PODCAST EPISODE № 129

Candid Conversations with Phenomenal Executive Women: Dr. Adaira Landry

by Anita Charlot

Click on the ICON below to listen to Candid Conversations with Phenomenal Executive Women: Dr. Adaira Landry:

Hello, beautiful listeners! This week, we have the honor of having a very informative and candid conversation with the absolutely phenomenal Adaira Landry.

Dr. Landry was raised in Rialto, California. While she had the love and support of her parents, she lacked mentorship and training on how to navigate the educational system and the workplace. Through her best efforts, in 2002, she attended University of California, Berkeley to study Molecular Cell Biology and African American Studies. She completed her medical school training at David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles in 2011, her Emergency Medicine Residency at New York University as Chief Resident in 2015, and a combined fellowship in Ultrasound at the Department of Emergency Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a master’s degree in Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education program in 2017.

Her academic interests focus on mentorship of underrepresented students and trainees. She speaks nationally on strategies to optimize mentor-mentee relationships.

Today she is also a wife and a mother to 3 children. She hopes to raise her 3 children to understand and value the importance of supporting others in need.

See you on the inside…

What You Learn:

Dr. Adaira’s journey through academia and weaving through the educational system with no mentorship
Her struggles as a woman of color in medicine and in the nonfiction space
Dr. Adaira’s tips for being more productive in one’s career and life
More information on Dr. Adaira’s book MicroSkills: Small Actions, Big Impact!

Featured on the Show:

Learn more about Dr. Adaria and her work on her website!
Check out Dr. Adaira’s new book, MicroSkills: Small Actions, Big Impact
Follow Dr. Adaira on Instagram, X, and LinkedIn
Learn more about how you can work directly with Anita
Click HERE to bring the Conversations in Color Workshop to your organization today!
Follow this link to check out the coaching programs I offer and see what works best for you
Check out my newsletter titled “Did You Know” on LinkedIn which covers Leadership and Personal Development Topics for Women, teaching you how to lead confidently and consciously using practical and spiritual concepts.
Begin your healing journey by joining the Relationship Architect Academy and find the support you need today!
Love the show? Leave a review of the show on Apple Podcasts (click the link to find out how).
Follow me on Instagram!
Find me on Facebook!

Anita Charlot, an esteemed ForbesBLK personality and Global Woman Award Nominee is a visionary retention strategist in corporate America. With a rich background as a military veteran and the founder of Relationship Architect Academy LLC, Anita is renowned for her R.E.A.L. Talk Conversation series, honored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

She transforms corporate cultures, fosters individual and collective growth, and crafting compassionate leaders.

Anita’s innovative approach is encapsulated in her mantra, “They lied to you; business IS personal.”

Committed to reviving the familial bond within workplaces, she aims to make companies a legacy for families, where employees passionately engage in their growth and development.

Anita is dedicated to bringing love back to the workplace, ensuring companies are not just a career choice but a cherished part of personal and family history.

Episode Transcript

Anita Charlot: 
Welcome to the first Candid Conversation with Phenomenal Women episode of the year. This is April, and I am your host Anita Charlot, and I have with me today a woman whose resume I am not going to read to you because that would take up half the podcast. I am going to let you look at her bio in the show notes, but she is definitely a phenomenal woman. I have with me today, we’re going to say in the virtual lounge, Adaira Landry, and I am going to allow her to introduce herself because if I get started, we’re going to get going. Let’s try to follow some sort of flow here. So Adaira, would you mind just giving the audience a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Dr. Adaira Landry:
Sure. And, thank you so much again for the invitation to join you on this podcast. I’m really excited to be speaking today. So my name is doctor Adaira Landry. I’m an emergency medicine physician at the Brigham. That’s one of Harvard’s hospitals. I’m an assistant professor at the Harvard Medical School, and I’ve really spent most of my career focused on helping others develop their careers. I’ve had various titles, training early career professionals, helping them navigate their own development, and I’m currently an adviser, a student adviser for the Harvard Medical School. So I have about 40 students or so who I oversee and help, just, you know, support and direct. When I’m not doing that, I see patients. I see patients a few days a week in the emergency department, and then when I’m not doing that, I write. I like to write about the workplace, just ways to navigate the workplace mostly because I’m a big fan of, like, triple dipping. So, you know, as a Black woman, I have learned all sorts of strategies myself. I then teach those strategies to my students, and now I’m using all of that, you know, field work to write a book to teach people sort of beyond my immediate reach here in Boston. 
So I like to write. I’ve written for many places in academia, like, for medical audiences. But over the last few years, I’ve transitioned just again trying to figure out how I can push myself, expand my reach. So I’ve been writing for, like, lay press audiences. I’ve written for Vogue, Teen Vogue, Harvard Business Review, and now I’m a contributor for Forbes Magazine. And I did a lot of writing in the form of articles over the last few years, but, again, wanted to sort of escalate myself and try something different. And so, I’ve spent the last 3 years co authoring a book with a colleague, Dr. Risa E Lewis, again, on how to navigate the workplace for early career professionals, and that book is titled MicroSkills: Small Actions, Big Impact.

Anita Charlot: 
Thank you so much for sharing with the audience who you are and all of the amazing things that you do. And I want to, take a moment to apologize for if anybody deserves to have their title in front of their name, it is definitely used. I should have said Dri. Adaira Landry. So my apologies on that. Give you all of your points, honey, because you have done it. So I was reading through, I had the opportunity to read through the chapter that you shared with me, and I tell you as I’m reading through it, it’s so…

This book, if the rest of this book is anything like this one chapter, it is definitely something that I plan to use with my mentees because it definitely breaks down, you know, people tell you what you need to do, but they don’t necessarily tell you how to do it. Right? And this book goes into that. So we’ve heard a lot about your professional background. I’d like to know, like get to know a little bit more about you personally. On this podcast, we typically talk – we’re just having a conversation like it’s just 2 girls sitting in and getting to know each other. So it’s going to be, you guys are gonna hear us. I’m gonna ask her some questions. She’ll answer those questions. I may, I may ask more questions to clarify, or I come up with something and ask an additional question, this is just how we flow. So I suggest that you just get comfortable and be prepared to be a fly on the wall.

Dr. Adaira Landry:
That sounds good.

Anita Charlot:
So tell me about your childhood and how education was viewed and valued.

Dr. Adaira Landry:
That’s a great question, and I think the reason why is because for a lot of us, our success is greatly dependent on what sort of environment we grew up in. And when, you know, when we were kids, not just who raised us, but where and also when. When I was young, you know, I lived with both my parents and my siblings. It was a very stable household. My parents were incredibly, incredibly engaged. My parents were incredibly, incredibly engaged in our daily lives. They weren’t they weren’t, you know, distant parents. They were really, really, involved in our schools. They knew our teachers, our principals. They checked our homework. It was great. And, also, my parents had a ceiling or a cap on how much they knew about navigating the workplace. Like, we never spoke about mentorship at home or, like, developing a reputation or developing expertise. Like, those weren’t topics that my parents ever talked about, even amongst themselves, and especially not to us. There was a lot of focus on making sure that you did well on your report card, and that taught me how to study.
But I think as I progressed, especially getting into college, it was very clear to me that I had no idea how to network and to look out for people who were my supporters. Growing up, I wasn’t very athletic or popular, so I had really my books. My parents gave us allowance and you know, for doing our homework and chores and stuff. Not much, like, a few dollars a week kinda thing, but I would take my money once I had enough, like, you know, $5 or $6, and I would go to the bookstore and I would buy a book. Like, as soon as I had enough money for a book, I would buy a book and just read. And I was, you know, pretty focused on school because it was just the one thing I was able to control.
And, I started school a little bit young, and then I skipped 7th grade. So I entered high school at 12, and then was accepted to college when I was 15. And, I was accepted to UC Berkeley. And, I’m very fortunate with the fact that there were very few distractions in my life. I think that’s one thing that many people don’t recognize would be the power of a distraction and how that can really sideline you from your ultimate goal. And sometimes the distraction, you know, could be hobbies, could be social conflicts, could be dating, especially when you’re younger, could be parenting yourself as a young child. I mean, there’s all sorts of things that can keep you from developing yourself, and I probably didn’t have any of that because my parents were really, really involved and pushed us.
You know, compared to folks in my neighborhood and just, like, in my immediate community where I grew up. I grew up in San Bernardino, California, and, you know, of course, there’s hospitals there, but it wasn’t like I was in circles, social circles with lawyers and architects and engineers and physicians. That’s not like who we socialize with. So, you know, I had this ambition of wanting to become a doctor, but I really, really did not know the how-to. And that’s exactly the most important part of navigating your career is figuring out how to get to whatever it is that you wanna be. And so I knew that if I studied a lot – and I did, I was really a bookworm – I knew if I studied a lot, I would at least be able to do well on, you know, my grades and do well on my SATs and, like, try to get into college.
I didn’t really have anyone who had applied to major colleges ahead of me, especially major public universities, so I was very unsure as far as what they would even be looking for in an application or personal statement. So I would say, you know, even though I had a lot of support early on, I’m not sure I had strategic guidance, though.

Anita Charlot:
That makes sense. So when you got to school… it was there… When you got to college, did you find mentors there in college to help you along the way, or how did you find your way to becoming a doctor?

Dr. Adaira Landry:
Yeah. That’s a great question. So when I went to college, by the time I actually got there in the fall, I was 16. My parents were in Southern California, so they literally drove me up and cried the entire way. They’re like, I cannot believe we’re dropping you off in the Bay Area. But they did, and they drove down, and I was like, oh my gosh. I was living in a dorm with, like, 18 year olds, 19 year olds. Some of them were 20 because they were, like, RAs or athletes still living in the dorm.
So, I was like, oh my gosh. It was like I think there is… There was like a movie with Tia and Tamara’s little brother. I can’t remember. What wasn’t he, like, like, the smart kid or something where he was, like, really young? I don’t remember the TV show or the movie, but I do remember, like, like, the scene where it was, like, a a young kid around all these older kids, and that is what I felt like when I got there, just like being, you know, 3 or 4 years younger than people. 
I did not have mentorship, honestly, in college. And college was a big culture shock because at this point now, I had choice, like, a lot of choices. I had choices in who I wanted to hang out with a lot more than, you know, in high school. I had choices in the major, the classes, whether or not I wanted to sleep in or go to class. Like, it was, like a way different level of freedom, and I did not have mentorship though. You know, I went all 4 years of college. I don’t think I ever went into someone’s office hours or had a meeting with someone and said I need support, strategic support on how to navigate college. I don’t think I did any, like, 1 on 1 sessions. I certainly went to a lot of, like, large workshops, that would be like, you know, go out and network. And I’m like, how do you do that? You know? And they might say something like, go introduce yourself, but they wouldn’t necessarily say, what do you say? How do you maintain the relationship? What do I do if they’re actually mean? You know, like, those mechanical steps were always missing, and that made me very intimidated. So for many years, all 4 years in college, I could easily say that I did not have a mentor.

Anita Charlot:
Wow. Okay. So you graduate college and then you graduate college. You take your, what is it, the MCAT?

Dr. Adaira Landry:
Yep. I took a gap year, and this really speaks to the power of, like, lacking mentorship. I worked at a grocery store after college. I was like, I had a molecular and cell biology degree from UC Berkeley, and I was like, I don’t know what to do after college until I get into medical school. And so instead of, like, having someone who tells me all of the options that most premeds do, I was just like, I guess I’ll move back when with my parents and work at a grocery store. So I did that for the year off.

Anita Charlot:
Wow. Okay. So I’m thinkin… the school, is this where we should expect the school to have better prepared you for the after graduation or is it always a good idea for someone to have a mentor to help them move?

Dr. Adaira Landry:
That’s a really good question. And I think, you know, I don’t know about you, but for me, I think I was in this mentality of, like, someone’s gonna save me, and someone is going to, like, come up to me and say this opportunity is perfect for you. And I didn’t understand how much ownership that I needed to have over, like, all of these opportunities that were there near me, close to me, that I just didn’t have the agency, the confidence, the strategic mindset to, like, pursue any of it. So I might have known that these opportunities existed because I went to some, you know, workshop type of thing. But I wouldn’t have known how to apply or who to get a letter of recommendation from. I wouldn’t have felt confident to do those things.
I did end up applying. So during my year off after college, someone told me that they had applied for this program, and it was just like a very simple essay and a very easy application. So I ended up applying to this program for, like, a few months during that year off in between college and medical school. And that was you know, I only applied to it was like a research program where you move to New York City and you do research and very, like, light work. And I might have only applied because, again, someone had told me exactly the steps to do. It wasn’t like I was out seeking opportunities at that time in my life. You know, trying to find the next big opportunity for myself. I was not doing any of that.

Anita Charlot:
Yeah. I find it ironic that… listening to your story, even when I think about the mentees that I have now, when I think about the younger – I can say that because I’m 58 – The younger generation in the workplace, it’s they’re waiting for waiting to be seen, waiting to be recognized, waiting for their managers to tell them step by step what they need to do. And it’s one of those things where I grew up in an era where we were taught, you know, we had to go get it. We had to go out there and get it for ourselves. No, no one was gonna give it to us. And it’s just looking at the difference between the 2 and then trying to mentor towards that. It’s like, oh, okay.
I can share so much. But even in reading the chapter from your book, I realize that, oh, okay. I guess I could break this down or I guess I could have, you know, said, this is how you do this versus, you know, wanting to be there, having them be with me in order to see it in action. I could definitely walk through these steps or I don’t have to do that now because you wrote the book. I’ll just say, go get this book. Okay. So that brings us to med school. What was med school like for you? And while you’re, when you explain that if you can let me know because I’m really big on like the well-being, the mental health, the mental wealth of Black and Brown women in predominantly white spaces.
So how was med school for you? You were probably younger than most of your freshman class in med school too. Right?

Dr. Adaira Landry:
I was a little bit younger because I had taken a year off. Now I sort of caught up a bit with people who had not taken a year off. So I was maybe like a year or so younger than most, but I wasn’t the youngest in the class. And, you know, I think Berkeley really lacked diversity. I haven’t looked at the statistics in the last few years, but I think it still is, very predominantly white. Very much so. And when you premed at a school like Berkeley, you know, and these classes are about 300 people, you know, chemistry, biology, you really notice how many Black people there are in the class. And sometimes, you know, you might be 1 of 2, 1 of 3 or the only one. Especially if there’s, like, 300 people in the large auditorium and then they break you into smaller labs, chances are in your lab of 40 or so, you’d be the only Black person, not not even just Black woman, but, like, the only Black person.
When I got to medical school, it’s a little bit different. I went to UCLA, and I think in the classroom, there was actually a ton of diversity in the seats. I think at the podium, there was not diversity. It was still largely run by white faculty.
What I remember on my first day of medical school was I, we were all sitting in this auditorium, and it was our first day. We hadn’t done any ceremonies yet. We had just arrived, and we’re all sitting in the auditorium and in comes one of our classmates, like, towards the end of the lecture or whatever. And we all see him walking into the room and he’s wearing a white coat and he’s carrying this, like, board prep book. And everyone looked at him because, like, again, we were kind of in the middle of this lecture, and he walks in and he’s wearing this white coat. We hadn’t had our white coat ceremony yet. So everyone’s like, why does he have this white coat on? And he was carrying a board prep book to the 1st day of medical school. 
And so I later spoke with this person who’s honestly a wonderful person. And I’ll just explain to you why the story is significant. It has nothing to do with him being a bad person or anything. But I go up to him, that same day, and I’m like, why are you wearing a white coat? We haven’t had our white coat ceremony yet. And he told me that he knew he wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon, and he had a family in health care who said, if you wanna be an orthopedic surgeon, you need to start shadowing. Meaning, you need to start, like, following around orthopedic surgeons who are practicing right now. So they got him a white coat.
And so after medical school, the first day, he was gonna go to the OR and shadow surgeons, and he was carrying that board review book because he knew early on that to be an orthopedic surgeon, you have to do really well on your boards. And so his sister told him, who was also in medical school at the time, you know, you need to start studying now so that your board scores are really high. So, you know, he was in the same environment that I was in. We’re both at UCLA. Those orthopedic surgeons were there for him. They were also available to me too. Technically, we’re all in the same institution. Even his sister was in the same medical school as I was. And yet, I didn’t have the same connections that he did to those people. Right? And so he was, like, connected on day 1. Same environment, same institution, same people, and yet we had very different connections on day 1. And I think that was the first time I had realized that the most successful people are the most connected people, and the power of really making those bonds was very evident to me on day 1. And so, I felt like, okay. I need to do that. And yet, I think when I would go to the wards, for instance, like being in the hospital, I was very unsure about connecting to people who didn’t look like me and didn’t have similar backgrounds as I did. And so I didn’t really find… there was definitely people who were really nice and supportive, I can think of a few names for sure. But I didn’t find that, like, lifelong mentor who was really, truly, truly interested in my well-being and very invested. And so for most of medical school, I would, like, try to create these bonds with people, but they were never sticking. You know, I meet with them, like, once or twice, or I meet with them, and they never really felt it, never felt like they were, like, truly, truly interested in me, and it wasn’t until I went to… so at the end of medical school, you you do these things called Sub I’’s or away rotations, where you, like now you’re you’re trying to get into residency, like, the next stage of becoming a doctor. And so you have to do these, like, audition rotations. And so I did an audition rotation at NYU. And on my first day there, you know, I left UCLA, I flew to NYU in New York City. I saw a Black woman wearing a white coat leading a team. And I introduced myself to her, and she’s like, oh, are you one of our Sub I’s doing an away rotation? I said, yes. I really wanna come to NYU. And she said, I’m gonna help you get here. I’m going to work with you on your presentations. I’m going to work with you on your end of the block, you know, summary presentation. You can ask me questions. Here’s my email address. And it was, like, very clear that she wanted me to be there. And I compared that first day where there was someone there, like, really interested in me to my first day at medical school where I saw what it looked like for someone to be interested in someone else. And it was, like, such a huge difference in the entire experience for me, to see, like, what support truly can look like.

Anita Charlot:
Right. Wow. Okay. So this is kind of setting the stage for the book. It sounds like because of what you experienced and and all the things that you would have truly benefited from, it sounds like that that lit a fire in you to make sure that you could be that person for those that were coming behind you.

Dr. Adaira Landry:
That’s exactly right. You know, it was very, very interesting. I had a conversation a few years ago before the book with my older white male colleague. And he told me that he loves to mentor because, so many people, his entire journey, like, even in grade school, there were so many people always rooting for him and that he mentors because it’s important to give back that positivity. And I remember thinking, sitting next to him saying, wow. That’s so interesting. I mentor because I lacked that, and I want others to have it. And then just like the completely different perspective on why we give back.
And I’m not saying that every Black woman has had a similar road as that, you know, as I did. There might be people who, yes, felt completely supported by teachers. And, honestly, it wasn’t that I wasn’t supported by teachers, but I think people were quite impressed by me when I was young because I was very studious. But I never had that, like, this is how you navigate a system type of, you know, talk. No no one ever told me, hey. If you want something, you need to go out and get it. Like, it’s gonna be competitive. You’re not gonna get everything. People might not respond to emails. And, also, you need to continue on when those things happen. Like, I never really had that kind of a discussion with anyone until much later.

Anita Charlot:
Yeah. Yeah. I think the reason why I’ve been is because I’ve always been like the big sister. Right? I’m always the big sister or the one that has already walked the path. That’s part of the reason why I started, my business initially as a dating relationship and marriage coach because of, you know, the, because being a domestic abuse survivor and knowing what that felt like, and then growing through that, that was the reason why I decided to start coaching other women on the red flags. What to look for, what do you need to heal within yourself so that you don’t attract this type of person? This is an individual with narcissistic traits and this is what, you know, all of that. So that’s what started the road for me, and then that moved on to what I do now which is helping Black and Brown women navigate, you know, the workplace. I think from, from where I sit, having been a single mom, trying to navigate the workplace and at the time not having a degree yet, but just trying to find my place, trying to make sure that I was doing what I needed to do to be seen, to be heard, that I showed up offering value. Those skills have been very instrumental in sharing. And I like listening to – which is why I really appreciate you sharing that chapter of your book – I really like the way that you break things down. There’s a part of me that I do things because, because it just, it just flows. It’s just natural, and then, you know, when it comes to the dating and relationships, yes, I’ve written a book for that. I put that down on paper, but this, part of my life or this part of my journey, I have not done that yet, but I find your book to be one that I would definitely refer to my mentees and even to some of my women and the workshops that I facilitate now. So between college and med school and your residency, when did you start writing?

Dr. Adaira Landry:
Later. Not even really during those windows at all. It was… so just to give some context. When I got accepted to Berkeley, I was accepted, and there was a, a condition tied to the acceptance, which is we will accept you, and you also have to take this intro to writing class. Not like the regular English 1A, but the more basic version of that. It was instead of being, like, 2 hours each class, it was, like, 3 and a half hours, and then we had to do a workshop, and we had to meet with the teacher more often. It was just like a much more intense class. And the message really when we got to the class – I mean, the teacher herself was nice, but the message to me read, like, you’re not a writer.
Writing is a gift that people are given, and you don’t have that, so you need extra support to, you know, improve your skills. So that’s truly how I felt about the class. So much so that, after that class ends, you instead of going to, you know, another basic level English class, they put you back in, like, the regular level English 1B. And I was like, oh my god. You’re telling me that you put me in this, like, basic English 1A and I’m ready for English 1B? Like, no way. So I actually took community college English 1B because I was so nervous to take it amongst my peers at UC Berkeley. And that really, to me, speaks to how impactful a message can be when you’re trying to, like, support someone because I was actually quite discouraged by the messaging, not encouraged by it. 
And so for years, literally years, I did not write except for, like, when it was absolutely mandatory. And even then, I would, like, seek out all sorts of tutors and editors to help me get something to the point of, like, being shareable to other people. It really wasn’t until George Floyd died, was murdered, that I had such a strong message in me. And I was talking to a couple of my colleagues because I’m an emergency medicine physician. We have to restrain patients all the time. You can imagine that we get people when they’re really upset and really confused in all sorts of states. And, you know, I’ve been restraining people and sedating people, de-escalating people, I have been doing that for over a decade, and never once have even come close to killing someone. And so, we wrote an article. I was speaking to a couple colleagues about this, and and our article was just it was, you know, we just think that police officers need to learn how to de-escalate. Like, emergency medicine doctors can do it. We don’t have guns. We’re able to control the situation, and there’s something for police officers to learn here. 
So that was my first time writing sort of, like, this opinion based article, and I did it with 2 other people, and we published it actually in USA Today. And so many people read it. A lot of people loved it, agreed with it, and some people were like, no. We need to, like, defund the police 100%. Get rid of all police officers. And so, you know, there’s, like, extremes on all on all sides here, but I think it was just very interesting to see that we wrote this article, like, on a Monday or something, and we submitted it on, like, a Wednesday, and it was out on Friday. And to sort of get that immediate response was, like, wow. This is crazy. It was, like, immediately addictive. And so I said, I wanna try that again because I have so many opinions. It’s not that I’m not an opinionated person. I just was afraid of writing.
And so from there, I started focusing on what I’m really good at, and that’s navigating the workplace and teaching people. Because I had learned some skills since that residency experience where I met the Black woman who was, like, an amazing person. She taught me how to navigate the workplace. I gained more mentorship. I learned over those, like, next 10 years, and built a career around it that I was like, I should start writing about what I’m doing on a day to day basis. Like, it just comes naturally to me to do that. And so I started writing about, you know, how to use Twitter to network, how to write your own letter of recommendation, how to  get paid for speaking gigs when they don’t offer money, like, how do you get some sort of compensation. Like, all these sorts of strategic topics.
I was writing with my coauthor, Dr. Risa E Lewis, because we just felt like this was a very important topic and people weren’t really sharing those strategies. And that was sort of the transition from, like, being afraid to try it out to now wanting to do it all the time.

Anita Charlot:
Yeah. Yeah. I totally understand that. You mentioned 2020 and George Floyd’s murder. It was in 2020 that I decided to stop focusing on dating and relationship and marriage coaching, and just take a step back and figure out what, you know, what it was I wanted to do. Prior to that, I would say that I had been… I would walk into the corporate space, and I had been very good at code switching right and fitting in and you know, not coming across as an angry Black woman, all of that. But in 2020, I could no longer ignore. Everything was in your face all day, every day, social media, you know, you’re getting pings to your phone from the different apps that you’re a part of, and I just couldn’t get away from it. So I decided, okay. Well, let me sit this out and see if I still wanna continue this business or not. As things started to progress, you know, I started seeing all of these DEI companies popping up and all this training, but it was always check-the-box training. Right? It wasn’t really dealing with the realities of what it’s like to be Black or Brown in the workplace from, you know, a well-being perspective and from dealing with the microaggressions and all of that. And so, you know, as time went on, I decided, okay, well, let me – not that I don’t do that, but that’s a part of, you know, a larger coaching. Not that I don’t do dating relationship and marriage coaching. That’s a part of a larger package, but my focus right now is just trying to is focusing on the the women, the the women of color in the workplace and helping them to not just navigate the workplace, but helping them to identify, you know, strategies to keep the stress level down, to keep the blood pressure down, you know, focusing. I created what I call the Real Talk Conversation Series. And I’ve, covered topics like code switching, menopause in the workplace, psychological safety, allyship, things that are not normally talked about on a larger level, and not in a formal way, more so in a, hey, if this is something that you’re interested in or something that you’ve dealt with and you wanna come and you wanna talk about it with other people who understand what you’re going through, this is a place to do that. So that won an award from a large financial institution. So that was really good, and that’s where my business is heading now.
Right? Because of what happened. At first I was focused on healing corporate America, and then I quickly realized that one person in this lifetime was not going to heal corporate America.
So instead of focusing on the corporations themselves, focus on talking to the people that were really being affected by it, which is women of color. I am a woman of color, so it’s easy for me to speak to the things that we experience. So I am so excited. Just, you know, just hearing your journey and seeing how you are, you are paying it forward. You are giving back and it really shows. This is a testament to the quality of women that I tend to attract and bring on the podcast because it’s women like you, it’s women like me that see a need. We see a gap and then we fill that gap and we do it from not just, oh, okay. This is something that I can make money off of, but this is my way of giving back.
I’m paying it forward. I’m looking back and realizing my life could have been different if I had known this or that and we’re sharing that with the public. So yeah. Next question for you. What has been the hardest part of developing your career?

Dr. Adaira Landry:
Well, first, before I answer that, just thank you for sharing. I mean, I think, what you are doing is so important because a lot of Black women, especially as they move up along the corporate ladder are going to be the one, the only. And, you know, I heard the phrase the other day, the one, the only, the lonely, I think the lonely and the lonely. But, just, you know, there’s, like, a whole level of isolation that occurs. When I arrived at my current job, I was, on arrival, the only Black woman faculty member for a few years. And then we had a fellow, and then I moved on. But now I am the most senior Black woman in our department, and I’m only 38. So, like, it’s, you know, it really sort of speaks to how few of us there are, and, you know, in the medical world, there are so few Black women physicians that, you know, I consider as unicorns. And people will literally, like, try to fight over one person because they really want to increase their diversity. They really want talent. They really want this person’s intelligence, all those things, but when they do that, that means another program is likely gonna have no one. Whenever we recruit another Black woman, I’m like, wow. So now we have 4 or 5 or 6 people.That means that there are multiple departments now across the country that have 0.

Anita Charlot:
Wow.

Dr. Adaira Landry:
Right? Because we’re recruiting that one person that, you know, that might have gone there. And so, I think the work that you’re doing is quite important, and I forgot the question you asked me. Sorry. I just wanted to respond to your comment first.

Anita Charlot:
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. The question was, what has been the hardest part of developing your career?

Dr. Adaira Landry:
Oh, you know, when I first started this, like, academic journey, I was under the impression that I should say yes to everything, and I did. So I would say yes to someone who would ask me, oh, can you, you know, lead this project? Can you write this paper? Can you give this talk? Can you join this committee? And I would say yes. Yes. Yes. Because I was under the impression that if you say yes to everything, you’re gonna be more exposed to what’s possible. And by being more exposed, you can figure out what you truly, truly enjoy. And I think there is some truth to that. The problem is though, if you don’t really know what you’re saying yes to, you can really get yourself into some trouble.
And you can really overcrowd your plate and sort of gain this sense of overwhelm. So what’s been important and the hardest is to learn how to pause before I say yes. In fact, I don’t like to say yes as much as I like to say tell me more. You know, is there funding? Who am I working with? Do they have experience? How are we gonna measure impact? Is this gonna help me get promoted? If so, how? When do you need this due? Can I get an extension? Because I’m busy. Right? Can I pick my own team? So, like, you know, by asking questions upfront, and these are questions that you’re gonna find the answers to anyway at some point in time, but by asking questions early, you really can sort of see the red flags and the opportunity. Right? You can see both of those early.
And what we like to suggest in the book is that you gather that information. You take that information. You go talk to your mentors or supervisors, other people who you trust and say, hey. You know, Anita asked me to join this group today. I asked her these questions. This is what she said. I’m just curious what you think.Do you feel like this is  worth my time, my energy? I just want someone else’s opinion. And you gather that information, and then they say, yeah. You should do it. Now you go back and you say yes. But it’s an informed yes. It’s not an impulsive yes. Maybe they tell you to say no, or maybe they tell you to negotiate. So, yeah, you should do it, but honestly, you’re gonna be really busy. I would ask them for an extension, and I would ask them for an admin support to help you because there’s gonna be a lot of emails, and you’re not gonna wanna send all those emails. And so, you know, just like getting that insight early will help you so that you have more leverage, more empowerment, more information before you respond.

Anita Charlot:
Yeah. I love that. I also find that when you’re in the workplace and you say yes to everything, it tends to at times pigeonhole you into the position that you’re in because if you’re the person that’s doing all the 20 things and you want to do something else. And they look and see what if, if she leaves, which I had, actually had a manager who told me, well, I can’t promote you because if I promote you, who’s gonna do x y z? Right? And so I I learned that, you know, you can’t say yes to everything. It has to be strategic. Right? And some of the questions that you ask, what is it? Where does this put me? Is this gonna help me? This is if I wanna go in the direction of, you know, let’s just say I’m going to use a state, let’s say California. Is this a straight shot to California or is it going to take me to Indiana first and then I’m gonna have to go, you know, over to New York and I’m gonna have to go back to Vegas before I can get to California. Is this on the way? Is this leading me to the position that I wanna get to, or is it taking me away from it? Right. And a lot of the questions that you asked too, so that makes a lot of sense. And you even mentioned some questions that I would not have thought to ask, like, right off the top of my head, but those are good. And I know that all of the listeners will probably head on over to the show notes and just print those out so that they have those questions at the ready. So when things come up next time, they can just review the questions that you shared, and they can make an informed decision, as you mentioned.

Dr. Adaira Landry:
Yeah, and this isn’t like to create conflict. Right? You’re not like asking these questions in a way that makes the other person feel attacked or anything like that. These are just questions that like I said, you’re gonna get the answers eventually. You’re gonna eventually find out if there’s funding. Right? Like, if or, like, if there’s admin support, you’re gonna find that out at some point in time But, boy, isn’t it better to know upfront? And the other thing is, like, if someone is telling you or giving you vibes that they’re upset that you’re inquiring or they’re forcing you to say yes now, to me, that’s the ultimate red flag.
There’s something there that they just want you to commit really fast, so it’s off their plate. But, like, there’s something there that makes me feel like I really need to do my research. Like, why do I need to say yes right now? Like, why can’t I say yes tomorrow? Right. What is different about me saying yes today versus tomorrow for me, and what’s different about it for the other person? And so, you should be able to safely take some time for yourself to think about it. And if you’re feeling like they’re saying no, that I would say that’s a good place for your spidey senses to go off.

Anita Charlot:
Mhmm. Yeah. I agree. So I shared my age, you shared your age, and I know that you have 3 little ones.

Dr. Adaira Landry:
Yes.

Anita Charlot:
What is it like? How are you juggling? Being a doctor, having a nonprofit, writing a book, having 3 kids? Is there like a team of 10 people at the house helping you and doing everything for you? How are you managing all of this?

Dr. Adaira Landry:
Well, first, with self compassion. I think that’s the most important thing. Like, everything’s not gonna be great every day. Like, there are gonna be some days where, you know, my kids are, like, probably not as well dressed as they could be, where they’re like, they just get themselves dressed. Because I’m like, mommy’s busy. Go pick out your own clothes. And they come down with stripes and polka dots and rainbow socks. I’m like, whatever. You’re warm. It works. Right? So, like, I don’t you know, I I I watch. I’m on Instagram a little bit, and I watch some videos every once in a while, but I don’t subscribe to them. But they but they pop up of, like, certain parents who are, like, very meticulous with their children and, like, you know, perfect clothing, perfect hair, perfect snacks. Like, I don’t do that. Not because it’s bad, I just don’t have the bandwidth to do it. And so I realized that, like, what’s important for my kids is not perfection, but just presence and, like, being able to communicate with them, allowing them to communicate with me. So, we sort of subscribe to the idea of just being, like, emotionally available to our children and supportive. Like, that’s the most important thing. And then when it comes to, like, the actual household, I have a very supportive partner that helps. I think all people who are drowning don’t have a supportive partner for sure. And they might have a partner you know this better than I do.
You were divorced. We sort of a couple’s therapy. But, like, you know, gender aside, if you have one person who’s just not contributing, it makes everything harder.
So I have a partner who contributes. You know, I learned from my parents the importance of picking someone who is a helper and not a taker. And so I think that that is a really hard trait to change in people. And so I, you know, I think I pick someone who is just intrinsically helpful. And then in ways that we both can’t help each other, we outsource. 
So, like, we do, we have a house cleaner who comes, you know, once every other week. So not too often, but just helps, like, reset the bathroom, basically, and that helps save a lot of time. And we do everything automatic. Automatic toiletries, toothpaste, I don’t have time to think about that – automatic bill pay, all that. So we’re just, like, not thinking about those things. We just take a lot of tasks off our plate.
And then when it comes to work, actually, this podcast is a little bit violating my policy because I have a very strict policy, but I really wanted to meet you, which is that, I don’t do meetings, from 6 to 9 PM, and the reason why is because, it is when my kids are home, and it’s just very stressful, you know, trying to balance the 2 things, like being in a meeting and then putting my kids to bed. There are some exceptions to that, like this for instance. But there’s a huge difference in my home life from when I started this parameter compared to when I didn’t have it in place. When I was just like, oh, it’s a 7 o’clock meeting. Sure. I’ll be there. You know, I’ll just be with my kids. Like, I was like, there’s screaming kids in the background. I’m, like, trying to be in a meeting and, like, I have now that my kids are a little bit older, it’s definitely easier for me to, like, sneak off for an 8:30, 9 o’clock if I have, like, a quick phone call with the student or whatever. But when they were really, really young, like, 2 and 1, I said, no way, Jose. Just not gonna do that.
And by doing these things, I have more energy for work because I don’t feel sunken into all of these other tasks that, you know, would really physically drain me and mentally occupy me. So that has really helped. And then I think, honestly, pausing before I say yes has kept my plate pretty lean. So you literally said all of the three things that I do.
I write, I see patients, and then I have the nonprofit. And the nonprofit is just, like, a few months out of the year where it’s active. So it’s not all at once either.

Anita Charlot:
Mhmm. So you said some things, and I’d like if you can share a little bit about… as Black women, we tend to… there’s a stigma with us hiring help. Right? We were so used to doing everything ourselves, and I can’t believe you’re trying to you know, your friends or your family, I can’t believe you pay someone for that. You know, you could do that on a Saturday morning, or why do you always have to order? You should just go to the store, pick your own meat. Speak to our audience about, 1. Ignoring what other people think and what other people say and just giving themselves permission to hire help and to outsource.

Dr. Adaira Landry:
I have nothing else to prove to the world. Like, that is my mantra. Like, I don’t have to prove anything to anyone anymore. I am smart. I’m ambitious. I’m strategic. I’m nurturing, compassionate, whatever. But I don’t have to be anything more than that.
And I don’t feel like I need to prove what I’m capable of doing at all anymore. And I do think, yes, like, even this, phrase, Black excellence, or, like, Black girl magic. They’re, like, they’re very empowering, and also they make us feel pressured to live up to an expectation. And so I’m, like, very conflicted on the roles of those sorts of slogans. But I think it probably started when I was pregnant.
When I was pregnant with my first, I was like, I’m not going to do an epidural. I’m going to have this baby naturally and I’m going to push. I’m gonna be amazing because I’m so strong. So, you know, I was in labor for so long with my first – 24 hours at home, 36 hours in the hospital. It was a really long labor. I know. I know. And I did not have an epidural, and it was just too much.
They were like, Adaira, like, we get it. You were so dedicated. But you cannot keep going on like this. You know? And I remember being so sad because I was like, oh, no. You know, I really have tried so hard. I’m proving something. I don’t even know who because my husband was like, girls get the epidural? Right.
But for me, I was like, no, this is my mission. Yeah. And I got the epidural and I was like, oh my god. I cannot believe I suffered. What in the world? Sso my next child, I was like, I want 2 epidurals. I want 1 at the top of my back and the bottom. I was like, I don’t wanna suffer.
What in the world are we convincing ourselves to do? Andl I’m not at all trying to minimize the beauty of a natural delivery. I don’t wanna say that that’s bad at all. Like doulas and midwives and all these births at home. Beautiful.
But for some people, they’re suffering. And it’s like, what are you suffering for? Who are you suffering for? Are you trying to prove something? And that was for me. I’m speaking about myself, not other people’s choice. I don’t want anyone to be thinking that I’m attacking their choices. But for my choice, I realized that I was trying to prove something to I don’t even know who.
And, like, I don’t even know why their opinion would matter to me. That was the first time where I was like, oh my god. I can’t believe I was doing this for so long. And so when it came to the house cleaner, I was literally, like, working full time. I think at the time, I just had maybe one. Maybe I was pregnant with my second one when I got the house cleaner, but I definitely have one. And I’m, you know, nursing.
So I’m working full time. I’m nursing. I’m pumping. Mhmm. I’m trying to write papers because I’m in academia. I have a husband, and so I’m trying to maintain a marriage.
And then I’m trying to clean my house. Mhmm. And I’m like, like, what like, why? What is the award? Do I get a raise? Is someone gonna give me some money? Right. Right. No. So what am I proving? So I think the first step is like just accepting that you have nothing to prove to anyone. Yeah. The other thing is I speak very openly about having a house cleaner because, again, I’m trying to normalize it.
But, like, you don’t have to share it with anybody if you don’t want to. Like, it could just be something that you do on your own. For me, again, it’s just like sharing strategies. So I started, like, my career to do these things. Whereas for other people, you don’t have to tell anyone if you don’t want to. I mean, it’s not it’s not that you’re ashamed, but you just don’t wanna have to deal with the conflict. And it’s just for your own peace of mind. So I you know, the first time I had a house cleaner, I was so embarrassed. I cleaned up before she arrived.

Anita Charlot:
Yeah. I did too.

Dr. Adaira Landry:
Yeah. And then and then when she came when I came back, I said, oh my god. My house could have been even more clean because it was so spotless. Yeah. I told that lady I said, look. If you wanna move in, I will give you a key. It was night and day. Yeah. Night and day. I mean, it’s been almost 7 years. We still use the same person.
But, it’s night and day, and you don’t realize what you deserve. You don’t realize what you deserve if you have been convinced that struggle is just a part of who you are and what you have to do. And so it’s like, you know, when people are like, oh, a strong strong Slack woman’s like, I really don’t wanna be strong. I really don’t. I just wanna be, like, comfortable. I wanna have compassion. I don’t really want to have to have strength all the time.

Anita Charlot:
Yeah. It’s exhausting. It’s exhausting. Exhausting. I can promise it took me a long time. Well, as a single mom, I had to do it all. Right? But it took me a long time, even after my boys were out of the house, it took a while for me to start to allow for other things and to order groceries, you know, online. And even for my mom, my mom lives, like, 40 minutes away from me. She has dementia, so she lives in a facility. But when she needs something, I’m not jumping in my car driving an hour over there to get it because I’m ordering it. So I know, you know, I have, like, a, I think it’s a, it’s Walmart. So it’s like I go into her Walmart account. I order what she needs, and I have it delivered, and she’s happy. But it took a minute for me to really normalize hiring somebody to do that hiring for the business.
Because I still have the full time job, but I also have the business. And so hiring someone to help me with the business, it’s like, okay. Well, I only need this one person, but that one person doesn’t have all the skills. And so it’s like, okay. Either I’m gonna fall flat on my face because I’m working 24 hours a day. Right? Trying to build a business and then and and do work too, or I’m going to hire help. And I decided that, you know, at this stage of the game, I’m on the other side of 50, and I’m not trying to work harder.
I’m trying to work smarter. And I wish I would have known that early.

Dr. Adaira Landry:
I’m trying to work less.

Anita Charlot:
There you go. I wish I would have learned that.

Dr. Adaira Landry:
Yeah. I’ve got very lucky to just to learn the gift of self compassion that we can all give to ourselves and also being compassionate to other people. Mhmm. I love to surround myself with compassionate people. That’s important. And so I think for someone listening, if you’re feeling judged by someone all the time and they’re not giving you grace, then that’s obviously a reason to stop and think about who you’re surrounding yourself with.
I don’t I couldn’t imagine myself ever judging someone for hiring a house cleaner because I just now know how amazing and life changing it is to just have some support. The other thing that’s important to comment on, especially for myself, I’m a millennial, is, you know, I didn’t start having kids until I was 32. My mom had her children, all of us. I think she was done, you know, by, like, 24 or 25. And so, there’s just a big age difference there as far as when we’re having children, which means that we are older. We’re in, like many of us are in, like, the part of our careers where we’re trying to sort of go to the next level, and then we have aging parents. And so, on top of that, we might be a little bit further out from where our parents live because maybe where they bought their house was affordable in the seventies or eighties, and now it’s, like, way too expensive to live there. 
So there’s all these other reasons why we just don’t have that support structure that I think my mom had, and maybe her mom had when they were raising children. And so now we’re sort of much more on our own. Work is more demanding. The cost of living is way higher.

Anita Charlot:
Much higher.

Dr. Adaira Landry:
And so it’s hard for us just to be, like, part time as a single parent and managing kids and the bills. And so you do need to outsource and offload just to survive. I mean, I consider it a survival technique, not necessarily a luxury item too, but it’s also a survival technique.

Anita Charlot:
Yeah. And definitely one that I recommend when I’m doing well-being workshops. Right? You have to look at what you can offload? What can you get off of your plate? Right? What is causing you the most stress? What do you need to put your attention on? Let’s focus on that. What can we get rid of? Oh, wait. Can we at least reduce the amount of responsibility we have towards it? I know when my kids finally moved out of the house, I was kinda sad because I had live-in housekeepers. Right? All day. I was like, okay, well you got to clean the kitchen or you got them off the floor or you have to run these errands. So it was nice having in house help, but once they moved out, it’s like, man, I’m not going to do this stuff myself. Right. Oh, I can’t believe this. What do you mean? I don’t like doing that. So just outsourcing makes things a lot easier. Well, that’s, that’s good. Okay. What are some tips to be more productive in one’s career and personal life?

Dr. Adaira Landry:
Well, productivity is a huge topic. I mean, there are so many books about getting things done. There’s all these, like, 2 by 2 matrices and, you know, prioritize something as urgent versus non urgent, need to do versus the there’s, like, all sorts of, strategies out there. And to be quite honest, I use none of them. Because to me, when I see so many different options, so many different solutions on, like, how to be productive, there’s so many options that make me feel like none of them are actually truly effective. Because if there were one that was, like, so good at this point, everyone would sort of converge to using that single thing. And so, really, what I think about is, probably at the fundamental level, what’s important to me, and then what’s important to, like, my supervisors. And I’ll talk about the supervisor one really quickly. When I was an early faculty member, I went to this lecture. It’s actually a seminar series for, like, all Black faculty at Harvard. So I went and there was a speaker there, an older man, who talked about when he himself was a younger fellow, he and his co-fellow were both assigned the task of these, like, luncheon, like, seminars or whatever, like, journal clubs or whatever. Like, these lunch lunch meetings that they have to plan, and so they had to split them up and whatever. His co-fellow was a woman. She would, like, make these, like, well designed invitations and have all of these, you know, artisanal foods brought in, and she would personally invite everyone and have this, like, you know, well developed agenda.
And, he would just make, like, this, like, basic email that wasn’t really formatted well and had, like, pizza and water and sent just one email to everyone. And, while he wasn’t doing all the fancy stuff, he was instead, like, writing papers, getting grants, giving lectures, networking.
In the end, he got the job and she didn’t. And he believed that it was because at the most fundamental level, he understood what was important to his supervisor. His supervisor did not care what lunch was there. He did not care what the invitations looked like. He didn’t care that the invitations were sent to everyone at once versus 1 by 1. He didn’t care about any of that. And so he learned early on what mattered.
And so I think that’s actually really important when it comes to being productive is understanding not just what you wanna do but what other people expect of you. That’s important so you keep your job. And also what work that you’re gonna be doing is going to be valued by other people. Is there actually gonna be an impact? So when I think about my projects, which, like I said, I have my shifts, I have my nonprofit, I have the book, which is done, and then I guess in my advising role, which is, like, there’s that’s a very contained position. You know, those all have a very measurable impact. Right? Like, to be a doctor, I’m able to help people. Writing a book, there’s, like, immediate access to nonprofit. To me, like, there’s a noticeable impact in helping people with all of those things. And so to me, I focus on just those four tasks versus before I had this mentality of, like, measuring impact, I would just do like all sorts of crazy projects that never went anywhere. They failed very often because there was no way to actually, like, measure if it’s working. There was no plan. I didn’t have any strategy. No one actually wanted it or valued it. It was just all very sloppy, you know, because I didn’t really understand strategy. And so when it comes to being productive, I think having that early moment where you’re like, what is the return of investment? Like, what happens if I do this now versus if I don’t do this? Who cares about this task? Who is it impacting? To me, it’s just that mental awareness, that cognitive inquiry early on that has been very helpful for me. I personally don’t do those, like, 25 minute on, 5 minute break, 25 minute on, 5 minute break. That just doesn’t even work for my brain, and that wouldn’t solve all of the problems in front of me. The other thing is I think about my energy level a lot more than I think about my actual time because sometimes I have a full day open, but I have absolutely no energy. And if I focus on just time, I might put all of these things on my list to-do, but I have no energy to do those.
So I think a lot more about, like, my energy. Like, do I have the energy to do laundry today, or do I have the energy to, like, finish up this article? And then I just you know, I’ll focus on just that one little task, and then when I’m done with that, I might move on to something else. But I don’t really overwhelm myself with, like, these great, great, great plans for the day. If I can get one thing done in the day, like, something that’s just for me, that’s a successful day versus, like, these crazy checklists because I feel like that just contributes to fatigue. And so at the core of all of this, I think, auditing what is on your to do list is really important. What can come off? Like never again are you gonna do it. Are you gonna quit? You’re gonna quit right now because you’re like, I don’t wanna do it. No one cares. No one’s measuring this. My supervisor doesn’t want me to do it. I don’t need this. You’re gonna outsource other things. Automate. Right? You’re not gonna order your toilet paper anymore. You’re gonna automate that, so it just comes every 3 months, whatever. And then you’re gonna think about impact. What am I doing that people actually see a measurable impact on? Even with my kids, I have noticed that, like, sending out birthday party invitations, I don’t do those, like, paperless posts anymore. I send one email to the parents, and I’m like, accept the calendar invitation if you are gonna come. Don’t reply. I don’t need any replies because I have just more emails. Right? Like, I don’t need all of this stuff.
So, you know, I have just figured out, like, what’s the minimum amount of effort I need to do in certain situations to get the job done. And then I’m okay with that.

Anita Charlot:
Yeah. I like that. It makes sense. You know, we talked about energy and having a day to yourself if you have no energy. Even if you attempt to do the things on your list, you’re not gonna you you’re not gonna you’re not gonna be your best at it because you’re you don’t have enough energy to to really think it through. Right? Low energy for me means my brain is functioning at a low level too. So I know I wanna wrap up because I know you have another meeting and we’ve been going for a while, but we talked a little bit about why you decided to write the book, but can you tell us a little bit more about the book where we can find it? And if you have time, can you answer the question of why are Black writers needed in the nonfiction space? If you can cover both of those, that’s great. If not, then I would definitely wanna make sure that we hear more about the book.

Dr. Adaira Landry:
Lovely questions. So first, the book is, again, called MicroSkills: Small Actions, Big Impact. We really wanted to write a book that was full of very small, incremental actions that people can take that would have a measurable impact on immediately accessible content. You know, we don’t, we don’t have any strategy in the book that’s like, go get an MBA or go find a new job because those aren’t, like, easily accessible solutions to many people. Right? Like, we definitely talk about, seeing if you want a new job and, like, reflecting on that. But, like, the solution is never, like, just go get a new job because that’s not feasible for everyone. So, a lot of this was inspired by my own journey to go watch, like I said, lectures on mentorship and be told, go out and find a mentor.
So we have 10 chapters that teach you the how to for these sorts of strategies we’ve been told to go after without any sort of guidance or map. So we have 10 chapters, you know, micro skills on self care, micro skills to be a polished communicator, micro skills to learn your workplace culture, micro skills to become a subject matter expert, and so forth. And underneath each of those chapters, we have about 7 to 11 small skills that will help you achieve that larger goal. We wrote this book because we felt like this is the book we would have really benefited from early in our career. If someone had given it to us, if someone had walked us through it, it would just have been so much more helpful for us to navigate our own journey. As far as why Black people are needed in the nonfiction business, self help space, I mean, first of all, I think for any Black woman to navigate the professional setting, they have to have some level of skills and strategies that they can teach.
I think we have a lot of challenges in the workplace, and we have therefore learned to navigate those challenges. The second thing is a lot of the books currently you know, when we were writing our book, we had to do what’s called a comparative title search and look for other books in the same category. Many of these are written by older, cis/hetero, you know, Christian white men who are telling people how to be strategic at work, despite the fact that their personal experience is very different than other people.
Despite the fact that they make a lot of assumptions about what the reader knows, what the reader has access to. You know, in our book, we have a section that’s for each micro skill where we talk about why it’s gonna be hard for you to adopt the micro skill that we’re telling you to adopt. We put that in there on purpose because we really wanted to normalize that we get it. We too struggled to change ourselves, And we wanted the reader to just understand that, like, we don’t think it’s, like, snap your finger and everything is better. Like, you have to also acknowledge why it has been hard for you already. And so, it sort of just comes to the idea of, like, meeting the reader where they are versus being totally unaware of the fact that not everyone is a C-Suite executive, you know, making 1,000,000 of dollars a year. Many of us are struggling at different places. 
There are 3 truths in the book that we open with. The first is that time can only be spent. We mentioned that because we don’t want people wasting time. A lot of us feel obligated or guilty with change, changing, quitting, stepping down because we feel like, oh, I’m someone’s gonna be upset with me, disappointed, and yet we’re wasting time. Time that we’ll never get back. So we mentioned that often in the beginning. 
The second is that the world is not equal. And this really speaks to the fact that no two people have the exact same experience in any workplace. You know, even two Black women in the same workplace can have very different experiences depending on their pedigree, depending on their network, depending on what they look like, depending on if one’s a parent, one’s not a parent, I’m all sorts of things. Right? And so the world is not equal. We have very different perspectives, and the workplace sees us differently. 
The third is that learning is limitless if it’s accessible. Most of us would be better at work if we were just given the information upfront on how to do it. And so we wrote this book because we know that you can continue to learn if people just show you how, what you need to know, and expose you to your knowledge gaps. And that’s really what we wanted to get at. 
So the book is available now. You can get it at Amazon, Target, Barnes & Noble, your local bookstore, support those, your local library if you wanna save money, which I’m totally a fan of.
So please feel free to do it that way too. The only thing I would love is for you to write a review. So wherever you buy it from, wherever you get it from, please leave a review. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, whatever. That’s very, very, very helpful for books in this category to have the reviews.

Anita Charlot:
Right. Well, thank you so much. This has been so enjoyable. And, after let’s say, let’s give it a couple of months for the book to be out there for a while. Let’s get some reviews and then let’s have you back. I’d love to have you back, probably in the fall. So if you’re open to that, that would be great.

Dr. Adaira Landry:
Happy to!

Anita Charlot:
Good. So don’t forget everyone. The show notes, make sure you listen to the entire podcast. You can definitely download the show notes, which will be a full transcript of our conversation, as well as all of the questions that doctor Adaira has, included in today’s topic. And also you want to pick up a copy of the book. I only had one chapter to read so far, but I will definitely be purchasing the book for myself and a couple for my mentees as well. So thank you again for listening to the Happy Executive Woman Podcast. I am your host, Anita Charlot, and I will see you in the next episode.

Enjoy the Show?

• Don’t miss an episode; subscribe via iTunes, Stitcher, or RSS.
• Leave us a review in iTunes.

Candid Conversations with Phenomenal Executive Women: Dr. Adaira Landry

PODCAST EPISODE № 129

Candid Conversations with Phenomenal Executive Women: Dr. Adaira Landry

by Anita Charlot

Click on the ICON below to listen to Candid Conversations with Phenomenal Executive Women: Dr. Adaira Landry:

What You Learn:

Featured on the Show:

Episode Transcript

Enjoy the Show?

IF YOU LIKE IT, SHARE IT

Get the free video training...
"Can He Handle Your Grind?"

podcast

stay in touch

PODCAST EPISODE № 129

Candid Conversations with Phenomenal Executive Women: Dr. Adaira Landry

by Anita Charlot

Click on the ICON below to listen to Candid Conversations with Phenomenal Executive Women: Dr. Adaira Landry:

What You Learn:

Featured on the Show:

Episode Transcript

Enjoy the Show?

IF YOU LIKE IT, SHARE IT

Get the free video training..."Can He Handle Your Grind?"

podcast

stay in touch

Get the free video training...
"Can He Handle Your Grind?"