Honestly, organizations want to thrive.

They don't want to be an organization that flunks, right?

I think in a capitalistic environment, if thriving means we're doing great, great.

But if we're flunking, you're just going to lose people, you're going to lose interest, and ultimately, you're going to lose your money.

So for the organizations that are seeing the shift, you can see that they're also losing that talent because it resonated with that person that they brought in, and they saw that value.

And organizations, they're like, okay, we don't actually care.

You're showing, you're actually the message that you're telling to the individual, not just BIPOC folks, but the individuals that were in the organization instead.

You weren't true to your value, or you weren't true to your mission, or your vision.

So what we're going to start seeing is people are going to turn away and look for places that resonate with them.

Because again, going back to that sense of individualism, that's dying down.

And I think we're emerging in this new era where people are actively looking for those connections, or actively looking for spaces that care about them, and are actually feeling welcome.

And belonging.

So that's what they're looking for.

They're looking for the values and not necessarily the name that's attached with it.

Yeah.

Here's the thing.

I think a lot of companies when they are thriving and just the business sells itself like, I don't know, Amazon is an example.

They don't care so much about those principles you're talking about.

But most companies can't afford to just completely neglect that aspect of their organization.

I think that's one thing that they need to remember.

What would you say to someone who's in either a DEI position and is feeling like, oh my goodness, I'm going to be like, oh, I'm going to lose my job, or has a company like yours and feeling, I'm not going to get business anymore because the new administration said no more DEI.

What would you say to them to encourage them?

I would say keep pushing forward.

There has not been a clear, oh, this has been a field that hasn't had a clear path forward.

That means that through the adversity that you see the answer, and you got to look at the challenges and opportunity and see, okay, if this is not what we mean, what is it?

And how do we lean into having conversations that, again, are not opinion-based, but again, lean back to experience?

How can we have these conversations that we're saying, okay, how has actually the DEI impacted you positively or negatively?

I think we'll see that oftentimes folks have an opinion or a direct experience with it.

And how can we, again, amplify the experiences that this is something that, in fact, makes the workspace much more inclusive, makes the workspace feel better, and the day-to-day life doesn't feel like, you know, you're constantly on this firefighter mode, that you can actually go somewhere and be yourself.

And I think that's really what we're looking for.

For the DEI practitioners that are out there, and they're currently getting the name changed, I think it's a good moment to also pivot.

If this organization is not working and aligning with your value, there is so much power in just pivoting and letting them, you know, if it's a sinking ship, let the ship sink, and that's out of your control.

And it sucks because I know there's the financial and there's the other pieces that are attached to it.

That means that if you're mental, you will need, and your organization is not saying it doesn't care for your well-need, that should also be an indicator for you.

It's like, actually, I need to go find the people that will care and will value what I bring into the space because they are there.

And oftentimes, we're told what's not there for us because, again, it's by the sign.

We want to create something that makes you want to feel like you're stuck to this position because it's the only one.

When in reality, we need to live in abundance and say, there is actually more spaces and this other space will create and has what I'm looking for, which is a mindset shift, I think, and it's a hard one and one that took me many years to master and realize.

And especially as a business owner, from the for-profit, from the nonprofit, and to now I get to run my own thing, I realized that it is always a mindset shift and is one that really welcomes a lot of opportunities and welcomes a lot of growth once you lean into it.

So there might be a cut.

There might be a name change.

Always stick true to your values and what you want to see.

And if you're working really to authentically better and improve an organization, keep doing that.

If you value it, if the organization is telling you otherwise, it might just be the moment that we show, okay, good luck, because you're not going to be the only one.

And there will be people that are going to see, you know, I actually don't align with this.

And time after time, we're told, you have seen, you know, workers leave our workspace, strikes happen, and that is also okay to happen.

It's something that I want to emphasize to people.

Words of wisdom from Mathias Lemos Castillo, who is a DEI expert, but who's still on the learning and growing curve on this space.

Thank you so much for clarifying a lot, at least, about the topic of DEI, especially during these times.

We really appreciate you being on the show today.

And hopefully, we'll have a mindset shift after listening to you.

Thank you, Roberta, and thank you to the listeners.

My pleasure.

Before we go, do you want the listeners to reach out to you, and where can they find you?

Yeah, I'm really active on LinkedIn now, so feel free to send me a connection, a follow.

We'd love to hear how are you being impacted by DEI, and how can we come together and create creative solutions.

I think now more than ever, creativity is going to be needed, and it's okay to step away from old patterns.

It's time to create new things.

Right.

We are the solution we've been looking for indeed.

Thank you, Mathias.

Thank you for joining us on the Speaking and Communicating Podcast once again.

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