36 | Transform Your Work Into A Conversation Starter w/ Celeste Headlee

How many Opera singers/wellness experts/radio broadcaster/racial reconciliation thought leaders do you know? You'll meet one today: the remarkable Celeste Headlee. Celeste is a 3-time bestselling author, including of her most recent book Speaking of Race: Why Everybody Needs to Talk About Racism — And How To Do It, who specializes in studying, articulating, and teaching about the complicated nuance of human conversation. Whether that's professionally, creatively, or even culturally, I promise that Celeste will fundamentally shift the way we view human communication. She will blow your mind. 1:40 - Why Celeste has had conversations about race thrust upon her all her life 2:49 - Celeste's signature themes throughout her diverse career 4:29 - How she gets people back in touch with their base humanity 5:42 - How she balances different “modes” of work: self-help, reporting, speaking, singing, etc. 8:34 - The importance of staying present, and how music has TRAINED Celeste to be super present 11:50 - The actual definition of conversation 13:14 - What are we missing in the essence of conversation? What are our ethical obligations in conversation? 17:30 - If conversations make us feel good, why do we avoid them? 23:17 - Why accepting racial biases is the quickest way to grow out of them 25:20 - How can we begin to overcome our biases? 27:14 - How American gospel music demonstrates our unconscious biases 28:30 - Why it’s important not to shame people while they’re learning about race 35:06 - What to do when you make a mistake when it comes to race 41:44 - How Celeste’s Ted Talk opened doors in her career. (Don’t miss what she has to say about her speaker’s fees!) 44:45 - How making more money allowed her to express more of herself 46:23 - What Celeste’s book Do Nothing taught me about productivity culture and the Industrial Revolution 47:50 - The ridiculousness of “time is money” 49:00 - The shadow of being passionate about your work Get a copy of Celeste’s books here: Speaking of Race: Why Everybody Needs to Talk About Racism — And How To Do It Amazon Bookshop Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving Amazon Bookshop Visit jenniferlouden.com/podcastkit to get instant access to a collection of audios that will: help you with some of the most common struggles we creatives have to manage including fear of choosing, falling into compare and despair, managing the inner critic (s), and feeling too exposed and vulnerable when you put yourself or your work into the world. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jennifer-louden/support