Consuelo Intro
… visualize Supreme Court Goddess Ruth Bader Ginsberg having a chat session with Senator Cori Bush and Alexandria Villaseñor. Can you imagine the power across those three generations that would be felt in the room that could only be disrupted by laughter and gratitude they would have in that conversation? That is what we are seeking.
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HOLA CHICAS!
I am Consuelo Crosby – born with both sides of my brain fighting for attention.. structural engineer & creative, mother & mentor, center of any spontaneous fiesta if I’ve had my morning latte… I give it all to being a 1st generation Peruvian badass chica!
So grateful you’re here today, wanting to shed that armor, relax into your truth, pick up your salsa step, tune out what’s getting to you and be lifted from goddesses of generations past that taught us to live life large and out loud… cuz we’re not blending in…
LIFE LNXX… knowledge you didn’t even know you had TO BE THE BADASS CHICA YOU WERE BORN TO BE!
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San Miguel de Allende – Latin DNA Runs Deep
So happy to be back in the booth, bringing some love and updates to you this week after an epic, seriously epic, wedding in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. Before we get into some heavy hitting material about changing the current infrastructure that limits our advancement and success, I will fill you in on the beauty of Mexico and life lived there. Maybe I will lure you into some relaxation through the descriptive vision of San Miguel before asking you to stand upright and prepare to make change.
Everything about the town is evidence of the beauty and passion of Latin life evident in the social gatherings in cafes and parks, the artistry created 500 years ago and today, the expression of love of life through food and beauty and faith.
I tried to capture some of the unique elements of the town in our newsletter that went out this week. So often, I was too mesmerized by what my eyes were seeing that I neglected to take pictures. I make a horrible member of the paparazzi. I’m just stunned visually and forget to use my camera…A.K.A. phone. But then, other times, I knew my memory would not do the vision justice and I used up considerable space on my phone snapping one colorful building after another. Still, I hope you enjoyed the tempting tidbits that may lure you to San Miguel de Allende so that you too can sit in its glory and watch the thriving life of the people who live there…. Just a heads up, they won’t be the ones wearing booty shorts and western hats. And another heads up, this WILL be a booty kicking episode to get you into action.
But first, San Miguel de Allende, because there are many San Miguel’s in Mexico, so specifically, San Miguel de Allende felt like the home I never found here in the US. The kindness and enthusiasm of the people and their love to gather in the simplest mode and just talk about life was totally comforting. It’s just a completely different DNA that pulses through the Latin communities and why I am so emphatic, basically pleading with you, not to blend into the masses and diminish this reverence of humanity and the human condition. I knew I was on a road to heaven when my shuttle driver turned to me and said, “You must get lost in order to find yourself.” I really doubt he read that on a mug in town,
My favorite part was wandering through the town and stumbling across an alluring wooden arched doorway that led you into a courtyard. Whether it was a plaza or hotel, the temptation to explore each nook often rewarded me with a set of stairs that rose to a rooftop terrace and once there, I was rewarded yet again by an unexpected, spectacular view of this confetti colored town and the precipice of the desert plain beyond that just fell into the valley, where the lush organics flourished and found their way to our dinner plates each night.
Generations of Dance Partners
Specifically though, the decor at the wedding could only be created in Mexico. Although the vision may be universal, the result seemed so natural to the country that one might stumble across it when wandering through a local forest. The lush canopy of greens through which you could see the stars only dimmed from the huge tule lanterns that dangled from above. It was like dancing in a cloud forest and waiting for the supernatural creatures to arrive and really get that party started.
And party we did, into the next morning, generations side by side on the dance floor exchanging partners. This was the true validation for me, the epitome of what being human feels like, can be like… when people are not defined by age or gender or pre-assigned friendships, but instead, join together to support and celebrate the beauty of creating the next segment of life, a newly married couple.
Almost all of the revelers were in their 30’s, from a huge variety of backgrounds and careers, men and women and each one having so many personalities that chatting was an exchange of ideas and hopes, experiences and struggles and all ultimately ending in raised glasses and dance moves. I feel so blessed to have met this crowd that were the core of dedicated faithful who came from the far corners of the planet, seriously, from Serbia and to Korea, committing to the strenuous safety precautions of travel and attendance to make sure they were there. These faithful, these would be the ones that I would call if I had that one day left, knowing they would show up and most likely, cause an unexpected outcome that would have me have many days after.
They were so cool, not because they were young and beautiful and vivacious – but holy hell, seriously, they were young, beautiful and vivacious – but because they all were living a self-prescribed fabulous life of personal wants and expressions. They were already living their true selves out loud and dismissing the need to conform to expectations. They, too, had turned away from the paved path and struck one of their own, evident in their dance moves,their conversations, their attire and thankfully their humor – hilarious, they were frick’n hilarious.
The wedding reinforced the validity gained across generations, validity that you may not even get from your own generation. Maybe I was born into the wrong one, or maybe it’s just me. As a little girl, I just wanted to be with the older people so I could learn what they knew and now, I just want to be with the younger generation, again, just to learn what they know. It’s the power of a curious mind, one that sets no boundaries on where its knowledge comes from and instead immerses itself in any opportunity to learn more so that I still have the power to make change.
Knowledge Across Generations
Knowledge makes change.
Change cannot occur just with the knowledge of a singular generation though. For as much as you want to believe that you are the sheeeeets, that you consider yourself the self-made person, you have come to this point in your life on the backs of those before you and probably now, even those after you. To isolate yourself only into your generation, considering the older generation to be out of touch and the younger generation to be too young to know better, will probably create a very dull and limited life. You will be putting yourself on that one way, dead end journey that meets up with your peers in the tar pits; the peers that didn’t evolve either because they relied on only what they knew at any given time or dismissed what the next generation was trying to teach them.
It’s like being given a playlist of only one artist, staying in one mood, and listening to it over and over again. Now we all have those days, I have the REM day, the Beyonce day, the J.T. day, but over and over again everyday you would go braindead. A huge fail into conformity and such a rote sense of existence. Just the same thing over and over again until someone in charge said, “Hey, you can’t listen to that anymore, this is what you’re going to listen to now”. Can you imagine it? Ugh! But it’s all you know unless you are the individual that actually makes the change.
What if instead, you wanted more, so you reached up to your older family and friends and asked about what they did when listening to music. They may speak of their epic record collections they had, the live music that played everywhere late into the early mornings, everyday. Why was life that way? Because people didn’t want to be spoon-fed what they could listen to or what they could create.
If you go to your younger friends for insight, they may tell you they make their own music on their laptops, share rifts with each other and DJ at parties on any given night. All of a sudden, you are going to feel “old”, even if you are only in your 30’s, because you realize that life is changing so rapidly, even when you are young, that you are not in charge merely because you are older. This is not a single track existence of evolution and success or a linear rise through video game levels. The only way of rising into sustainable ownership of yourself and your life, while living fully outside in the big world, is to gather the knowledge of all the generations, all the people on the planet before they are gone, before the answer we may need today is in the mind of someone 50 years our senior or 20 years our junior.
We don’t know who has the answer so we have to go on this massive treasure hunt to find it.
Evolution is Not Linear, It’s Spherical
You can see it throughout history. People are just born with the knowledge that may be far beyond what their relevant day can support and are left with the burden of determining how to bring it into fruition all by themselves. The persistent ones create it solo, without support and probably more so, with a lot of ridicule and dismissal. Imagine Leonardo DaVinci… his brain exploding with ideas that were 400 years ahead of his time – the helicopter, the catapult, raised bridges.
He is one of the highly documented entrepreneurs and founders of civilization that illuminates the concepts that evolution is not linear. We come hardwired in an almost ethereal sense of knowledge that relies either on the individual’s strength and determination – even complete dorkiness – to nurture that knowledge; or it relies on the parents to realize their little one has a gift and they must be protected from the mundanity of the masses in order for that knowledge to provide the evolution we need. Actually, DaVinci also had a great investor that took him under his wing but we will get to that in another podcast.
Now think about this relative to yourself and all the ideas that have come to you either from deep within or by seeing a pattern in society or nature that makes you create something new. Those ideas in your head are so valid and could be the key that we all rely on for improving our world for us and the generations around us. Consider how often you may have been dismissed for your idea and by who? Was it your peers? Your parents? Your Manager? Was it your company as a whole?
And what was your response ladies? Did you disregard the commentary and push through your idea anyway? Or, did you start doubting the brilliance of your idea? Did you succumb to the dismissal and step in line with the linear thinkers?
It is understandably difficult to push through the heavy dominance of the men at the top of this societal structure given the centuries that it has been in place. Many women have had the answer in our past, I am sure of it, we know of it, but we are unaware of it en masse because of the lack of written history or verbal stories being passed down. It is really evident in my own family where the 4 men have appropriated my mother’s intelligence and successes and called it their own. They lack the knowledge and instead take it from the one who does and also take all the credit for it.
Again, I bet this sounds so familiar in your workplace and I know that you have made immense strides in combating it as it occurs. I absolutely love that about you; your intolerance to listen to the mansplaining of your life, the gaslighting of your reality and the strides you take to unite and maintain our female identity and our cultural identity so that it is not literally whitewashed into an unspoken history. We will not go unrecognized for our knowledge or our leadership expertise just because the current framework of mediocrity relies on us to be silent.
Again, we don’t know who has the answer so we have to go find it.
Validation Needed to Make Change
But to truly make change, it takes more than just support or agreement by your peers; it takes validation. The type of validation across generations that I felt at the wedding. Validation provides support from others beyond the immediate action. People who validate climate change, the fact it is occurring, will provide their own individual efforts to correct it. But without validation, that threat is dismissed and change does not occur.
The trepidatious change that we are experiencing now is less based in validation and more so in profit and corruption. The digital platforms that are being used to replace the old brick and mortar is not a sign of change but rather a newer version of the same to perpetuate a long standing dominance of power. You feel this on any given day, whether at work or in your own private space. Of course, we can hack these platforms to benefit our own actions in ways that the originators didn’t see coming. That, my ladies, is always part of the power and fun of making change.
My apologies, kind of, not really, if this is too heavy right now… time in Mexico has definitely got me into a booty kicking mode to save our humanity and make change for good. It is people and their livelihood that we should be creating for, rather than just profit in and of itself. This is the known to women. This is the known specifically to the BIPOC communities that I consider the harborers of our humanity. They still live in a mode of empathy, of caregiving, of wanting success for themselves to support the generations around them. These populations have persisted to change the oppressive framework of this American society and again flourish in professional leadership and policy making to create generational wealth as their legacy.
So, how do we do this? How do we move into policy making roles and founders of companies that support the universal greater good? How do we garner the validation across generations to make change? Change that immediately impacts over 150 years of life in one decision? How do we evolve spherically, rather than linearly?
These are not rhetorical questions… We garner validation by understanding the time that each generation were raised in and further acknowledging both the likeness and differences that weave us together. Understanding the mindset of a previous generation, the one most likely in leadership within your workspace and jurisdiction, gives you the power to change the core issue rather than just the symptom. Understanding the generation coming up after you gives you additional intelligence, support and guidance towards a future you may have lost sight of.
This power will give you leverage to advocate for yourself when it comes to career positions, promotions and salary. It also will help you qualify management expectations of your work efforts and gain validation for your intelligence and leadership capacity. The same acknowledgment to the generation coming next promotes a relationship of inclusion, thus harnessing the power of two, if not three, generations at once to make change now. That is the power behind staying true to yourself and fighting for your presence as an individual in order to keep a clear vision of intent for your legacy and the legacy of all women.
Boomer and Gen X Management Style
So, let’s consider the management force typically in place at your company. Most companies are led by the last of the Boomer generation and the transitional Gen X that followed. Although the Boomer generation is renowned for initially making remarkable change to save the environment and provide racial justice, they ultimately succumbed to greed through deregulation of banks, the stealing of pensions from the retiring workforce and the privatization of utilities – all of which you now see the results of. The Gen X’ers, having missed the boon, sought out the Boomer money to subsidize their own pet projects, promising greater wealth from investment returns rather than change or evolution for the greater good.
The Boomers and Gen X’ers didn’t have to experience what you are going through right now. They were not born on a rocket ship that had already launched into a new frontier and were desperately trying to figure out how to steer the Mother Ship, like you are now. For the longest time, in the lives of people over 42, there wasn’t any change occurring for the general public. Life was very much old school, brick and mortar, following the single track lead of their parents generation. Silicon Valley was definitely developing but it was more like Electronics Valley at the time. Still old school, still trying to move into the current age.
You could say there were personal computers but really, there wasn’t anything major that could be created from them. Any type of heavy duty computing had to either be literally called in – on a landline!- to a mainframe computer that took up the entire room, or, had to be left for hours, overnight, grinding away with only a green blinking light as evidence that it was “thinking”. And if you had to print out that mass computing, woof!, it was left to print overnight on a daisy wheel printer only to be found the next morning all jammed up and torn and having to be done over. Hilarious! – But this was only 40 years ago.
What I’m trying to describe here is that life moved really steady and slow for professionals (that just happened to be mostly men) and these would be your work peers. Everyone accepted this slow pace work environment so there wasn’t any pressure to create an unknown in an instant – a digital blink.
These professionals had bought their houses cheap, had equitable pay and benefits, except for the women, of course, and banks were still giving out 10% interest on your savings accounts. Yeah, they paid you to use your money to make themselves more money. Now they take from you to take your money and make money for themselves. Again, only 40 years ago.
So the Boomer wealth and the Gen-X wealth was growing at a pretty good clip and they got greedy. They began forgetting what it was like to build something from scratch and make it profitable and just how long it actually took. They do not have scars from being pressured to perform in something that has never been done before. They have no scars from being expected to excel in something that has never been done before.
This type of leadership can’t possibly manage with empathy because they are relying on you to create the profitable product that they don’t know how to create. Since they don’t know how to do it, they can’t have empathy for how difficult it is for you. They cannot mentor you because they don’t have the empathy for what you are experiencing. This type of leadership will not provide validation for your work because they don’t understand what it is that you do. So, no matter how persistent you are to be successful under this type of leadership, let’s call it bad yet typical leadership, you will most likely not gain validation and advancement because this generation was raised in a single track, wait your turn, I came first mentality.
Now, this is the un-evolved leadership I’m talking about and we know this doesn’t speak to everyone. We know there are really good people in leadership right now – far into their 50’s and 60’s. But, I talk about it here so that you have some understanding of the framework that is supporting this type in case you find yourself working within it. Thankfully, the persistence for a better world based in empathy is gaining in numbers and a shift towards spherical evolution is already in motion. This, too, is based on what the following generations experienced historically.
For kids in the 80’s, life had already started speeding up. It’s still going to sound old school, but it’s good to understand the expectations of people in your work life. A good example is how music was for kids in the 80’s. They would be around 45 and they saw their music change from records and cassette tapes to cd’s, then to mp3’s and finally, to streaming in maybe only a 10 year span. That is crazy fast! Life started picking up at a clip and the opportunity to create the unknown took off.
Now, kids in the 90’s, who are between 20 and 30 now, (do you appreciate how I do the math for you? It’s my digit head personality), so kids in the 90’s who are between 20-30 now, they had this too but just they just accepted it as normal because it was the only life they knew. They were born on the rocket ship that had already launched and quickly needed to learn how to steer it. There was no manual, no captain on the ship that knew what to do after launching and a desperate need for an entire population, the Millennials, to figure it out for everyone. You probably feel this at work. You, looking for guidance and instead, getting met with a blank, desperate gaze from leadership begging for you to figure it out on your own. God, I love you. You’re amazing! You are going to save this planet!
The beauty of this is that the Millennials should understand exactly what it is like for the young women and girls today – coming behind them – to be navigating an unknown and becoming their own captains of their own ships. The Gen Z population, that only know a digital existence having teethed on iPhones, are moving at a tremendous rate, breaking into – literally hacking into- career opportunities that remained an old boys club, like venture capitalists. Not that Gen Z women are the first to do so, but the kapow! with how they do it is like the sounding trumpets that made the walls of Jericho fall.
Tethering Across Generations Creates Power
The power of change can occur with these generations gathering as one to set the tone for women in the workplace and supporting each other in areas that are important to each, creating empathy from the start before the difficulty of being a young woman is too distant a memory. The 30 something year olds should definitely be connecting with the 20 something year olds, merging into a multi-lane autobahn rather than staying on separate tracks, heading in different directions. And these generations, together, should continue to ask for help from the older generations who have endured the hardship of oppression and know the secret of succeeding on their own terms while empathetically nurturing humanity in an effort to have their daughters live in a literally free world – free of oppression, freedom of choice, free to be exactly who they were born to be.
Change is the key to life as a human. Change, not as rebellion, although one is definitely needed globally at the moment, but as evolution, is a constant for us. And evolution is based on some element of the past, regardless of how drastically different a new norm is from the old. There’s the tether I continue to bring up. The connection between before, now and after. It’s all tied back to a base connection. It’s why you do your fricking DNA. You want to know where you come from. You want connection to your past but at the same time, I get it, you don’t want to be tied down by it or anchored. Still, we all come from that one amoeba that just went nutty and wanted company, and so it split itself and made a twin, then a quadruplet, and then… well, you get it.
Are your eyebrows on fire? Was this more of a 2 bevvie episode with a pause in the middle? If your head is spinning a tad from the content, visualize Supreme Court Goddess Ruth Bader Ginsburg having a chat session with Cori Bush and Alexandria Villaseñor. Can you imagine the power across those 3 generations that would be felt in the room that could only be disrupted by the laughter and gratitude they would have in that conversation?
That is what we are seeking. The power of validation across generations to expedite change for the greater good towards equity and justice. That is the power you hold within you. Now, I suggest that you don’t keep it to yourself but go out and find your tribe of women. Look left, look right… You may be the main read right now, but the bookends are what are keeping you upright.
So, put on your salsa music, dance to the beat that empowers you to make change and spend some time reaching out, make some new friends in generations beyond your own, gain some knowledge from them and you will find the answer we need now to create an equitable world for our multi-generational existence.
We must be making decisions for ourselves, knowing that these decisions and choices affect 150 years at a time. No pressure. That’s power.
Outro
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I really appreciate the time you take to rate and review the podcast. Get the backstory and what you’ve heard here today, and reach out to us at TheLnxx.com. That’s L N double X, because it’s about time, it’s about us. Stay in the groove on our social media @LifeLinks and get ready to make your move, ladies.
Viva!
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