Scott Duffy interviewing Yasmin Davidds, Head Of Latina Global Executive Leadership Institute, WIN

Hey, everybody, this is Scott Duffy. And welcome to what now with Scott Duffy. And we have got a great program for you today. Again, what now with Scott Duffy is part of the what Now Academy, where we're bringing in experts each and every week, people who are the best, the very best of the best at what it is that they do to share with you what they are finding in the marketplace today, tools that you can use today in order to get the kinds of results that you want in your life and, and in your business. So this is not about fake gurus. This isn't about Instagram influencers. This whole program, this interview series, this academy is all about bringing people who are in the middle, who are in the fight each and every day building great companies. So what we're sharing with you is the most current information from the people who are currently kicking butt to help you to grow your business. And while this gets out there and propagates for just a second, we are, we're streaming this out to Facebook, into LinkedIn, into YouTube and Instagram and Periscope and all kinds of other places. While this starts to propagate, I am, I'm going to wait just a second before I bring in Yasmeen, who is absolutely fantastic. And you guys are really going to enjoy today's program. And by the way, if this is the first time that you have ever tuned in, please drop into the comments and say hello, tell us who you are, what it is that you're working on, what you need help with in your business. And if you have any questions that I can ask today, if you're an old timer, please drop in again, say hello, it's great to have you here and, and I look forward to, to talking to you guys and to sharing with you again. This is Scott Duffy. This is what now with Scott Duffy. We come to you each Thursday at 11am Pacific Time. And we are sending this out across. Where are we going? Facebook and LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter and Instagram and Periscope and all these different places. So again, I'm going to let this propagate for just a second longer before we get started and, and then we'll, we'll jump in again. If you are new to watching this show, please jump in, say hello, tell us who you are, where you're listening from, what you're working on and how we can help. And if you're an old timer, we loved it for you to say hello as well. And before we kick off, I want to say hello to Bob. Welcome to you, Bob. It's great to see you this morning. So, again, this is what Now With Scott Duffy. And thank you so much for joining. I want to introduce to you guys today's guest. I've been waiting for this show for, like, eight weeks now. So our guest today is Dr. Yasmeen Davids, who is an organizational psychologist, and she's the founder and CEO of the Dr. Yasmeen David's Leadership Institute. She's the founder and CEO of the Latina Global Executive Leadership Institute, and she's the founder and president of the Women's Institute of Negotiation, which we call win. So with that, I want to bring up Yasmeen. Here we go.

Hi.

Hi.

How are you? Thank you for having me. I love your energy. You're, like, ready to go. Everybody, come on, let's just do this.

I'm ready, man. I. I'm ready to go. I. I am. I am so fired. I gotta tell you. I am so excited that we're just opening up right now. Yeah, I have my. So I. You know, my primary business going into Covid was a live event series, and so we do live events.

Three times.

We threw them all over the country for some amazing entrepreneurs. The last event that we had was in February of last year, and since then, I tried to throw five additional events, and each one was canceled. As a result of COVID we have our. Our next event coming up June 15th to 18th in Sundance, Utah. By the way, if you want to learn more, go to scottduffy.com mastermind to learn more. You got 30 entrepreneurs coming to the event, amazing business owners, and it just feels so great to be getting out again. How about you?

I'm excited. I'm. You know, but some people are still very careful, so I respect and honor those that feel that way. So I call upon those that are open to it. Right. If they're vaccinated or not, you know, So I live both worlds, and I respect all. All the worlds that people want to live in. However, for me, yeah, I'm vaccinated. I'm good. Like, let's go out. I feel good. Although I don't know if I feel comfortable around 500 people, because we have a yearly event for five people that we've had to put off and everyone. And it's graduating all our entrepreneurs and leadership women and Latinas and women, multicultural women. And it's a graduation gala, and it's the event of the year for us. And 2020, we had to put it off. We may have to put it off this year. And I'M just can't wait because it's so powerful. But I don't know. 500 people. Well, I have seen people out there, 500 getting together. I just don't know if our audience feels that way.

Yeah, it's a really interesting time for live events, and it can be a really divisive issue kind of what. What we've seen is a lot of events that still have taken place over the last year. In Florida, we've seen events. Down in Texas, we've seen events. I know folks that were throwing them in Wyoming, and then we were also seeing them in Utah. And it's interesting because you're in California, right?

Yes. Okay, so we're in California by Los Angeles.

Okay, so you're in Pasadena. So you and I are both in California, where it has arguably been the most restricted and restrictive and the most shut down for the last, you know, 14 months.

Yes.

In some states, people have absolutely no concept of what it's been like for all of us to do business.

Yes.

And as it relates to events, I look at a place like where we're going to go, Utah. And in Utah, you can actually have an event now with as many people as you want.

Oh, wow.

As many people, they can be indoors. The key is if they get past a certain size, they ask you to wear a mask. But for smaller events, you don't. So the question I have is for people that have been maybe like us a bit in the live event business and maybe were thrown off course, we're forced to adjust and now the market is changing and we're coming back. How do we get back to a mindset that is the right mindset for us to be able to grow and to thrive versus feeling shut down and locked down?

You know, I feel. And so, you know, there's many political opinions to this. Right. I personally feel that we do need to be.

Careful a bit about coming back and how we do it. And that's just my personal opinion, because is. And the reason I say this is because my best friend, one of my best friends, her wife, is the lead director and surgeon for a clinic where she sees deaths every day. So to her, it's very real to me. Right. Because she's crying and she's devastated every day. And it's like, so she's in the front line. So I see it. So I do think to a certain degree, I have to be careful. But there is ways to go about it. And for us, actually, our business, we had to pivot my business and we tripled our revenue because we went virtual and now we have global reach. And before it was only in person. Right. So doesn't mean we did lose revenue at first, but it's pivoting, and it's really a shift in perspective and finding other ways, shifting your business model and really trying to find ways. I know companies who used to do limousine services and deliver. I mean, not deliver, but transportation services that pivoted to delivery services for packages instead. So I think that the mindset is about thriving no matter what, but finding a way to thrive in your current environment.

Right. And we, we spoke before we got on this, this program today. We were speaking about people coming back to work. And I was sharing with you an issue because I think I talk just like you. You and I talk to so many business owners. And what I really can't wait to talk about in just a minute or I can't wait to get to is talking about multicultural business owners. I can't wait to talk, talk about different markets. And one of the things that we get the benefit of is kind of seeing shifts in energy or issues that everyone is kind of collectively thinking about and kind of how those patterns change. And I shared to you that this morning I had two business owners that I was speaking to, and both of them had the same issue. They can't hire. Right now they're here in California, they're trying to get their businesses back started again. But what they're competing against in many cases is they're competing against unemployment. Sixteen additional weeks of unemployment, up to $3,000 here in California. So if they're trying to find people that are making $40,000 or less for certain types of positions, they've had a really difficult time getting these people to want to come back to work. People that are not employed, how do we encourage people to get back to work? What do we have to do as business owners to bring people like that back in?

Well, I think the issue is much larger than that. I think if we try to see it only as business owners and hey, we need to get people back to work. We're really, really not living in the reality of the world that we live in right now. And that is the people that used to just go to work are now terrified to come to work because they have underlying issues that they could get sick if they're, you know, and they have kids at home that are trying to go to school and they have to be their teachers now. They didn't have two issues prior. So if someone is saying, hey, you don't have to risk your life and your kids will have somebody at home because there's no daycares, maybe that are open full time. And we'll help you out the state, you know, unemployment while you do that. Hey, why wouldn't you take that? Right? If you're dealing. So what I'm saying is that that's saying it's right or wrong. It's not about judgment here. It's about. This is the reality that we're living. So as a business owner, what can you do to provide one, the same level of safety for the employee coming to work and helping them out in some way to find something that, you know, regarding their children? You need to be able to solve those two problems for them in order for them to give up the solution that they currently have. So my thing is usually it's a problem that a business owner may have, but the solution is no longer the solution that it was a year ago.

Yeah.

You understand what I'm saying? It's much larger. And I think that we don't start seeing things like that moving forward that now we're going to deal with employees with mental health issues. There's trauma, there's so many things. This is the stuff we're going to have to deal with. If not where it's really going to hurt our business.

So is kind of what you're saying, that as a small business owner, in order to attract the best talent and to keep them engaged, I have to start thinking beyond what used to be benefits of working for my business. Not just the paycheck or health insurance. But we may have to consider how we help that person with their kids in some way or be mindful for of it, or there might be some kind of mental health component to it because we really. I, I think so much of this country is experiencing and will continue to experience this PTSD type of thing. Like, this is really tough what we've all been through. And now it's time to grow and like get up there, get out there and, and, but, but maybe mentally. And that's why kind of, that's where I started mentally. I'm not sure that everybody's ready for it yet. We have to get them there now. I love to switch to multicultural. I want, I want to switch really quick because like, this is your lane, right? Yeah, I want to switch to Latina. I want to start with Latina business owners.

Okay.

I read a, I read an article last year and my data may be off, but you'll be able to correct Me. And basically what it did is it was looking pre Covid at business starts over the previous five years. And what you find in business with startups is this really high rate of failure, right? It's like a crazy percentage of the 90s in the first five years. But Latina business owners had the highest success rate of any group in the United States over, over that five year period keeping their businesses open. And it was almost, the numbers were almost in reverse. So for example, if it's like an average 90% failure rate, it was like an average 90%. They were still in business success rate. Why do you think that is?

In other words, what you're saying is that Latinos have a higher success rate than other, say, people in general that start businesses.

Other cultures.

Yeah, other cultures. I mean, honestly, we're survivors, we're fighters in the sense of we don't give up until.

Basically, unfortunately, maybe we've lost everything, which is not good, but necessarily. And then we build back up when other people, if they're not making a profit after a few years, they just wrap it up and they're done and they move on to the next thing. For us, we start businesses as a lifestyle, as a survival mechanism. We don't for the most part our businesses to sell them. I mean, I don't know if you can meet many Latinas who will ever tell you that they started a business in order to sell it. Like, that's not a mindset that we're yet accustomed to. It's not the, the same American way of why Americans start maybe start businesses in order to get investors, build capital and then scale and then sell it. It's like, no, it becomes our baby. It becomes our child to a certain degree.

Interesting, really interesting. I was talking to an African American gentleman a couple weeks ago. We're talking about raising capital. And he said, when you teach people to raise capital, he said, one of the disconnects that I have is you say, you talk about source of funds. And he said, you, you know, you go all the way from friends and family through this long list, right? He said, in my area, in my neighborhood, the way I grew, we don't have any friends and family that have money to call on.

You know, it's funny you say that because I was literally about two days ago, I have a friend who's, who as a white woman, dear, dear friend, who's building a tech company. And she was telling me how she's building the tech company. And we were on zoom. She's like, let me bring you that my list of investors. And she pulled it up, just going through each one, and, you know, I think she's raised like 3 or 4 million to start with. And I'm sitting there going, how do you know all these people? And she's like, well, that's my dad's friend and my uncle. My uncle Bob. I'm sitting there going, do you realize not only do we not even have people who invest, we don't even know people like that. Like, in our community, like our many of our communities, our parents came here, you know, from Mexico usually, or other countries, but usually because rich Latino people don't come here because they're much richer in other countries unless they come here to study. Like their kids come here to study. You don't come here because you're rich in another country and move to America. Usually come to America for a better life because you barely surviving in another country, right? So it's. Yeah, it's really interesting. So they. Out of survival that most Latin people come here and they cross, you know, whatever. You know, the border. It's not a luxury. It's a survival mechanism for us. So we don't know those people because our parents most, for most part, don't speak English. I was. My parents translator since I was five years old. I mean, you know, I filled out their applications for everything. You know, as soon as I can read, it's like, this is our life. So it's much, much different. So that's why it's not equal. And what I mean, equal is that for us to even build capital, we have to get people to trust us. And, you know, people that don't know anything about Latinas yet, and they see us only as people who clean their homes. And then we're asking them to give us millions of dollars. It's like, so it's a whole different dynamic. And I think it's very difficult to understand unless we have these kind of deep conversations that people feel uncomfortable with sometimes and really help people understand that we're fighters, we will survive, and we're very loyal. But we don't need what other people may need. We need things that are different that maybe society doesn't understand.

Okay, so awesome. By the way, I want to say hi just before I ask this question. I want to say hi to Melody, Melody Johnson, for jumping in. She's so happy that we're talking about multicultural businesses right now. And Doc Voice, who came over on a. He was in the. The boat people from Vietnam. When you hear about those stories, he He. He came over literally as an immigrant boat person with his dad in 1978. You know, total survival story. So he's. He's really relating to this. So when you say we need things that are different than you may need, what do. What do you need? What do you. What do more multicultural business. Am I. If I even seen this. Right.

Need.

I would say it's. It's mindset versus skill set. We need to be. We don't know what we don't know at times, right? We don't know. We don't know even. Even for myself, I have a lot of investor friends who I'm picking their brain. I'm like, is this even appropriate for me to ask? And they are. You can ask. I'm like, okay. But in the world out there, who. We don't have that relationship. Do you ask these questions or you don't. I feel blessed that I can have those conversations with friends of mine. If I didn't have that, I wouldn't even know. Is it appropriate to ask how much, how much millions did this person give you? Or do you not ask that? You know, so these are the things that when you grow up in that culture or that world, or you can ask them, it's kind of becomes normal, right? Kind of. If you grew up in a culture where everybody cooked at home, then you kind of just learn how to cook compared to someone that no one cooked at home. You don't even know what a pan may be or a certain type of pot. It's really, really different. And I'm not speaking for all multicultural people or all Latinas. I'm speaking for a large majority of them. But of course, there's always exceptions. But I think that we need a safe space where we can ask the questions that we don't know if we can ask is first very, very important to us because then we usually don't ask questions.

Interesting.

I was talking to a friend of mine who is. He's. He's Mexican.

Really successful. He owns one of the largest companies in Mexico, multi billion dollar company. And he was telling me, it's interesting because he got into that business later in life. His parents came over from Mexico, settled in Texas, and he said, he talked about his start as an entrepreneur. And one of the things that he told me, he said, scott, you can't relate to this is he said, we came over, we had a big family. He said, we had 12 people living in the house. He said, we all paid out the rent for the rent. He said, we all paid for the car, we all. And he said, but the one thing, he said we all contributed. He said, but the one thing that we all shared, he said, which was the hardest part for me, was the same mindset. And he said I didn't have people around me that had the mindset that I had to go and find in order to shift my perspective and create what I've created. So my question is, if you grow up in an environment where maybe you're not surrounded by the kind of people we were talking about earlier, how do you surround yourself with people with the right mindset and the right tools that you need in order to get more.

Out of life, you have to seek them out in non traditional, uncomfortable ways. For someone that's out of a comfort zone, for example, perfect example, is just, I am really interested in the tech world because I know that's the future, right? I am never liked anything having to do with tech before. Know really nothing about the tech world. Don't like sciences, don't like computer stuff before. I'm not even really active on social media, which I need to get better. So. But I know that's the future. So I say, what do I do to really understand what it means to build a tech company? There's nobody in my world that knows I don't even know a Latina who's raised over $100 million ever in the, in the history of America to build a business. Like, that's not my world. So I said, I'm going to have to go in those spaces. So in the spaces, usually white women are men who are building these tech companies and what it is for a woman to build these tech companies and what it means. So I engaged in an organization called Athena alliance, which a tech company that's building, helping women get on boards. And they have a foundation that they just launched and they were looking for board members. Now, my own foundation, I don't have time to like be on boards that are not usually national or like very large. This is barely starting. But I said, this will get me close to the CEO.

Of the, of the actual company. It's being built by a woman that I respect. I said, and it'll help me understand that world to be on that board. So they recruited me. I said, yes, I've been on that board for about four years, four months, and I've learned so much. She's. I said, I'll be on the board. And her name's Coco. Coco. I'll be on, on the board, but I want to be able to tap into your mind. She's the one I met with and brought up the list of the funders I was just talking about. I, I, I seeked and it was uncomfortable for me because this is a world I don't know. And once again, I don't know what are qu right questions to ask or not. Like, hey, Coco, tell me exactly how much this person gave you. Like, I don't know if I'm supposed to ask that or not, but I, you know, so I said, look, I don't know I'm supposed to ask this or not, but I'm gonna ask it anyways. You tell me if it's inappropriate, you know, so. But she's like, hey, it's all good. Like we become friends, you have to get into those uncomfortable positions. But I offered something and then I asked for reciprocation because now I have value to offer, which is my expertise in building a foundation. Right? So it's kind of like. But when you don't have that, then you just got, you have to come from a place of humbleness and tell people, I really want to learn. Will you, what can I do for you to help teach me and really just jump in into areas that you're completely uncomfortable with.

One of the things that Doc V is saying that is that he thinks you have to stand out somehow. For me, it was academically, then be open to receiving compliments and help, which he wasn't. It was actually hard for him to receive the compliments and to receive the help.

That's very also very much of a woman thing and Latina women in general, because my multicultural women, that same thing. And you just had that conversation in class last weekend and I said, look it, I am, I'm a giver. But let me tell you, somebody calls and says, I want to send you flowers. I'm like, here's my address. Anybody wants to send me anything, here. I am such a receiver because how am I going to take that away from them? They want to give me a gift, I gotta honor that because it makes them feel good as much as it helps me. So because it makes me feel good to give a gift to someone or help someone out. So it's reciprocation. So I'm not going to take that away from them. And I deserve it. I don't expect, I don't expect it, but I deserve it.

So, you know, energetically, I would just add that as it comes to manifesting money and bringing money into your life and bringing abundance into your life, when you Push away. When you're not good at receiving, and you push that away, what you do is you attract the opposite energy, so you attract takers around you, and then you're really in a whole thing. So receiving.

It not only helps you, but it changes the people that want to be around you as well.

Yeah.

Because the odds are people that are successful and that are abundant, they want to give. And if you're not letting them do that, they're going to move on and give to somebody else.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So it's being comfortable receiving as much as giving. And if you're not comfortable with it, I tell the women, then you got to look at why you don't. You don't feel you're worth it. That's a whole other internal work. Right.

Yeah. So let me go back to kind of one of the first questions I asked or one of the first things we talked about, which is raising capital. So if you come from. You're. You come from a community, whatever it is, you come from a place where you don't have the friends and family around you. You don't have necessarily the connections, how do you start to assemble the capital and other resources that you need so that you can get started and so you can grow?

So, you know, it's interesting because I had investors many years ago, but I didn't seek them out. They seeked me out, and they said, you know, you're the Latina Oprah. We want to invest in you. We want to help build you, and all this stuff. And I got caught up where they pretty much owned me. And when I didn't even know what was going on, I was naive. And literally where they said, you have to sign a contract. We will own your name in five years from now, and if not, we're pulling all funding, which I did. And I went. Had to claim bankruptcy. I lost my home, everything. And so it's very common for Latinas to feel that it's not safe.

Because usually, once again, we're very. We're driven in different ways. And so. But if you do understand the game of raising capital, understand that it. That your business needs to be a business, it cannot be a lifestyle, and your heart can't be in it to the point where it takes over. Right. And you really understand that it's about building the company to sell it and all those elements, then it's about aligning yourself with people who have done it before. Yeah. Getting to know people who have done it and letting. And listening, you know, and if you start feeling that it doesn't align with your values because many times it does conflict with values because value driven, you know, Latinas, for the most part, many more value driven because of family and many things like that. And sometimes, you know, they, they want to do things that maybe it's not in the best interest of the business. So it becomes a value conflict. Then, then it's not for you. Like there have. You have to be very clear about what it means to raise capital and you need to completely detach emotionally yourself to it. And that's very difficult for us when our businesses have been our hearts.

One of the things that Melody is asking is, or she's saying is that where people really need help is on financial education.

Where. Where can. Can people go to receive guidance on financial education? Because she believes that really be a help for small business owners.

I do think that financial education is key. However, it's not only education, it's a mindset, mind shift. And that is that understanding that many Latinos feel that living is for today. So my mom's the perfect example. My mom doesn't say, My mom's like, I might die tomorrow. She's been saying that for 50 years, right? And so anything I give her, she spends. I'm a mom. You don't even need that sweater. I don't care. I might die tomorrow. Like, right? So I have to. So I grew up with that and I had to. So because she's a survivor, she came here with no education, third grade education, worked in factories to survive. And so it's about living day at one, day at a time, you know, day by day. So it really is a mind shift because you can educate people all day long, but if their mindset is about surviving only today, then they're going to continue spending as much as they bring in. So I think that you need to approach psychology and once again, the skills of education, but the psychology of the individual as well.

I see, I see. So as we kind of get out of this, we start to move out of kind of the COVID year that we've had. Who knows what lies ahead. What are some of the bigger opportunities that you see for multicultural business owners?

Well, I think there's wonderful opportunities right now as far as grants. There's so many grants being given out by organizations, government, and that's one thing I advise. Take advantage of every opportunity to apply for every grant that's out there in California. You better believe that I got it. You know, every ppp, loans, all of that. Maximize it. Because this is stuff that you don't have to pay back. And also there's so much money being put out in the community for like $25,000. You just got to apply sometimes for these grants. You have to show that you're a small business, that you lost money during COVID and that you're owned, that it's owned by women. 51% owned by women, minority, slash, you know, however you want to say it. And then you have to apply, you can get the money. I mean, there's so many of those resources. So my thing is take advantage of all that, especially if you lost a lot of money and start, and start looking at the world differently in the sense of just because you ran business a certain way before, there's a whole new level of opportunity. You know, consumers behavior is changing on how they, what they value. I mean, I was just listening this morning to the news that 40% of millennials are thinking about leaving their jobs, especially corporate, because they, they're living in a life is too short kind of mentality. And so they're not so loyal to brands as they used to be. They're. There's just so much thing like start learning about that and seeing where can you fit a niche, where can you. Like I had for Latinas, I have turned to multicultural the last few years and focused on that. My next book is going to be about, for Latinas, about Latinas, because that I feel it's needed right now and I can go into different markets of multiculture, but it's like, okay, this is where it's at right now. This is part of my, you know, this is my, my expertise, my heart and soul for 20 years. Let me jump back in here and, and write my next book and really focus on helping develop Latinas. And then five years down the road, who knows, depending on what the world needs or what society needs. So kind of seek what is needed out there and see how your current business can, can fill that niche.

Got it, got it, got it. That's, that's great. Great counsel and, and you hit on something that is, I think, so important. A lot of people are, they're looking for money from investors or they're looking for money from, from loans or There are so many grant programs out there for women entrepreneurs, for different, different cultures entrepreneurs, African American, Latin, like all this stuff. And so what I would recommend is just go on Google and start searching, you know, you know, start, you know, women owned business grants, Los Angeles, Newport Beach, Utah, like wherever you are and just do that and then whatever your Culture, whatever your niche is, and just keep doing it. And you're going to be surprised, I think, by how much you find that's out there. But people don't necessarily know. And so these programs are funded. They're funded. And they're waiting for you. Yes, they're waiting for you is what they're waiting for. And so I highly recommend that you go out and do that. So.

Okay, so this is. I hope I say this right. Okay.

You know, wrong. You can't stand wrong because there's no. Yeah.

There's no judgment. So here's the thing. It's like, all I want to do is help.

But.

But in the world today, it's such, like a crazy culture. It can be such a canceled culture. People get upset if you say things the wrong way. So I was on Clubhouse a couple months ago, two, three months ago, and I dropped into a room. For those of you who don't know, Clubhouse. Clubhouse is a social media network. It's relatively new. And one of the things that kind of what you do is you basically go into what is, like, organized chat, like talking chat. People are talking in different rooms. You create a room or around a topic, and other people can come in and they can listen. And if you, as the. The host of the room want, you can bring them on so they can speak. What's cool is in a lot of these rooms, there's a lot of interaction. I was in a room, and it was. It was. It was created by African American women, and they were talking about different issues in business with their community. And so somebody. It wasn't me. Somebody said, a white guy said, I want to help, to come in to solve some of these problems that you're talking about. Got a lot of resources. How can I help? And he got such a negative backlash, that comment. And I believe he was just trying to offer help. And what the. What the. The person, one of the women who got on said was, we don't want. The help needs to come from within. Inside our community is where it needs to come from. So as. As a person that wants to. I just want to help everybody.

Is there a line here? Or like, do you understand what I'm trying to say?

Like.

There. And, you know, that comes up so much. And I get. I understand, you know, both sides. And the greatest gift I think God ever gave me was that I have the power of perspective, multi perspective. Both sides are completely polar opposites. And I understand about wanting to give and truly wanting to give, because even me, as a Latina When I've wanted to give to the. My African American sisters in my program, yeah, they're receptive, but there's a little bit like, well, how do you want to give it to us? And what. And at first I was like, oh, my gosh. I just want. We want to create a Breonna Taylor Scholarship. And it's like, well, we don't know if that's appropriate or not, because. And it's like, well, why? Well, the thing is that these communities have been taken advantage, you have to understand, for so long by so many people that if it comes from within their own community, they don't know whether they can trust it or not. The ulterior motives. So what an amazing leader has done. He's the president and superintendent for a college, Ohlone College. O H L O N e. He came into as a superintendent and president of this college last year and realized that the women were disempowered, the women of color, multicultural were disempowered. He reached out to me and he said, I want your services. I want you to come in power. You know, do. Do your negotiation, teach them how to negotiate their space. But instead of him taking the front lines, he called a woman of color, the VP of hr, and said, I'm going to pay for the resources. You take over from here. You ladies know what you need? I don't know what you need.

Okay, awesome.

And basically, they've been leading it. It's been extremely powerful. So he just said, I'm paying for it and I'm taking a step back. He didn't try to say, I'm the savior. What can I do here? He let women call those shots. The women that are being served call the shots from another woman, a multicultural woman. So that is the best way, because it's saying is, I trust you ladies enough to take the money and do the right thing, and I'm not going to try to take the front lines.

So it's really more about empowering people to go out and empower people.

Exactly.

Okay, I understand. That's. That's a really important distinction. What are other things that you run across as you're. As you're running all the institutes that you run, your multicultural institutes, your Latina. By the way, what is. So I'm hearing the.

The.

The. The term Latin X used a lot more today, you know, especially in the last year. Latinx.

What is Latinx relative to describe what Latinx means to you?

Latinx means gender neutral.

Okay.

You're not a Latino or Latina. Because some, some do not identify with genders. It's more the millennials kind of the 20 year olds nowadays or I'm not sure what, what they're categorized as far as. But millennial kind of, you know, they, every time it's something different. So. And I respect the land expert term because I understand what their intentions, although I don't identify with it because I'm, I just turned 50 and I'm a Latina. And that next I feel like you, you're in your 20s, like that's a whole new way of thinking. And I also feel that Latinas have, have been at the bottom of the totem pole still with Latinos being on the top. By taking away the A, we don't exist.

By adding an X and making us, we literally cease to exist as Latina. The Latina a part gives us a sense of power and empowerment, like to claim our space. The moment you take that away, it's like, okay, now we're really not going to rise in the way with an identity, with the word that belongs to us.

Interesting, interesting.

I know you find it all fascinating. I see.

Well, it is, it is. And you know, it's, you know, we all come from different cultures and different communities and things like that and, but.

I love how open you are to like, you really want to learn and you really like, wow, like you're really taking it in. I really, I think that's amazing. Thank you for that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what so again is, it's kind of like we.

Go out in the 2000 into this year and we start to come out. Are there two or three tips that you can give? Well, I'm just going to say to women entrepreneurs to help them thrive through the rest of this year. In this period that we're going through, what are two or three things that you'd share with them?

I would say, number one, find your tribe.

Find your tribe. Women, other business women owners, women of color. Because we in our programs are women entrepreneur, multicultural women entrepreneur. We have a, we have a Harvard curriculum. Like we have a curriculum, but you can get a curriculum anywhere. It's the power of the unity of these women. They lean on each other, they find resources from each other. It's just women, men and women, but a tribe of your own that you can call to and be like, hey, do you know somebody that does this? So I'm part of EO as I heard you are too. Right. I heard that you are cute. And that's where I go to, to find my Entrepreneur, traditional entrepreneur. Resources, kind of like mainstream. Yeah. And so like, hey, you know what, you know, internal, you know, system are you using for to, to, you know, track, I don't know, sales or whatever it may be. Whatever it may be, you know, kind of. But as far as what emotionally you may be going through, find your tribe, you know, if you can. And number two.

I would say try to get out of your own way. You may not even realize you're getting in your own way. But women, we are our greatest barrier, our own limiting beliefs and about what we can and cannot do. Including myself. I have to put myself on check all the time because I'm like, I'm like in myself. I'm like, no, I don't do things like that. No. I'm like, okay, step back, yasmine, why not? 20 years ago it didn't work for you, but why not now? So I literally have to do a lot of self talk and I encourage women, multicultural, all women to self talk to themselves and ask themselves if they don't want to do something, why not look at it again? Maybe there was a decision you made 20 years ago that no longer applies.

Oh my God, that's such great counsel. You know, I remember about five years ago, a friend of mine called and he was really having a rough time. He, he was having such a. And this, this guy, I'd known him for years, he made millions and millions of dollars. Something had happened in a business kind of, I think a partnership had gone sideways and they both. It just kind of blew up and he went back to it and he started to build again. He was having a lot, really hard time kind of getting back going and, and I talked to him and called me out of the blue and he's like, he's like, you know, I've got to do it this way and I've got to do it this way, and this is what worked. So I'm doubling down on this. And he was so committed to what he was doing.

And after he Talked for like 45 minutes, he didn't stop about all the things he had to do. All I said was, or not.

Or not or not. And so I didn't talk to him again. True story. For like three years, we just didn't talk. We ran across each other. He calls me out of the blue again. I go, what's up, guys? Making a million dollars a year again? And I said to him, I said, how did you do it? He said, because you said, or not? He said, it screwed my head up. So Much. I just asked myself, does this work now or not? And I realized that most of it didn't. And so I think that's a great question to ask yourself is go through what you do, how you do it, what worked for you in your, in the past, what habits you have, routines, the people you're around, and ask yourself, do I really need that to get where I want to go or not exactly.

And yes, you know what got me here won't get me there. You know that, right? You say that I was watching one of your shows. I'm like, yep, there you go.

Totally. Well, is there any. I'm so happy that you spent this time with us. First of all, how can people connect with you? How can they find you?

They can go to my website right now. It's yes, dryasmininstitute.com or, you know, this is how bad I am. I don't even know my social media, like hashtags or handles or whatever. I mean my emails, all that I know isn't that I see. I'm telling you I need to get better at this. Google Dr. Yasmine David and everything will come up on Google and then you can find everything there. That's, that's what I would say.

That's awesome. Hey, do you have a book that people can go and purchase today?

Yes, I have a book called, my latest book is called you'd own A Woman's guide to negotiation. And basically it's about women and negotiation and everything in life is a negotiation. Women tend to think that just like salary and stuff. But no, even you know, your views and trying to persuade somebody to see the world in a different way is negotiation. So there's gender specific negotiation strategies that if you try to use traditional, there will be a backlash because their subconscious biases, as we know, unconscious biases for gender on how women, women are seen as witches with the be when they do things the way men do them. Right. So my thing, these are, this is what I call being graciously assertive. Being assertive graciously will get you what you want.

Oh, that's great. That's great. I have this expression, you stand where you sit. And what it means is if you're so the way that you have power in any organization, the way you have power, influence over anything really is to build consensus around your ideas or your opinions or what it is that you want to do or your seller, whatever it is, you take a problem. So say you go into a conference room and you have the entire team are sitting around the conference table and in the middle, you throw a problem. Every single person in every single chair is going to look at that problem differently based on what their job is, how they're paid, how they're evaluated, their performance, all those types of things. So you have the same problem. You have 20 different perspectives. And I think that our job, part of our job and we want to influence, is to be open enough and ask the right questions to understand and really try and get into, like, what is everybody's perspective and be a part and use that to help bring them in, you know, to what it is that you want to do.

That's exactly the way to do it. It's being able to, you know, empathize with whoever is around you and see the world from their perspective and so that you understand them. Once a person feels understood and they feel that you listen, you are much more able to have them understand your perspective. But you need to understand, so you need to step to their side first before you ask them to step to yours.

That's right. Exactly. That's what's trying that. Exactly. Dr. Yasmeen Davids, you are fantastic and I thank you so much for coming on today. And for all of those that want to get a hold of Dr. David's, go to dryasmeen david's dryasmineinstitute.com yes, Dr. Yasminstitute.com and you can find everything there that you need, including the books that she has for sale, her social media links, everything. Thank you so much for joining. By the way, for all of you who joined us across all the social media platforms, I want to thank you so much for being with us today. This is WHAT NOW with Scott Duffy. And we'll see you again next week at 11aM Pacific Time. Thank you.

Thank you, Scott.