 here cultivating a diverse and equitable and inclusive workspace with Aisha Adams. Let's give it up. That was the real introduction. Hey y'all, I'm so glad to be back in Birmingham and to be at work camp with all of my friends. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Aisha Adams and today we're really going to talk about cultivating a diverse equitable and inclusive workspace. So for those of you who don't know me, I think the most important things to know about me is that I'm a mom, a peloton, which is life, and that I'm a business owner just like a lot of you all are. So the goal of our conversation is really to define diversity, equity, and inclusion, and to gain an understanding of the unique role that you play in cultivating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workspace from where you are. And then I hope that you can walk away with some strategies because I feel like everybody's talking about diversity, equity, and inclusion. Everybody wants to do diversity, equity, and inclusion until it's actually time to do it. So I'm hoping that I can help demystify some of this for you and that we can have a great conversation about this. So why should you care about DEI? You should make DEI a priority in your business because right now people want to spend money with people who have a diverse, equitable, inclusive workspace. That's one of the ways we as consumers get to claim DEI without actually doing DEI. You want increased innovation in your company, right? And you want increased engagement from your employees. You want a profit increase. Organizations that have women in the C-suite earn 35% on average more than companies who don't have a woman in the C-suite. Get a woman in your C-suite, trust me. Increased productivity. You know, we all want to be able to do more. And then finally, a less stressful environment. Raise your hand if you feel that some of these things would be helpful to you in your process. Awesome. So I want to talk to you a little bit about diversity, equity, and inclusion. And I like to tell stories, though. Of course, I have a great story for you. So my claim to fame, everybody knows me popular because I designed the Lenora Ryan Equity and Diversity Institute. And when I did that, of course, I called my parents because I was like, oh, I'm making history. This is very exciting. So I called my mom and I called my dad who'd been divorced for 30 years, never got along, didn't have much in common. And they asked me the same question, when is the check coming? And so I told my parents, I said, listen, when I FaceTime you, and you see one of them big fish tanks in the back with all those fish, like the different fish that kind of swim, you know what I'm talking about, if you've ever gotten a massage or been to the dentist, the big fish tank with all the fish swimming, different colors, different. That's when y'all gonna know I made it. When that's behind my backdrop in all the videos. But today that aquarium will serve as our analogy for diversity, equity, and inclusion. All right. So let's talk about fish tanks. The first thing is every type of community you in it's like a fish tank is delicate. Right. So think of a fish tank and the Thanksgiving fish tank. It's very stressful. The waters are very stressful after day two of Thanksgiving when you go back home. Right. Right. Stressful waters. Right. So our goal is to create this fish tank. But we're gonna start with goldfish because like some industries were just made for goldfish. Y'all know what I mean by that? Like the banking industry, tech industry, they're made for goldfish, certain kind of fish. So everybody already knows about goldfish. Right. You know a lot about goldfish? Everybody knows a lot about goldfish. Right. Little bit, I bet you know more than think you do. So let's talk a little bit about goldfish as if we were making a tank for goldfish. So raise your hand if you've been to the fair before. And you ate funnel cake, held your boo's hand, then you went over over to the little goldfish thing and you had your nest. Yep. Look, she's throwing the balls and you throw the ball. Right. And what happens? The fish lives. Right. You take your fish home and time you clean that water up. What happened? It's dies because goldfish like they water a little dirty. They like their water a little cold. Goldfish eat those flakes. You get them for 98 cents at the Walmart. Right. Then somebody goes to a diversity meeting and decides they want to put a bait of fish in the water with the goldfish. And we call that diversity. What's going to happen in that water? Well, first of all, a big purple bait of fish like Trish, they gonna throw her in the water. Trish gets in the water. She's beautiful. She's purple and she don't like dirty water. But she is put into this company and forced to be in dirty water. And another thing about bait of fish, they don't eat no stinking. They eat pellets. They don't eat flakes. Right. So you have diversity, but they're suffering. Somebody gonna die today. Right. Either the bait of fish will survive enough to kill the goldfish or the bait of fish won't survive the horrid water and conditions of the fish tank. And usually in a company, when you have women, black, brown, disabled, elderly, young, they're dying in your water because you still just feeding the goldfish. Right. And when you make a tank for a goldfish, like goldfish have little fins. Are you putting the furniture close together? Here come Trish trying to squeeze into the furniture. Right. Cause she's a bait of fish. Her fins are big. Right. So you want to be a good boss. So what do you do? You do inclusion strategies. And you're trying to figure out how do I get a goldfish and a bait of fish to live together. So everything you do to the water, that's called your inclusion strategies. So the first thing I'm going to do when I throw my bait of fish into the water is adjust the temperature. The temperature just can't be for the goldfish. The next thing I'm going to do is adjust the food because if the fish doesn't eat the flakes and it needs the pellets, putting more flakes is only making the water would dirtier. Right. And even in doing all of that, a bait of fish would not survive in a tank with a goldfish. So my next strategy is to get a divider so that I can adjust this side of the water for how I need to adjust this side of the water. I can do these things on this side of the water. And that is when you have true inclusion. Right. When all of the fish are swimming together. And the problem is that we are too focused on the blue fish, the red fish, the green fish, the purple fish when we need to be concerned about the water, the policies, practices, and procedures that make our companies up. So there's this idea that, oh, if we just do this one thing or this one thing, we can get black and brown people. We can get young people. We can get elderly people. But the reality is we set up these fish tanks and they're cloudy. The water's dirty. The fish are stressed. Have you ever worked a job where you hated it, but you were too stressed to look for another job when you got home because it stressed you out so much. Right. Because that's what a dirty tank will do. A clean tank will do this for you. It will make all the fish who are capable of doing the work jump into the tank. And those who don't want to be there because the water is clean, the conditions are good. They can easily jump out of the tank into a different tank. This is the reason the water must be clear. To attract and retain the best talent and to help those who aren't ready to be in our companies, self-select out with dignity. So when we talk about diversity, we are talking about difference. When we talk about inclusion, we are talking about how we help people and things that are different coexist together. But when we talk about equity, we are talking about when all the fish are taken care of, when the water is taken care of, when the temperature is good and everybody's eating. So that is how I define diversity, equity and inclusion. So, you know, as a black woman, everybody wants to talk about racism, but the truth is we have so many different diversity markers as a community that when we focus on one marker, we automatically exclude people because you can in fact be black and trans and Catholic and be disabled all at the same time. So if I fight for just black people and a black disabled person comes, then they're going to be excluded. If I fight for women, but I don't fight for fat women, they're going to be excluded. So we have to really look at how do we include everybody and the way that we do that again is focusing on policy practice and procedure. All right, we're going to play a game because I want to get to know you and I'm all into movements. I'm going to play a movement game. I'm going to read two statements and when I read the statement, you stand up if this statement applies to you. It's either or, okay. So number one, would you rather start a discussion at the lunch table about racial inequities at the workplace or would you rather start a group to address racial inequities at the workplace? So who wants to discuss racial inequities at lunch? Anybody? Stand. Okay, stand up if you would like, you want to stand at lunch? Yeah, great. All right, stand up. Okay, you can sit down. Stand up if you would rather work to address racial inequities in the workplace. Nice. All right, sit down. Next sit. Would you rather post on social media that diversity should not be used as a blanket time because it does not acknowledge the specific challenges black employees face or would you rather volunteer at a strategic planning committee and conduct interviews to gather data specifically around creating more belonging in the office? A, for those of you who want to post about diversity on social media, okay. B, for those of you who want to volunteer and plan a strategic committee. Okay, awesome. Last one, check in with your black coworker who might be offended by Janet's comments during the meeting. Who want to do that? Check in with your black coworker who might have been offended by Janet's comments at the meeting. Don't nobody like the tea but me? Oh, okay. Or would you rather create and drive a campaign to require an in-depth training on cultural sensitivity and microaggressions as part of the onboarding for new employees and to require that each employee receive a similar training at least once a year. B, so great. If you answer it mostly A, you're the type of person that just wants to change the environment you're in. If you're a type of, I mean, if you B, it means that you want to change your environment in the workplace. And if you want to change your environment in your community or in your workplace, I want to share a concept with you. And that concept is the advocate versus the activist. Raise your hand if you identify as an activist in the right. Okay, don't be shy. All right, raise your hand if you identify as an advocate. Awesome. So I want to talk a little bit about the difference between activism and advocacy for you. And I want to use a couple examples. So of course, I'm from Birmingham originally. And Rosa Parks has always been my girl. When we were in kindergarten, and it was February, we had to do black history reports. So of course, I'm doing on Rosa. She was pretty, number one, and she was popular, number two. So in kindergarten, I did my report on Rosa Parks. By the time we got to third grade, because I was chilling, obviously, I was still doing Rosa Parks for Black History Month, right? And what I learned about Rosa Parks in third grade was that she worked at the NAACP, right? So I go on to high school, still doing my Black History report on Rosa Parks. And what I learned was if you work for the NAACP and you're a woman in a high position, you must have privilege, right? Then in college, as I studied Rosa Parks, I learned she planned to get on that bus. She rode that route three times. And she was in fact, not the first woman to refuse to give up her seat on the bus. That in fact, the first woman to refuse to give up her seat on the bus was Claudette Colvin. It happens in New York. And she sued the bus system, right? But Claudette Colvin could not be successful without the work of Rosa Parks because as the activist, Rosa Parks sounded the alarm. She is the one who inspired the bus boycotts in New York City. We don't want to lose that money. We better do something, right? So in this work, there is a role of the activist, and then there is the role of the advocate. And today, it's really important that we resolve those roles. Because here's what happened. My girl Rosa Parks died not even owning her home, right? My girl Rosa Parks had her whip paid by the owner of Little Caesar's Pizza into her there. Somebody robbed our Rosa Parks in the United States. Like she got robbed for real as an elderly woman. Because we do not take care of our activists. We honor them in death. So think about Muhammad Ali. Everybody loves Muhammad Ali, but everybody hated Muhammad Ali when he changed his name, when he refused to fight in the war. Muhammad Ali is a new hero and an old villain. Y'all understand it? So the role of the advocate, and raise your hand if you're an advocate, your role is to listen to and to protect the activists. And all too often, we have left our activists hanging. I had the opportunity to meet Brie Newsom. Brie Newsom climbed the flagpole in South Carolina. I had 20 seconds to talk to her. I said, girl, what were you thinking at the top of that flagpole? And I thought she was going to say something about Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks or Frigley Douglas. My girl said, girl, it was two police officers waiting on me at the bottom of that pole. I knew I was going to jail. I was trying to figure out how soon they was going to get me out. So what I'm saying here, and what I want you to take away from this is the activist has been uncared for. Raise your hand if you like and have a lot of respect for Colin Kaepernick. Colin Kaepernick. I want to remind you that even though you saw all those Black people on stage at the Super Bowl, Colin Kaepernick does not have a job. He is not welcome at the NFL. So this is how our activists have been living, how they have been surviving. Because your activists in your community, in your organizations, those naysayers, those voices are actually a tool for advocates, right? Because a lot of times when people are having problems, we don't feel them. We are the CEOs of our companies. So when the activist is yelling, they're yelling in pain. They're the consciousness of the movement. A lot of times they don't know how the system works. So they're yelling because they're in pain. They don't understand. And the first thing we do is say, calm down. I can't help you unless you calm down. But if I'm hurting, I can't calm down. If I don't understand the system, I can't work within the system. So I like to think of it like this. Anybody here got kids or pets, either one. If you have two kids or you have two pets, the thing you'll realize is none of them are alike. They have their own personalities. So on the one hand, you have your rule breaker. This is the one that breaks the rules. Talks back, yells, never follows the rules. And on this side, you have your angel. They follow all the rules to the T. They get into the system. They can do all the things, right? And so here's what happens. You are like the whisperer, right? Because you can take what that rebel child is saying and you can process it and put it into your system in words because you're the professional. You can also see what that goody two shoe is doing with those rules and see the breakdown, right? And you can say you might be following the rules, but here's the problem with the rules. So that is really the role of the equity advocate. I liken it to the printer in your office. Raise your hand if you have a printer in your office. So I was a school teacher and I was a great school teacher, but I wasn't a good school teacher. If you know what I mean, I was young and hip and I taught my kids, but at the same time, like I was living in DC and clubbing all the time and partying. And so worksheets were my favorite thing, you know? So in the mornings, of course, I would get to school like 10 minutes before the bell. And I'm like, I just need to get to the copy machine, get 100 copies run to the copy machine. And Miss Jackson can be in front of me and she's mad at the copy machine because the copy machine won't work for her. And I'm like, Miss Jackson, baby, just move. Come on. Miss Jackson moves. I make love to the copy machine. I pull that copy machine out. I open that door and close that door. Y'all know what I'm talking about? I shake that counter, shake that tray at the bottom and I make it work. That's the role of the equity advocate. And see the thing about copy machines in school, they never cost less than 55,000, right? All of you have big budgets in your organization. Your machine might be a million dollar machine. You might have a five million dollar machine. You might have a $350,000 machine. But a lot of times you are the only person that knows how to get that paper jam out. So when people are yelling at you, it's because the paper is jammed and it hurts. When people are talking bad about your company, it's because there's a paper jam and it hurts. And if you are the copy whisperer or the copy or, oh, gee, I've had both of those titles in my work, then you know how to fix those things. And so it's important as an advocate to rethink your relationship with the activists to create space to hear the problem from a grassroots level, okay? I'm going to give you seven tips to help you with this, right? One is get an audit. Everybody I talk to that wants to do DEI, for some reason they think it's a spiritual journey and that they're just going to morph into understanding it. It costs money. DEI costs money. Get an audit, get a professional end to look at your policies, practices, and procedures and to advise you on where you might have bias in appropriate language or just unfair, not good work practices. Because y'all, 12 out of 12 people are stressed at work and 12 out of 12 people are stressing other people out at work. So we have to look at these policies, practices, and procedures. Number two, get training. Take workshops, not just the ones about racism, but the ones about fair wages, but the ones about sexism, but the ones about harassment. Take all the classes, right? Don't get stuck in what's trending in the news. Get stuck about what's trending in your office, right? Because if you don't have an audit, then you don't know what's trending in your office, right? Everybody could be dealing with racism in America, but you could be dealing with fat phobia in your company. Or an elderly person could be distributed in your company. Each fish tank is different. So you can't look at the trends of the world and figure out what's going on in your company. Number three, leverage relationships. And I'm just going to tell y'all, all the marketing companies out here, when I go into an organization, I tell them do not hire a marketing company that does not have black, brown people working there or women on your campaign. And even if you hire them, request it. Request it. Because a lot of organizations are too small to hire in people. Maybe they don't have positions available right now and they're just learning about DEI. But I always tell them, look at your vendors. So one of the things as marketing companies that you want to think about so that you're not in the news is definitely having black and brown contractors, consultants that work in your company that you can help leverage relationships with to help you leverage accounts. Raise your hand if you are considered a historically underutilized business. Raise your hand. If you're a black person, a brown person, an elderly person, hold your hand up high, please. If you are a historically underutilized business, look around. We have historically underutilized businesses in the room today in our community that we are not networking with. We are not saying, oh, I have this person who can help us with the language. I have this person who can look over my ads before they go out. I have this person who can help me make this work. Number four, share your progress. Everybody wants to do DEI work until it's time to do DEI work because it's hard. But if you do the work, share your progress. Your customers want to know the money that they spent is a part of their diversity, equity, and inclusion goals. And so if you can write your proposals, you can write your pitches to include this can fall under your diversity, equity, and inclusion goals, they're more likely to work with you because they don't know what they're doing either. And they're looking for solutions. Number five, target and track the right things and pivot when necessary. My dad is a career marine. He lives in Florida. I'm not arguing with that man. I'm going to have great thanksgiving, great thanksgivings, phenomenal birthdays, and I'm always going to be his favorite. Right? Now, do we believe the same things politically? No. Does he tell me about what he believes politically? Yes. And do you know what I say to him? That's for the activists in Florida to deal with. How are you feeling? You know, because he lives in Florida, I live in North Carolina. He's not going to affect my policies, practices, and procedures. So many of my friends are arguing with their uncles, their grandfathers, their brothers, that by the time they get to work, they're too exhausted to deal with the policies, practices, and procedures that can actually make a difference. Stop arguing with your daddy. He retired. He is not oppressing people. Do you all feel me? I meet people. I haven't talked to my brother in years. And I'm like, and that's affecting you at work, sis. And I need you to reconcile with your brother so that you can approach these policies, practices, and procedures from a place of love. Okay. Next, be ready for the sticky parts. Think about diversity, equity, and inclusion. If everybody's getting along, if everything's going really, really, really well, then you're not doing DEI. That's because DEI essentially is about dealing with problems in the workplace. And so they're going to be problems. As a black woman, I mess up. You're going to mess up. Messing up is a part of the process of DEI work. That's why it's important to call a professional in at the beginning and to get training. I had three leaders call me last week and say, you know, I think I'm going to quit. And I'm like, y'all just getting to the good part. Right. And then the final thing, which is super important, I didn't even put a number by it because it supersedes all the other things. Take care of yourself. A lot of people don't realize that diversity, equity, and inclusion is not just for your customers, not just for your employees, but you also deserve equity. You also deserve belonging. You also deserve inclusion. And we feel our cubs while we pour because we know the importance of our work. But y'all, I'm going to the spot once we come get my hair done. I'm getting my lashes there because people bleed all over me all week. The work is hard. Sometimes I get off work and I'm like, I feel like I've been at a factory all day. Right. So I'm going to take care of myself. I'm going to take time off. I'm going to get up every morning and run. I'm going to do the things that I need to do for me so that I'm ready. And this is why this is so important because this is how most DEI issues start. You have a person and you work with them. And you know, every week, Johnny lose his bus pass. Johnny lose his bus pass every week. And every week you say, Johnny, don't lose your bus pass. And you give Johnny a bus pass. But last night you and your boo got into an argument and you didn't get good sleep and you skip breakfast and now Johnny lost his bus pass. Johnny didn't got 13 bus extra bus passes for you from you. And on the 14th pass, you decide to implement the policy and say, you can't have a bus pass. Not because he can't really have a bus pass, but because you're tired, because you need a nap, because you need reframing. Do you know what I'm saying? Raise your hand if you take your lunch every day. Very good. I'll look around you. A lot of people don't take their lunch. If you're not taking your lunch every day, you are a part of the problem because you're hangry. You're hangry. You know, you eat your lunch. You take breaks, especially those of us who own a company. It's like we don't feel like, we feel like, because it's our company, we shouldn't take a break. Baby, your employees need you to eat. Put a chicken wing in your mouth, right? Your employees really don't need you to stay up all night. They really need you to get your sleep so that you can be the best leader you can be. I feel like every time I make bad decisions, it's like I was either thirsty. I needed a nap. I felt rushed or I was too tired. And those things can come off like racism, sexism, fat phobia all day long. They can come off. So the biggest thing is taking care of yourself so that you're ready to be open and willing and able to learn and hear. The secret to diversity, equity, and inclusion is listening, not knowing. Because if I am a black person, if I'm a brown person, if I'm a woman, if I'm too young, if I'm too old, if I feel that I have a problem, I'll tell you if I believe you're going to listen. So you have to listen. That's the real world of the CEO in diversity, equity, and inclusion. Listening. We are living in a ever-changing world. And I have a 21-year-old who I just really want him to pay any attention to me. I mean, I love him so much. If he just calls me, I feel like I want to sweepstakes. And I couldn't imagine the type of person he would be and the things that he would say. And so I'm assuming that my grandchildren will be purple people. And so I'm always in companies telling people, we're not just creating companies so that black people can thrive. We are writing policies for the purple people when they arrive. Because we really don't know how the workforce will change. My good friend in the 90s was trans. But I just called them third. I didn't even know. Right? They would say my mother raised the lady. And third didn't have a job, so I'd never worry if third could go to the bathroom. Because third was always hanging out with me and I didn't have a job. I was like two jobless people. But when I got into the workforce, this idea that my friend wouldn't have a place to go to the bathroom was alarming to me. You see, because we didn't have policies for trans people in the 90s in the workforce. And we couldn't have predicted that's what we would need to be doing. But we could listen and hear what we need to be doing. And that's why listening is so important. So as you write these policies, I want you to think of the purple people. How do you write policies where all the fish can swim together? That's my top. Any questions? There he is. I sure can. So I like to call this the Samao Bows. Right? So here's this thing about black people and brown people in the workforce. It's like people think they need to do something magical for black people and brown people to enter into their companies. But you know, we are highly educated. We work. We know how to do our jobs. We know how to be professionals. And a lot of times the white people at the job are suffering because they don't have clear policies, practices and procedures. And that's why the people of color are struggling. So I like to look at Samao Bows. It's like our case study. So Samao is the greatest gymnast of our time. We all agree. But she would get to the gymnastics knee and she'd do a triple quadruple flip jump. And when she finished, they'd say, well, this is not gymnastics, right? And they would deduct points. That's because the policy practices and procedures weren't clear. If Samao Bows knew that she didn't have to jump five times for the gold medal and only had to jump three, don't you know she would have done that? But the policies aren't clear. Kind of reminds me of the voting policies back in the day when black people had to count jelly beans to learn how to vote. Right? So the reality is that if people in your company identify as upwardly mobile white people and they're struggling in your company, new employees, no matter what race they are, no matter how old they are, are going to struggle in your company. So the way that I say that now, April, is if you have clear policies, practices and procedures, or if the water is clear, then everybody thrives. But like most of the black people I know are smart and intelligent. And the reason they're not thriving is because the policies are bad from the start. Is that helpful? Right? So if you're an employee, like just check this out. So if you are a like white straight man and you can't just be like, hey, these hours are insane, then how am I the young black girl that got in from lived experience going to say it? You get where I'm coming from? So it's important for you to speak up when you can because if you're suffering, someone else is suffering no matter their race, right? And DEI is for everybody. So it's important for you to speak up. And if you can't speak up, being able to say this is not a safe environment to speak up in is critical too, because I found that a lot of leaders when they don't create safe spaces, they're oblivious to it. Right? Any other questions? Yeah, actually, my question kind of rolls right from that one. So I'm not a CEO, but I'm like a team lead. Some people on my team are black and brown women. And I want to do everything I can to support them. But I don't want to put the burden on them to like have to be my like, you know, diversity coaches. So do you have any like practical advice for those of us who want to support our team members who are, you know, disabled or, you know, different races, but don't really know like what to do? Yeah, so I have my best friend happens to be a trans activist. And she was Tom and she transitioned to Tina at a Fortune 500 company. She's a graduate of Princeton. And when she was making her transition, she was in the workplace. And I was I was talking to her about like my nervousness of kind of being an ally. And she was like, you know, my best allies during my transition, were just the people who sat next to me at the meeting, or just the people who kept up the same work joke that we had when I was Tom, or the person that said lunch, would you like to go to lunch? So this idea that you need to do something special for black and brown women is exactly what I'm talking about. If it was your white home girl, you just be like, Hey, let's go to lunch. Can you do that with your black home girls? You know, I'm not asking you to be superhuman. I'm asking you to exercise your humanity, not from a place of privilege or authority. So the idea as a team lead that you want to support them, just treat them well. And when there is a policy practice and procedure that is biased, create a safe space for them to talk to you about it, and then take action. But they're not going to want to talk to you if they just can't even say nice shirt, or they don't know your business, your husband name or something. They need some tea to get to know you. And I wouldn't talk to someone who I didn't get to know. And April's like the average in my Ebony, so she's the same. She wants to know you before she tell you all her business. So it's not even really about race, as much as it's about how do you actually include somebody for real. Any other questions? Hey, long nice talk. I was somebody with a disability. I kind of support the I stuff too. So as someone who's in politics as well, follows it along. We have certain Republican politicians are trying to, you heard the census stop woke act. It seems like there's some Republican politicians out there saying anything DEI is woke. And it seems like we're seeing more and more laws or proposals popping up to ban even companies from even doing the stuff. So my question is, why are ways to get around that if more and more states or cities or counties or wherever decide to ban you doing the stuff, you know. So the first thing I want to say is every time the Republicans shot a ban, DEI is good for business for me because people who are really against the Republicans like to do exactly what the Republicans don't want them to do. So it's been good couple years of business for me. So just saying. Secondly, you know, this is the thing DEI is a broad topic. It's just like saying WordPress and then you come in here and you see all these different things. So if you do accessibility marketing and it doesn't have DEI in it, it's still DEI marketing, right? If you do become a high achieving team is still inclusion in the workplace, right? Selling to our new client's market is still diverse marketing. So the more you understand DEI, the more equipped you are to plan those trainings and those practices. You know what I'm saying? So you don't, it doesn't have to have DEI in the title. It shouldn't always be about race. So those key words that those Republicans are talking about don't even have to be in your training to make it so. So that would be what I, what I say. Any other questions? I have a question. How do we bring this into the younger generation for those of us with young children or nieces and nephews? How do we bring them up in a way that they, they learn this and it's ingrained in their, yeah, in their being? They know it. It's intuitive to them. I was at a family reunion in July and I was at the coloring table and my cousin son said that Paw Patrol now has cats, how diverse of them. He couldn't have been more than seven. The Paw Patrol added cats, how diverse of them. They're getting it in their cartoons. They're getting it in their classrooms. They are learning next to LGBTQ students. It's in their music. It's in their cartoons. So they are already brought up. What they need is good examples and modeling from their parents. And time and time again, when I teach, I always ask people to tell me a story about their lives that made them want to do DEI because they're coming to this program. And I would say 80% of all the participants, but particularly all the male participants, they always tell the story of their father. Right? Because our, our parents are our biggest role models. So you don't have to teach them, you have to practice it so they grow up practicing it. That's it. I think that's my time. Thanks y'all. Thank you, Aisha. Do you have a slide with your contact information up there so we can