Deneen L. Garrett: 00:02 00:17 Today's guest is Breetta Calloway, a marketing and brand executive, growth catalyst for startups, a speaker, mentor, author, DEIB researcher, and entrepreneur. Breetta, tell us more about you.
Bryetta Calloway : 00:18 01:25 Well, thank you, first of all, so much for having me. Yeah, I would say that I am a student of all of the spaces that I've been in, which is why you saw so many slashes there in my intro. I would say that I'm someone who has spent a lot of time in probably three different spaces, sort of corporate America and the entrepreneurial space, as well as academia, as well as entertainment. And I think all of those things sort of encapsulate who I am as a person I started my career as an actor and a singer, and through my higher education became really really involved in research based storytelling which has fed a lot of my research work. that has happened. And then through a lot of the work I've done, I've had the wonderful opportunity to work with some really great, both startups, as well as amazingly established entities. And so, yeah, I'm excited to share not just the things that I've learned and experienced, but maybe provide some sense of, of wisdom or takeaways for some of your listeners.

Deneen L. Garrett: 01:26 01:48 Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, you have such a diverse, you know, we talk DEIB is one of your titles. So such a diverse background. And so I'm sure this would be a very enriching conversation. So let's get into the barriers faced by Black women in professional development and corporate America. What are some of these barriers and solutions?

Bryetta Calloway : 01:49 07:28 Yeah, I think this is one of the most critical questions to ask because you can't get to a solution until we agree on the problem. Right. And so those barriers and really having shared language around them I think is really critical. So for me, first of all, there's tons of amazing research and data out there. about the barriers that women of color, and other marginalized groups face in professional work, specifically the work that I did was around black women in corporate America and the professional barriers found there. And there are three that I think when I say them won't be surprising to any of your listeners. So the first one is bias and stereotyping. We know that this happens. There's implicit bias. So sometimes those are the biases that are working that people aren't even aware of. And stereotyping, this idea of putting folks into a category that more often than not limits their ability to grow, right? And there's actually some really great research done by a professor, Dr. Claude steel and he does this work called stereotype threat. And it's really interesting because even when stereotypes aren't presented to you, obviously the threat of being stereotyped for marginalized groups can impede their ability to grow, right? So if they're working on projects and they feel like, oh, someone's going to use this as a way to judge me harshly or to judge me unfairly, or this is going to be used as a way to determine whether or not I'm competent or smart enough are capable enough, all of those sort of threats around stereotypes actually stop people from progressing in their career, even when those stereotypes may not be present. And so what I say one of the biggest strategies to combat is first normalizing those feelings I think one of the reasons why your podcast and other women who elevate these, these stories and these learnings, it's so important because you find out that you're not isolated. This is not just happening to you this is pervasive. And so normalizing that, and then again, shared language, right? This idea of like learning how to name something in a similar way, right? So as marginalized groups, we can feel comfortable saying, this feels like bias to me, or this feels like a barrier, but then also talking to those who are non-POCs and saying, well, how does this, what does this feel like to you, right? And can we come to some shared understanding? around that so that when I'm confronted with this, I don't have to spend a lot of time educating you, we can just focus on the solution. So I would say the first is bias and stereotyping. And then the other one is this concept of concrete ceiling, which is really, you know, we've probably all heard this phrase glass ceiling for women. It's a pretty known historical term. Well, when I was dealing with some professional barriers myself, and I saw all of these amazing women in all of these leadership positions, but none of them were women of color. I asked myself, okay, so what is that? Right? Because clearly in this instance, the glass ceiling has been shattered. Lots of women in these amazing roles. Yay. I love that. But why am I not seeing any women of color? And through my research, I found that there was a term for this and it's called the concrete ceiling. And it really is just a way of identifying that that barrier to professional growth is much more formidable to penetrate, there's lack of transparency right you can actually see through glass you can't really see through concrete. And so this idea of like you're not able to actually see. how to get to the place that you want to get to in your career. And that's really critical. And so this idea that I coined in my own research called the invisible path to promotion, it's actually going to be the center of my talk at South by Southwest this year, which I'm really excited about. But it's this idea of you can't do something that you can't see. Right. And so like just creating transparency around the barriers. And this is why mentorship and sponsorship is so critically important, because we know that if someone would just show me how to do it, I feel like I can do it. So I think that that is another barrier and a great strategy, that mentorship, sponsorship piece. And then there's the lack of access. So we know there's tons of stats that talk about the fact that Typically marginalized workers just don't have access to senior executives, so they can't have the type of networking that's necessary to build rapport. They can't get the lessons and the learnings from executives to understand well how did you get to the place that you got so that I can start to map my career. Around that we often see that there are certain roles, typically those roles are ones that are associated with like financial oversight budgets large projects that typically marginalized workers are kept away from so they don't have access to the types of projects that map to getting seen getting noticed, etc so that they can grow their career. And so one of the strategies around that is again. very intentional networking and also being vocal to the level of your comfort about like, I would really love to be a part of this project. I would really love to spend time with this C-suite member. Like, can I take you out to coffee? Can I spend some time just asking you some questions? All of those things will help to increase your ability to at least share space with some of the places where we know professional development and growth come from. So I would say those are probably my top three barriers and some of the strategies.

Deneen L. Garrett: 07:30 10:34 Absolutely all through all 3 are. absolutely pivotal. And so the first one you talked about, what came to mind for me is, you're right, we're not alone. There are many of us that are dealing with these things, having to face these particular things. Some of us, we feel isolated and alone. And the more that we talk, and the more that we have spaces like this, and even LinkedIn, we see that there's other people. And I had just replied to a post yesterday, and I had really talked about an experience that I had, or actually, when I was in corporate and when I was thinking about, you know, how was I gonna wear my hair, right? Cause black women, you know, we're always changing our hair, you know, like how was I gonna wear my hair to this particular event? And so I had to think about what you just mentioned, the threats, right? I had to think about like, okay, there's going to be some type of consequences or there's a threat consequences depending on how I wear my hair. Yeah. And it is not in this, you know, and they could be small, minute, right? It could just be, Oh, you don't have executive presence because you're wearing braids. You know what I'm saying? Or whatever. And it's a lot of it. They're not going to tell you, you know, it's going to be something that you are. either excluded from, overlooked from, any of the things because of the choice that you made. And so that's what I mean by the consequences. And going to the invisible part, wow, right? Wow with that, because that is why representation matters. That is why I created this particular space. That's why we need to see ourselves in different spaces. And I love that your background is so diverse, right? You have such a different, I mean, going from acting and singing to researching and what you're doing today. And in between our listeners and those that are watching, they need to know that these things are possible and that we are in these particular spaces. So I love all of that. And then the one thing I want to mention before we move on, is that I had actually had a episode with a colleague. She and I both work for the same company. We're both retired. And she introduced this framework, CARS, C-A-R-S. And it stands for Confidence, Ask, Raise, and Storytelling. So it definitely aligns with what you were saying. We have to speak up. We have to tell people what it is that we want. We have to ask for it and make moves to make it happen for ourselves. So I definitely wanted to throw that out. And so for those that are listening or watching, Make sure you check out the episode with Shea Phillips, Empowering Leaders, Women of Color as Chaos Coordinators. Getting that word out. All right. So, you know, focusing on Black women, other women of color, you know, often we do too much and sometimes not enough. So we don't always prioritize ourselves. So let's talk about the importance of taking time for ourselves and the power in the pause.

Bryetta Calloway : 10:35 15:33 Yeah, I think, first of all, I love this question because inherently, the idea of taking a pause is a luxury that I don't think many people really understand that it is in fact a luxury, and we can take this out of the category of being a marginalized group or a woman of color. Like it is a luxury for a working parent to take a pause, right? There's so many competing priorities. And so the idea of it being a luxury, I think is first important because then it helps us to have a little bit of grace for ourselves when we aren't doing a good job of making sure that we're taking care of ourselves because it's so easy to do this. The first thing that I think is really critical about this idea of self-care and the power of pause, as you mentioned it, is that first of all the data is really really clear that black women burnout at a faster rate than their non POC counterparts. So I think the stat is something like 70% of black women and women of color report feeling professional burnout. Right, so that's agnostic of whatever industry they're in 70% of these women say, I feel burnt out now 78% of them that burnout leads to job change. So we actually so there actually is data around the reason why we see. Black women and women of color staying at jobs for a smaller period of time, right? Oftentimes by the time they hit that two-year mark, you're seeing a lot of movement. For Black women from a career perspective, part of that is burnout, right? Because not only are they having to work twice as hard than their non-POC counterparts, they're also dealing with all of the things that we just talked about before, the stereotyping, the bias, the lack of access. And so all of those things together are really not encouraging folks to actually take care of themselves. So one of the things that I love about this idea of the power of pause is that it is a luxury, but it's a necessity, right? This idea of self-care is not just, it's not just this idea of like bubble baths. Or, you know, taking PTO when you deserve to take your PTO all of those things are great and you should do all of those things, but I like to come to it from like so what's the benefit of it so for the benefit is that. A pause actually enables you to be more strategic, right? Like you can actually detach long enough to think your best thoughts, to articulate yourself, to position yourself, to be strategic. It also allows you to have great frame of reference. Sometimes we can be very tunnel vision and myopic, especially when you're talking about marginalized groups. There's all of this pressure for perfectionism because we already feel, as we talked about that threat of stereotype, Many marginalized groups report feeling that I have to work harder. I have to be better. There's no room for error. I have to get this right because I won't get another chance. Right. And so that I think one of the most critical things is to address the mindset behind this, which is this scarcity model right like we genuinely believe That if I don't get this opportunity right there won't be another one. And we know that that's not true. Right, like, more often than not, there will be another opportunity that will come up whether in that role or another one to prove yourself to do amazing work to showcase your skill and ability. And that taking that time to actually refresh yourself is actually a strategic advantage, right? It's the opportunity for you to, again, think your best thoughts, show up in the best ways. And if you can maybe reframe the idea of self-care as an investment, like a strategic investment, it will help you prioritize it a bit more, right? Because there are so many folks who are like, I can't get excited about this idea of like taking long walks or like all of those things. Okay, that's great. So let's reframe this. If you're able to take the time away that you need. I did this in my career very early in my career, I was too responsive. I really felt like I had to respond to that email at 7pm. I had to work on the weekends because I had to prove that I was the best and I think this also comes from my actor mindset like actors believe you do whatever it takes to get the job right like if they say can you horseback ride you're like yep. Yes, I can. And then you just go learn how to do enough horseback riding so that you can do the part so. I think part of that came from that mentality, but self-preservation is key, right? Because there is only so much energy and our time and our energy is our greatest resource. So thinking about it more strategically, I think can help folks possibly prioritize it a bit better.

Deneen L. Garrett: 15:33 17:40 Yeah, absolutely. And when you do, you make room for other things. So two things that I want to mention around this is one, Rachel Rogers wrote this book, We Should All Be Millionaires. And the book is really focused or geared towards entrepreneurs. However, there's so much that we can take from that specifically, or in particular, the growth mindset. And so when we actually get clear about the things that we're willing to do, and know some of the things that we're willing not to do, and then to not do those things, we're able to accomplish so much more. So take a pause you get clear, as you said, then you know like okay really, you know what I don't want to do. I don't want to cook. You know what I'm saying? So I don't want to cook. So what can I do about it? Well, you can hire someone to cook, right? You can buy prepackaged meals, healthy meals, of course. You know, you can do other things so that you're not doing something that you don't like because that thing that you don't like weighs on you, right? It may weigh on you in different ways. And so for you to take that off your plate, then you have room to do so many other things. And so that's part of the power in the pause that you're able to reflect and you're able to decide what's most important and to really just focus on that. And it's something that I really focused on within my last 18 months in corporate. I was very intentional. I was very deliberate. If it didn't align with my goals, I wasn't doing it. So I was that person that was even on vacation, let me check email, not necessarily reply, but at least look at it. I stopped taking my phone, my work phone with me, you know, it's different things that I change. It's like, okay, after five, I'm not responding. I'm not available. Right. You're teaching other people. how to treat you, right, because I'm not responding. You can send an email, but don't expect a response until the next day. So the point of all of this is, yes, it's up to us to make a decision what's best for us and to make sure what we do is all in alignment.

Bryetta Calloway : 17:41 19:44 Yeah, I can't agree. I can't agree more with that. I also think, you know, one of the things, so I started mentorship is really important for me. And so I spend a lot of time mentoring, you know, young people of color because it's, it's critical, right? Like that, that ability to bounce ideas off of someone else, I think is really critical. And one of the things that I have shared with a lot of the folks that I mentor is that this idea of being everything to everyone does not map to the type of career advancement that you think it does. So a lot of young workers, and I would say this is probably agnostic of race, but I think it's even more pertinent for people of color, really believe that if I'm everything to everyone, if I respond to every email, if I respond to every inquiry, they're going to see my value and that's going to mean that I'm going to get promoted. Not necessarily. Right. Like, cause what I found is that the best leaders, and I'm sure you would agree with this, the best leaders know what to prioritize. They know what to say no to, they don't do everything right. Like they're really clear on where they can provide unique value. And so I, and so again, I think what's really critical about conversations like this is to give people the language, right? Because you can have the desire, but if you don't know how to articulate it, it doesn't change anything. for you. So the ability to say like, here's a place where I can provide unique value, right? When I come into a room, I'm the first person to say what I'm good at. I'm also the first person to say what I'm not good at, right? Like you don't want me for that, right? Like there are better people to do that particular task because I know that in this one other area, I'm going to provide tremendous value. And so even that is an is a exercise in self care right like don't spin your wheels trying to do everything like get really super clear on where you provide value double down on that and then sort of like let the rest of the stuff sort of float off because other people will pick that up in their own area of expertise.

Deneen L. Garrett: 19:45 21:04 Absolutely. And so a couple of things along with that is one, I was listening to a podcast before and someone, they were really talking about the differences between men and women. And they were seeing how men will ask their boss, their leader, manager, whomever, what are the top three things that you really care about? And only do those things. Now their job probably is 10 things, but they're not going to do those three. Whereas us women, we're doing all the time. Yeah, exactly right. Right. And so that made a lot of sense. So, going back to what you're saying. Yes, what's your, what is your unique values, a couple things with that, again, what do you want. So in that particular role is your role, are you, is your desire to get promoted. Okay, then you definitely need to you know, lean into what your manager wants, their expectations. You need to know those and make sure that you're delivering and over delivering on those. The other thing is, if it's about you, you know, having peace and and or maybe growing in a certain area, then focus on that. Sometimes they align. Often they don't. So you just have to make a decision. What do you want out of that particular role, your career, and then definitely lean into that. And so I'm curious, because you were saying before about how a lot of women, they move around after a couple of years. Is that primarily younger women?

Bryetta Calloway : 21:05 23:46 That yeah, research. Yeah, absolutely. I would say that this is typically folks in that like late 20s into like the mid 30s area age range and the data really shows that it's, it's actually pretty consistent that we're seeing on average that black women in particular we're spending about two years. in a role and then they were leveraging that to move on. Now, there are a lot of reasons for that. One, we talked about before, there's all of this emotional labor that comes with being a person of color in these spaces, right? So you're not just doing the job, you're also carrying a lot of emotional labor about navigating all of the sort of barriers we talked about. The other one I think is even more critical, which is, is that it is statistically harder for women of color to be promoted. So they're actually finding career advancement by leaving and moving up at another organization or another entity, right? And the reason why I think this is so interesting is because the data actually shows that right now, and I don't remember the exact stat, but right now, Black women are the most, the fastest group growing in their education, right? Like pursuing education at the fastest rate, right? And so what that is mapping to is that the data shows that as a group, they are statistically more ambitious than their non POC counterparts, right? So they're pursuing advanced degrees at a higher rate. It's making them statistically more ambitious. Right. They want to see for black women in particular, statistically professional growth actually. Provides fulfillment in the role. They are statistically not going to be happy being stagnant in a role. Right. And so all of those things mapped together, like when you look at that picture, then of course, it makes sense that if I can't be promoted here, I'm going to look for an opportunity to have advancement elsewhere. It's also the reason why we're seeing a growing number of black women move into entrepreneurship. Right. Right. Because again, if I have all of this education, all of this skill, all of this ability, it's not being recognized. It's certainly not mapping to like equity in my pay or equity and opportunities. I'll just go start my own business. Right. And, and, and feel a sense of fulfillment there. So all of those things I think are really, it really paints an interesting story and picture about what it actually means to be navigating. the world of professional growth at this sort of current time.

Deneen L. Garrett: 23:47 23:54 Yeah, absolutely. No, for sure. Definitely on the entrepreneurship. Oh, okay. I'll just go create my own. Yeah.

Bryetta Calloway : 23:54 24:14 Yeah. And it really is. It has become that, that simple. I think American express did a survey about this maybe a year or two ago. And it's literally, that is the answer. It's like, Oh, this isn't working for me. Right? Like it's not mapping to the type of salary that I want. It's certainly not mapping to the sense of fulfillment. I want, I'll just go do my own thing.

Deneen L. Garrett: 24:14 24:41 Absolutely, yes, absolutely. And so now, you know, earlier we talked about like three barriers and solutions. I want to kind of specify on something else. So women of color and intimate conversation is about empowering women of color and elevating their voices. What three strategies per your research, your, you know, your expertise can Black and other women of color take to tap into their power and voice?

Bryetta Calloway : 24:41 28:25 Yeah, this is, this is a great question. So I think the three things that come to mind. The first is really what I call sort of owning your space. And what I mean by that is is storytelling to me has always played such a critical part, obviously as a creative, as a researcher and in business, this idea of really owning your story is critical, right? So not just your personal story, but also the story of who you are in concert with other folks, right? So that's critical. Just taking ownership of your story, not letting your story be told by other people is really, really important. And in fact, people who know me, um, we're not surprised when I wrote my book life lessons, because I believe so strongly in telling your story and owning your story. So to me, it's critical that women get comfortable doing this. And to be fair, it's not comfortable the first couple of times you do it, but just like any muscle, the more you work it, the easier it gets. So the first is owning your story. The second thing is really become credible in the spaces where you want to articulate value right like so it's not just enough to be passionate about a topic, you have to build credibility. And this is where we don't always do a good job of being really strong supporters, I think, for our black and brown sisters right like we we are really great in supporting their passion, but we have to balance that message with like credibility, right like there are lots of things I'm passionate about. There are many things I'm not credible in right and so it takes away from my ability to use my voice if I use my voice. with lack of expertise, right? So just building credibility is really easy. And it's so simple to do that. There are so many books and thought leaders and workshops that you can take that if you're passionate about something, do the work to get the chops behind you so that you can be articulate and respected in the spaces that you wanna be in. And then the third one is, is again, I'll go back to this idea of like shared language and naming. things. And I think this is really critical as well. I've always believed that this idea of being an advocate, you know, I've said, I said this to a friend recently, we were working on a project and I said, I really wish I was someone who felt like I could like not advocate for certain things. But I've often felt that the people who are most impacted by silence have to be vocal. Right? Like silence actually impacts us when we're not actually naming the things that are happening. So that doesn't mean that you always have to have a solution. There've been plenty of times in my career where the most important thing I did was to just name, this is not fair. This is not equitable. This feels biased. This feels like stereotyping. Like to just name it is critically important because I always believe You can do nothing about it. I can't make you change the situation, but you can never say you didn't know, right? Like now we at least know what's happening and that's critical. So I think, you know, finding the courage to name the things that you're experiencing is really important. Finding credibility, right? In the spaces that we really wanna be taken seriously in and also owning our story, not being afraid to tell our story in whichever ways feel comfortable to us. And that can be LinkedIn posts, that can be blogs, that can be social media. There's so many different ways to do it.

Deneen L. Garrett: 28:25 29:13 Absolutely. And you know, with the storytelling is where you also demonstrate your credibility. Yep, absolutely. So they all tie in together and they actually all tie back to storytelling. So owning your space, as you said. And it's funny that you talked about Name It because a past episode was named Name It, Reframe It, Restore It. I love that. Right? With a good friend of mine. Yeah, that's great. So that was like, oh my God, I heard that, yes, love it. So, you know, we're, what is when two or three gather, so that's one of the moments. So I want to pivot a bit and I honor my late sister, author and poet, Soul True, by asking about Dreams Deferred, which is the title of one of her books. Please share a Dreams Deferred moment.

Bryetta Calloway : 29:14 31:50 Yeah, it's interesting. I actually posted this morning, something on LinkedIn that I think the timing of this is actually really great. You know, when I finished writing my book life lessons, I had this plan that I was going to go out and promote this book and I was going to really share a lot about it. And then, you know, life happened and I was dealing with some really major things in my family that took all of my attention. And so I really had to put that on pause and it was really heartbreaking for me. I had spent obviously a lot of time writing this book. It was so important for me to get this story out there. It tells not just about my professional career and all of the many spaces that I've been in from Hollywood to corporate America, but it also talked a lot about the personal challenges that I had been through. I've worked in some really amazing places. I've also worked in some incredibly toxic environments and like just taking those lessons felt like such a gift to give people and to not be able to sort of ride that moment was really hard for me. But the thing that I love about life is that, and I think my book talks about this, which is if you are committed to extracting the learnings, From every moment that you're in, it doesn't feel like it was deferred. Right. It actually feels like it's just part of the long continuum of your own story right so for me I can look back at the last year and be like, wow, there's so many things that I know better. that I knew a year ago. There's so many things. One of the things I like to test myself is like, I believe something, but then when you go through certain circumstances, you really test yourself. How deeply do I believe that? Right. And I can now say a year later that there are things that I believed a year ago that I believe even more now, which is that empathy and compassion are critical. It's a moral imperative. that we show empathy and compassion to the people that we work with because you really truly never know what people are going through. So I would say all of those things have helped me sort of reframe we talked about reframing have helped me reframe that this was not like a dream deferred that it's just interwoven into the full tapestry of what of what my, my life has been. And I find myself, you know, today, especially because I shared the post on LinkedIn, feeling like deep gratitude that a, I made it through the last year, but I made it through with like some really core lessons that I've learned that are going to contribute to my future work. And so that feels really great as well.

Deneen L. Garrett: 31:50 31:51 Awesome. So where are you with the book?

Bryetta Calloway : 31:52 33:08 Yes. So the book was, uh, released last year. And so it's available on Amazon. It's called life lessons by Brietta Calloway. And all of the things that we talked about it, I, one of the things that I really believe that it does well is it helps people to, again, have this mindset of extracting the learnings. Right. I always find, you know, there's this phrase about like, you can find beauty wherever you look for it. Well, that's because you're looking for it. Right. And so when you look for lessons, you find them. And I have found them in everything to the point that people in my life, they they're like, what did you learn today? Well, well, I was like picking some tomatoes. And I really did have a moment where I learned that like, you really do have to wait to get the result that you want. You can water it, you can tend it, you can prune it. And they're going to be moments where you're like, is this worth it? Because I'm not seeing anything come from and then out of nowhere, there's a flower. And then you start to water that and you're like, oh my gosh, when you're sitting there eating your salad with that tomato that you grew, you're like, wow, that was really worth it. That comes from actually looking for the lessons in the moment. And it gives life so much meaning and so much richness. So.

Deneen L. Garrett: 33:08 33:27 It does. And that goes back to why it's important for us to pause, right? Yeah. That time and then to be present, right? Because that's also what you're talking about, being present so that you can see those things that you're looking for. So I empower women of color to live a dream lifestyle. What is a dream lifestyle to you and how do you live a dream life?

Bryetta Calloway : 33:28 34:55 Yeah, I would say that I am fully living in my dream lifestyle because for me, the definition of a dream life is the ability to choose, right? Like to me, that is the ultimate luxury. That is the thing that brings me the greatest joy. And it is a by-product of a lot of hard decisions that I've made, right? Like university was not easy, right? Like there were many times walking the campus at NYU that I was like, is hard, but the investment of time has given me the luxury of options right like I live a life where I can really choose the things that I want to spend my time doing. I've often said to people like it actually makes me a sort of like dangerous employee, because I really say like, actually don't have to take this. Right, like I actually do have a lot of options for where I spend my time and where I invest my talents and so for me, that is a dream life and I would, I literally encourage folks that whatever that picture is in your law in your life. If you do the things that give you the option. to have the choices, it's worth it. It's worth the hard work, the late nights, whatever it is you have to do to build the business, to write the book, to go to that audition, to have that meeting, like whatever it is, it's worth it when you have a life where you can say, I can pick and choose how I spend my time.

Deneen L. Garrett: 34:55 35:01 Absolutely, absolutely. So before we wrap, what would you like to leave the listeners and watchers with?

Bryetta Calloway : 35:02 35:58 I would say that the number one thing to leave folks with is one, you are capable of doing hard things. We know that. And I think we don't give ourselves enough credit for that. Like it's not easy navigating the world sometimes as a woman of color, it's not easy navigating spaces that weren't historically meant for us. And so give yourself credit for navigating that, like actually take it in that you're doing hard things. All the time. I often say that your very presence in some of these spaces is a political statement like just being in some of these rooms is hard work and you should give yourself credit for that. The second thing is, be the first one to tell your story. The reason I wrote the book, the reason why I do the storytelling that I do is because I really, really believe that if it's happening to you, it's happening to someone else. And if you learn something from it, other people can learn something from it as well.

Deneen L. Garrett: 35:59 36:22 Love it, love it, love it. So Brietta Calloway, thank you so much for lending your voice to women of color and intimate conversation and enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, and we have to shout out Jennifer Witter who brought us today. Yes, Jennifer is so awesome. She's always bringing me amazing guests.

Bryetta Calloway : 36:22 36:24 The ultimate connector, the ultimate connector.

Deneen L. Garrett: 36:24 36:38 Yes. So shout out to you, Jennifer. And I know today is that we're talking today is January 29. And I know you rocked TEDx. So yes, yay to you. And again, thank you, Brietta. Absolutely.

Bryetta Calloway : 36:38 36:40 Thank you for having me. My pleasure.