Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / How To Stop Judging People - Sara Minkara

Transcript

How To Stop Judging People - Sara Minkara · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

0:00
I lost my eyesight when I was seven years old.
0:02
I would say it was the greatest blessing I actually had.
0:06
How do you get to see a human for who they are without being able to label them?
0:12
It removes the element of fear.
0:14
We're hindered by our assumption of that person in front of us, how we label them and what we assume they're worth and value.
0:22
I have no clue how they look like, so I cannot assume.
0:30
Sara Minkara, hello.
0:31
Hello, hello.
0:33
I love this for us.
0:34
Yes.
0:35
I'm excited to be here with you on the Davos On Air studio in Dubai for the Imagine If podcast with Dune.
0:45
I'm super, super excited.
0:46
Yes.
0:47
Okay, so this is completely the opposite to how I usually start a podcast and an interview.
0:53
But I watched one of your talks where you introduced yourself a little bit differently.
0:59
And so I thought maybe instead of me introducing you and you kind of giving your bio, you could give us a bit of an introduction into who you are.
1:07
100%.
1:09
So I love introducing myself in this way.
1:11
I'm a daughter.
1:12
I'm a sister.
1:13
I'm a friend.
1:14
I'm a colleague.
1:15
I'm a neighbor.
1:16
I'm a neighbor.
1:16
I'm a traveler.
1:18
I'm an introvert.
1:19
I'm a troublemaker.
1:21
I love riding horses.
1:23
I love doing math.
1:25
That's one of my greatest kind of... gives me calmness, actually.
1:29
I love mystery thriller audiobooks.
1:31
I love being in nature.
1:33
My favorite color is green.
1:34
I used to be able to see when I was younger.
1:37
If you ever want to make me happy, feed me chicken.
1:40
I drink lots of coffee, too much coffee.
1:43
I...
1:46
I am a Muslim.
1:48
I am a woman.
1:49
I am blind.
1:50
I'm a person with a disability, and I'm super, super proud of it.
1:53
I love that.
1:55
And I feel like, I mean, I've researched you, so we're going to get into what you've just done there.
2:01
But I feel like instantly...
2:04
what was happening for me as you were saying things, I was like, Oh, me too.
2:07
Oh, I'm an introvert too.
2:09
Oh, I'm not into math.
2:11
I'm the opposite of that.
2:12
I wonder what you can teach me.
2:14
And so I can see how that works.
2:17
But for everyone who is listening, could you share a little bit about what you just did and why you did that?
2:25
So I think to your point, I mean, so we're each of us as humans, we have so many identities, some that are visible, some that are not visible, some that are very much we're boxed into society, some that are more authentic to ourselves.
2:46
There's more things that we can connect as humans with each other than we ever realized.
2:51
There's a lot of commonalities.
2:52
But it's also how do you get to see a human for who they are without being able to label them?
2:59
Because when I walk around and I travel, the first thing a person sees in me is that I'm blind.
3:07
And that's fine.
3:08
I'm proud to be blind.
3:09
It's part of my identity.
3:10
That is a huge part of who I am.
3:12
But that's not everything.
3:14
But people do not have that...
3:17
intentionality or that curiosity say, hey, let me actually get to know who is Sarah.
3:23
And I wish we can travel the world.
3:25
And when we connect with someone, instead of assuming that person's story, turn to that person and say, tell me who you are.
3:31
Tell me your story.
3:33
And just be curious.
3:34
Yeah, what'd you have for breakfast this morning?
3:36
Yeah.
3:37
The other stuff.
3:38
Exactly.
3:38
Just like, you know, how do we connect on a human level?
3:41
I love that.
3:41
And I'm excited to kind of get into that in a deeper way, because I think a lot of us here in this room can learn a lot from you from that approach.
3:52
You lost your vision when you were seven years old in the same way that your sister had a few years before.
3:58
What has that taught you about the world and how you experience it now?
4:04
So, yes, I lost my eyesight when I was seven years old and so did my sister.
4:09
And in so many ways that shaped me.
4:13
my path, my purpose, my passion, how I look at this world, I would say it was the greatest blessing I actually had.
4:21
But it became a blessing because of two reasons.
4:23
One, I was in a community, and I say community because of my family, my parents, my mom who really pushed us to be
4:31
integrated into society, but also I also had the laws and legislations in the US that protected my right to be integrated, right?
4:37
Doesn't mean I did not face daily obstacles.
4:39
I did, but I was given the support system to be in society and actualize my potential, but that's not the reality.
4:47
for most kids and persons with disabilities across the world.
4:50
So that led to me kind of saying, you know, how do we get systems?
4:54
How do we get spaces?
4:54
How do we get society to truly create a space where we see, hear, and value every single person in this world?
5:00
How do we create a space where people can actualize their potential?
5:03
And how do we benefit from their contribution?
5:06
And I think what I perceive from you and from my perspective, having kind of researched you, I think also all of that is to bring people more together and to create connection where in a world we're disconnected.
5:19
Yeah.
5:21
It's to bring people together.
5:23
It's to remove this element of if you don't look the same doesn't mean you should be afraid of that.
5:30
It removes the element of fear.
5:32
It's to create more curiosity through a lens of compassion instead of assumption.
5:37
It's to truly understand that there's so much more beauty in every single human individual that we're not...
5:44
bringing forward.
5:45
And we need to be able to do that.
5:47
And we can only do that if we actually are intentional of creating a space where people can bring their full self.
5:55
I love that.
5:56
I want to talk about the actual method that you've developed behind your work, In the Dark.
6:01
It is an experiential method, and you take leaders and corporates and institutions and governments and all types of different people through this workshop or experiential experience.
6:16
Can you kind of break down what it is in more detail?
6:19
So this methodology...
6:22
you know, stems from this whole point of we as humans, when we come together, we are hindered by a couple of things.
6:28
We're hindered by...
6:31
our assumption of that person in front of us, how we label them and what we assume they're worth and value.
6:37
So that means we're never going to be able to fully listen without assuming.
6:41
We're hindered by not letting ourselves express our true thoughts and perspective because we're always seeing how are they receiving it?
6:48
How are they judging it?
6:50
And we end up tailoring what we say based on how they're receiving it.
6:54
We're hindered by being able to truly be curious, truly connect, truly bring our creative ideas forward, all of that.
7:02
If you are put in a place where there's a constraint of not seeing visual labels, visual cues, body language, facial expressions, that actually allows us to be able to bring more of our true authentic value voice forward.
7:15
So to explain structurally,
7:19
clients will bring us in and say, hey, we have this adaptive challenge.
7:23
We want to hear the pain points, X, Y, and Z.
7:26
So we blindfold individuals.
7:28
They're brought in.
7:28
We facilitate, curate conversation.
7:31
And through that, these participants are able to share so much more because they don't feel judged.
7:38
And there's so much power behind that.
7:41
The people in the room, just to go a little bit more practical so that I can truly understand, these are people who often know each other, right?
7:48
So they've already seen each other in the past.
7:50
Could you share some examples or one or two examples of specifically what is the problem that they're trying to solve or the questions or the prompts that you're giving them?
8:01
What is the start of the workshop looking like?
8:06
So one of our big focus right now has been companies are dealing with so much
8:12
the erosion of trust, right?
8:13
Okay.
8:14
And that is a result of AI integration, uncertainty of how things are, are there going to be laid, all of these different things.
8:22
There's so much unknown uncertainty.
8:24
There's a lot of distrust within organizations.
8:27
The organization will bring us in and say, hey, we want to be able to build trust.
8:31
We want to be able to hear kind of what our employees really thinking and feeling.
8:35
We want to be able to really hear these pain points.
8:39
So first of all,
8:42
They're blindfolded before they enter the room.
8:44
They're told they cannot say their name, where they're from, what work they do in the company and the educational background, because those are four things we tend to anchor ourselves in.
8:52
They're guided in.
8:52
They're put into groups.
8:53
We are intentional that they're not with their supervisor in the group because that's, again, we don't want them to feel like they can't fully speak.
9:01
Because they're blindfolded, it's so powerful to see how much, even if they know their group mates, they forget that the blindfolds are going to come off at the end of the day.
9:11
And they feel so much more free to express and speak their minds in these sessions.
9:17
One of the questions I love asking in a lot of these sessions around trust, we ask them, if you can create an organization where there's no trust, how would you create that organization?
9:31
So we're starting off from a very fundamental kind of point and hearing employees what they come up with and what they share.
9:38
And from there, we build other questions afterwards.
9:41
But again, it's the setting that allows for people to really share their true voices and perspectives.
9:47
And what has come out of these sessions, companies come back and say, we wouldn't have heard from our employees this way if it wasn't for these sessions.
9:54
Climate service are great.
9:55
Focus groups are great.
9:57
But to really be able to break down these walls and have employees truly share, it's one of a kind.
10:04
Do you have like a transformation or like a specific story that your mind goes to from, you know, an organization who maybe was struggling with trust or another problem has come out the other side and you're just like the transformation was phenomenal, you know, the problems were solved or something extremely positive happened?
10:22
I mean, definitely.
10:23
So one company that comes to mind, I can't say the company's name because of confidentiality agreements, but this company merged.
10:35
There was a merger happening and there was a lot of tension across employees and a lot of fear and a lot of anxiety.
10:43
And they wanted to start off with the HR leadership to kind of, you know, first starting off with HR leadership and bringing it downwards into the managers and beyond.
10:52
We did a series of sessions and through that we were able to bring forward to the client a report of the different pain points that we kind of were able to hear.
11:02
And we did some journey mapping, actually journey mapping in the dark.
11:06
That in itself, these pain points, allow for the company then to actually adopt and address certain policies.
11:12
But again, the company needs to be very intentional and continue doing this hard work.
11:16
You will not be able to just achieve trust in a few sessions.
11:19
That's it.
11:20
You need to actually showcase to the employees that their voices were heard, that there's a space for them to fully, truly express their concerns, and that there's action towards...
11:32
towards actually addressing some of these challenges.
11:34
This company was and is continuing to do that work.
11:37
But again, it's not a switch of a button.
11:39
And I wish it was.
11:40
It's a lot of hard work.
11:41
Yeah, you've really got to take those early steps and then prove to your employees or prove to your team that you're taking it into action and building the rest of the infrastructure around it.
11:52
And it starts off with an organization saying, we truly... Because I will say, why do organizations care about trust?
12:01
I want to know, like why is trust such a big word right now that everyone is asking?
12:05
Well, I guess they care about trust because customer retention.
12:11
I mean, totally.
12:12
I mean, customer retention helps their bottom line.
12:14
Let's be real.
12:15
It's money.
12:16
It's money.
12:17
The question is, was there trust from the beginning?
12:20
People are assuming there was trust from the beginning.
12:22
Was there even trust from the beginning?
12:24
But when an organization says, I truly care about my employees.
12:30
Because not every organization does, let's be real.
12:32
Yeah, true.
12:33
And it makes a difference.
12:34
And when organizations say, I truly care, and I want to be able to truly be able to bring the full value of my employees and feel like we can enhance and establish trust, that makes a difference.
12:45
Mm.
12:47
And so then...
12:49
When you talk about disconnection and you talk about disconnection can lead to safe thinking in leadership, which means that the complex problems of that business are going unsolved and the talent is going untapped, which then leads to the ripple on effects of, you know, bottom line, customer retention.
13:07
What is the opposite of safe thinking to you?
13:10
So...
13:18
When, like, what's a space where there's not psychologically safe teeness?
13:23
Like, for... Well, I've seen online you talk about safe thinking.
13:27
Yeah.
13:28
And safe thinking because people are, I guess, scared in the workplace or they don't trust their workplace.
13:32
And so there's that disconnection, et cetera.
13:34
And so to me, when I think of the opposite of safe thinking, I think it's like radical thinking and radical thought.
13:39
But I wanted to know what your perspective of the opposite of safe thinking is.
13:45
I mean, like what should they be trying to get to instead of safe thinking?
13:49
Is it adventurous thought or is it radical thought?
13:53
You know, there's a book, I'm forgetting the name, but they were saying like 80 percent of employees don't feel comfortable bringing their creative side forward.
14:04
And so In the Dark is not just about building trust.
14:10
It's about having difficult conversations.
14:13
It's about bringing more of the creative side forward.
14:16
A lot of times we enter a room
14:18
as sighted people enter a room and we always turn to the leader for their voice matters the most in terms of ideas.
14:27
In the Dark is used in a way where the junior intern, people don't know he's the intern or she's the intern, can feel so comfortable expressing their idea.
14:38
And the group will take the idea purely, they're not saying, oh my god, that's an intern.
14:43
So it allows for more creative flow, more ideas to be generated, more solutions out of the box.
14:50
Just like earlier today said, how do leaders unlearn the way they do things?
14:54
And how do we have new ideas from the young generations come in and bring it?
14:57
So that's what it allows.
14:59
And I think companies, you can see the difference between companies that want to learn and bring forward new ideas versus companies are very much just like a lot of bureaucracy say, that's not how we do things.
15:09
Yeah.
15:09
And period.
15:10
Right.
15:12
So when I was kind of looking at the framework and kind of what you developed, obviously it's developed for leadership teams and governments and institutions.
15:20
But I kept thinking like this is transformative just for the everyday person.
15:25
This is transformative for someone to be able to take that logic and take that insight and take this approach.
15:32
you know, framework, put it into their own lives to be a better version of themselves, to be a better parent, a better partner, a better community leader, whatever it might be.
15:43
And so I was kind of thinking, like, how could we talk about this in the context of it being adapted away from corporate and leadership and government and just to like, you know,
15:54
me sitting here or someone listening at the moment in this room?
15:58
Yeah.
15:59
I mean, we always, because the goal is not for people to go around and wear blindfolds and there we go and connect without seeing.
16:09
I always say if you have sight, embrace it.
16:13
There's beauty behind it.
16:14
If you, you know, whatever you have, I think there's a lot of beauty and strength behind it.
16:19
But there's also other ways of navigating the world.
16:23
And the way I've been able to navigate the world is I come in any room and I'm not able to assume a lot of things in that room.
16:32
I'm not able to assume how this person looks like.
16:35
I have no clue how they look like.
16:37
So I cannot assume I cannot make up a story in my mind.
16:39
So I turn to that person.
16:41
And I always tell people, do this.
16:43
Even in networking session, I turn to this person.
16:45
I just say, hey, tell me your story.
16:48
Outside of work, tell me your story.
16:50
And...
16:51
That in itself, that permission for a person just to express more of who they are, use that question in any networking setting.
16:59
It's the most powerful thing you can do.
17:01
It allows for a much deeper human connection.
17:05
Another thing that I will say is how do you become more curious with yourself?
17:12
What parts of ourselves are we not fully bringing forward and why?
17:16
And that's a journey of constant reflection.
17:19
I know myself, I've been on this journey where there's certain parts and certain times where I've internalized certain narratives in the world, which prevented me from bringing some certain parts of myself forward.
17:31
So the more that we are curious and compassionate with ourselves, and the more that we say, hey, am I not saying this because I'm afraid of how I'm going to be seen and judged?
17:41
Am I able to express my true voice?
17:44
But that leads to my final point.
17:46
You know how so many people say, hey, let's make sure we have diversity at the table, right?
17:52
Like everyone has a seat at the table.
17:54
I say that's not even enough there.
17:56
Even if you have a seat at the table, are you even comfortable expressing your voice at the table?
18:02
Yeah, and are you even listening?
18:04
Are you even listening?
18:05
And I think it's both ways.
18:06
And I think the whole point is we are on both sides of the equation.
18:11
All of us judge.
18:12
Yes.
18:13
All of us assume.
18:13
Yes.
18:15
Anyone who tells me they don't assume, sorry, we all assume.
18:17
So how do we continuously say, hey, I'm going to take a step back and I'm going to approach this person with one assumption that this person has something to contribute, beautiful to contribute?
18:26
And how do we also see on our end what parts of ourselves we're not bringing forward?
18:32
And that's hard to do if you have a very clear feeling or emotion about someone.
18:39
So hard.
18:39
Like if you hate your boss.
18:40
So hard.
18:42
And you have to drop that and try and remove the assumptions that you have or the anger or the emotions that have built up.
18:50
It's hard to take that away and be like, okay, I'm going to remove those assumptions.
18:54
I would, so true, and I think that's related to, but I would reverse that and say if I am the boss and if I'm the team leader or the manager,
19:03
How do I approach every single team member in my team with that approach, that this person has something beautiful to contribute?
19:11
How do I turn to this person and say, hey, what do you need to thrive here?
19:14
And how can I partner up for us to break down these barriers?
19:18
How do we just be more curious?
19:19
And I think curiosity is a really powerful tool.
19:22
With your boss, I mean, I agree.
19:24
I mean, we're humans at the end of the day.
19:27
We are indeed.
19:27
We are indeed.
19:29
I want to talk about technology because we've been talking, you know, for the last couple of minutes about connection and disconnection.
19:36
Technology is, or we're being told that technology is being designed to bring us together, to help us be more connected in a fragmented world.
19:45
But as I think about it, I feel like it's eroding a lot of our connection and it's eroding a lot of the kind of
19:54
the way that we listen to each other, the way that we communicate with each other.
19:58
How can we actually listen with more intention?
20:02
You know, in this state of the world where we're busy and we're overwhelmed and all these things are happening, how can we listen with more intention to a colleague or to our partner or to a friend?
20:15
I mean, I think...
20:18
First to your first point, 100%.
20:20
I think we end up, I mean, the more this world of technology, social media, we end up also, we are creating more silos of the communities that we're in in the sense that we're just in communities that we agree with.
20:34
And then it's easy for us to comment on communities like individuals that we don't agree.
20:39
It's so behind the screen instead of actually having...
20:42
a truly honest conversation face-to-face and having the difficult conversation.
20:47
And I think for me, I would love for us to continue building spaces where we're inviting people that we disagree with
20:56
And we're having these difficult conversations.
21:00
And because we end up always, whether we're doing summits, whether we're doing conferences, whether we're doing meetings, whether we're doing community events, it's always people that we agree, we know, and we're comfortable with.
21:11
How do we start intentionally inviting people that, you know, across the political line and having these difficult conversations?
21:18
So I, in terms of listening with your friends and your, I mean...
21:24
I don't know.
21:24
I feel like it really is a, it's what's happening out there.
21:28
It's like you don't feel always like listened to by your, like,
21:35
people around you.
21:38
It's funny to me when I think about social media or what we're consuming on TV, entertainment, the news, etc.
21:47
I feel like that is making us more connected into our phone and we're living life through our phone instead of having a phone put away somewhere else and not in the room and just having good conversation and connecting on that pure human experience.
22:03
And I guess actually...
22:05
This is an interesting point that maybe we could talk about is most of us experience social media through what we're seeing on the screen.
22:13
And you're not experiencing social media in that way.
22:15
How is your experience with social media and the external input that you receive from social?
22:24
Um, wait, so I want to answer that question, but to point something triggered a point, I mean, to your point, I mean, we are very much in most spaces where we're not in the present moment.
22:35
And actually, I think that's where in the dark is such a powerful tool because people actually cannot take out their phones.
22:40
Yeah.
22:40
So it's actually really fascinating because like they're blindfolded, they're guided in, they're put into a room, they don't know how the room looks like, they don't know what is in their group.
22:46
There's a lot of unknown uncertainty.
22:48
It's an hour and a half long.
22:49
They cannot use their phone for an hour and a half long.
22:51
Very uncomfortable in the beginning.
22:52
But when by the end, they're like, I've never felt this much.
22:56
in the moment.
22:58
I've never felt this much where I'm able to fully focus and not overly stimulated and not distracted and not, which is, I mean, great.
23:05
And I think to myself like, well, this is as a blind person, you know, I have, you know, it's, I have a privilege of actually being more in the present moment because of these situations.
23:14
Doesn't mean, I mean, yes, I can access social media, but Instagram for me, if it's all photos, it doesn't mean anything.
23:20
So I focus on the text.
23:22
Um, so I, I am not as, um, overwhelmed with a lot of visuals because I cannot access them.
23:30
Um, doesn't mean I can, I can listen to videos, et cetera.
23:33
But I, I, my brother always tells me, Sarah, you're so lucky because you actually have a purer lens to things than most people.
23:40
Um, yeah.
23:42
Side funny story, I mean, this is not as relevant, this is kind of relevant, but not really.
23:45
I mean, one time we were in Malaysia and we were meeting this employees from the Starbucks that have deaf employees, and the deaf employees were teaching me how to sign their name.
23:57
And at one point Hannah was like, Sara, stop giving them the middle finger.
24:02
And I was like, I'm not giving them the middle finger.
24:05
She's like, yes you are.
24:05
And we went back and forth, and then when we were back in the car, she's like, you kept giving him the middle finger.
24:09
And
24:11
I realized I was like, she's like, how do you give the middle finger?
24:14
And I was like, like this.
24:16
And it was not how you give the middle finger.
24:19
So in my mind, I was never taught physically because that's a visual thing, how to give the middle finger.
24:25
So this goes back to the point.
24:28
I'm so much like I think there's more purity in some sense of what I receive and what I take in.
24:34
Doesn't mean I'm a pure person, but like I think there's more beauty to that.
24:38
Well, so I want to like build on what you're saying.
24:41
So my belief and like, I'm sure everyone could have some level of, you know, agreeance, I would assume, but wait, I'm not assuming.
24:50
I feel like phones are ruining our life because we are consuming all of this stuff without boundaries.
24:56
We are like, it's sinking in.
24:58
And then that's changing the narrative that we have in our heads.
25:01
It changes the stories that we tell.
25:03
It shapes our thoughts.
25:05
And it kind of like, I don't know, stuff anchors in your brain.
25:08
And so if we had no phone or a different version of a phone where we don't have unlimited scrolling on social media, the world would look very different and potentially less fragmented and polarized and disconnected.
25:24
But how do you create the right boundaries and guardrails without... Um...
25:32
You know, I think because for me, I will say.
25:37
Technology has helped me be more independent in many ways, right?
25:40
And access and it's just amazing.
25:42
But on the other hand, I mean, there's two sides to the coin, right?
25:45
It's it's so how do you create the right boundaries?
25:48
How do you create the right guardrails?
25:50
But I think this goes back to how do we teach our society to to see to actually
25:56
I think it goes back to how do you build out, build the principles and values and teach our future generation, you know, what, I don't want to go down a spiritual path, but I think it's more like the meaning and purpose and how to use these tools for a good purpose versus, I mean.
26:13
Yeah.
26:15
I'm with you.
26:16
And actually this is a question that we can go from here with.
26:22
From your perspective and at a time where actually critical thinking and understanding what our real thoughts are without the input of social media or without the input of the things that we consume, how do you develop critical thinking and how do you kind of make sure that you're cultivating what you actually think without the lens of all this other stuff?
26:46
You know, actually...
26:48
Separate from, I mean, a little bit different to what you're asking.
26:52
The other day I did a sub-sec piece around this topic of, you know, when I was in diplomacy, principals, right, they have their staff write them their script for dialogues, for meetings, for video recording.
27:09
As a principal for me, as a blind person, I can't read off of a script.
27:14
Like my team would draft things up for me, but I can't read off of things and I don't do Braille.
27:19
So that forced me.
27:22
And if you think about it, people that are reading off the script, they're just reading.
27:25
Is there critical thinking behind it?
27:26
They're reading off the script that the team put together.
27:30
So for me, it forced me to actually then become very intentional with any meeting I enter, any dialogue I do, any video I do.
27:38
I actually think through what do I want, what's the message, what I want to get at.
27:41
Like I had certain ways of thinking, like mental kind of structuring things.
27:46
And it allowed me to be so much more effective because again, I enter a dialogue.
27:50
I'm able to deliver my points, but in a more effective way.
27:54
I'm not reading off of a script.
27:56
And that resulted in a more impactful, actually, outcome.
27:59
So this goes back to your point, like, how do you actually have critical thinking?
28:02
I think sometimes if you're put in places of constraint, that allows you to build more capacity.
28:08
And I think going back to social media, I don't have the answer of what those constraints look like.
28:12
I think there's a lot.
28:13
I think we do need to make sure we're building the capacity of the next generation for critical thinking.
28:18
And this goes back to how do we learn then from different ways of people navigating the world, including blind people?
28:25
Because I think there's a lot to learn from there.
28:27
I mean, I agree.
28:28
I've learned a lot from you already.
28:30
Like, I feel like...
28:34
the way that you've described, you know, in the dark method and the methodology online and how we're talking about it now, it just makes so much sense that I'm like, well, why aren't we all doing that?
28:43
And why aren't we all bringing those, you know, and I'm not talking about blindfolding and each other and walking around and trying to ask ourselves different questions.
28:52
I'm talking about simple practices that help us to listen with more intentionality, that help us connect in a deeper way and that don't get us kind of sucked into something
29:02
the phone or instead of using our critical thought as the leader, we're listening to AI as the thing that guides our thoughts or the answers that we're getting through an AI, you know, model or whatever.
29:15
And yeah, I feel like what I'm learning from you, if that was just adopted on like, you know, for everyone in this room, for example, if everyone in this room was to think more intentionally about doing acting like that in the world,
29:32
imagine where we could be in 6, 12, 100 years' time.
29:36
Yeah.
29:37
And, I mean, I think this goes back to how, I think...
29:44
humans need to have that craving of wanting to continue building our our capacity i mean we're focusing so much on ai which is i mean that's the reality and i think the ai is gonna it is changing will change our future in so many ways and i think but how do you you know i always think about my friends who have kids like how are you getting them ready for for that next um for the for the future and how are we building the right capacities in them and what's the answer or what's their answer how are they getting their kids ready um
30:13
Some they're like, I want to know.
30:17
I mean, I don't think I've I think one element that comes up, which I totally agree is I want my kids to continue sleeping curious people.
30:28
I want them to be good people.
30:31
I want them to be able to know how to actually socialize with people.
30:36
I want them to be able to connect with, I mean, these are really basic things, but they're really important.
30:42
I mean, they're like, these are the things I want my kids to be.
30:46
And I think afterwards, everything else will be figured out.
30:48
So I don't know.
30:49
How do you foster curiosity for your children or cultivate curiosity?
30:57
I think, I mean, it goes back to allowing the space for questioning just, like for me, like when I meet people, I'm super curious just about who they are, their journey, how do they get there?
31:16
What were some of the challenges along the way?
31:18
What was just, I think stories allow for more curiosity.
31:24
You said an earlier point which triggered a thought, you know,
31:29
My whole life I've advocated around disability inclusion and a lot of times people are not truly listening when I have those conversations because they'll say, well, we're doing this disability project or haven't we progressed well or aren't we doing a good job?
31:40
And I'm like, are you not listening to actually...
31:44
the challenges and I think this goes back over time I've learned the more we tell stories the more we tell data points and facts and paint a picture the more we're able to kind of illustrate I think that allows for people then to be actually comfortable asking more questions I think so I think storytelling is very powerful
32:01
Do you want to tell me a story?
32:03
I know you've got lots.
32:03
You've traveled all over the world.
32:05
You have been learning from farmers in Thailand.
32:08
You've been learning from students in Kenya.
32:11
You've been learning from people in Chile.
32:15
What are some interesting stories about the practices that you've been doing?
32:19
that you've learned from these different cultures and societies?
32:26
I've learned that when a system, when a space or society or community,
32:36
truly cares about, I mean, I think one of the things that I would say I wish the world can truly learn from the best good and promising practices that the disability community can bring forward when it comes to innovation.
32:50
I wish we can see those stories, like you said, like the farmers with disabilities in Chiang Mai, Thailand, the entrepreneurs out of Malaysia, the Maybik Foundation, the
33:03
You know, there's an amazing port authority company in Mozambique that has amazing practice in terms of inclusive employment.
33:10
All of these different things I think we need to learn from.
33:13
We need to kind of be able to bring forward.
33:17
But for me, I think the powerful stories is when we start off and someone says to me, Sarah, isn't it costly to have disability inclusive policy?
33:28
Why should we even do it?
33:29
Is it worth it?
33:32
And starting off from that basic, because a lot of people do think that way.
33:36
And I want people to share those thoughts, because we'll never address those issues until we really have that difficult conversation.
33:44
And I've had so many of those where one time someone told me, I don't think it's fair for taxpayers money to be spent on accommodations of employees with disabilities in the government.
33:56
Someone said that to me in my face.
33:57
I'm like, well, I'm glad you said that.
33:59
Let's talk.
34:00
But those are the things that I think we need to have, to continuously have.
34:04
What do you think, like for someone who's listening in at the moment, what can someone do in their everyday life to be part of the change that you're making in the world, to help remove the barriers that the disability community is facing, and especially when it's things that might be more overlooked or less obvious?
34:24
I think the first question I would always ask, and we did this over and over again with leaders in the state department and embassies and that kind of stuff is you you have your top three priorities, right?
34:37
Let's say you're a C-suite leader in a company.
34:40
What's your top three priorities?
34:41
I would love to hear those.
34:43
What's my top three priorities?
34:45
My top three is, you know, increase our profit margin.
34:49
It is to reduce headcount that's unnecessary so that I have less costs, outgoing costs, and it is to retain great talent.
35:01
Okay.
35:02
So how do you think disability inclusion can advance those priorities?
35:10
So I think that it can, I mean, like what we've done today, we can learn from the disability community to be able to bring that into the world and into our company and into the values that we have.
35:25
Yeah, that's totally, that's a really good point.
35:29
It could also be, I mean, the disability community economy can be a huge customer base.
35:34
Exactly.
35:34
A viewership.
35:36
I think a lot of companies don't see the disability economy as a huge audience
35:40
could be a huge segment of their untapped market.
35:44
We're not seen as users.
35:45
We're not seen as customers.
35:46
We're not seen as, you know, we're always seen as kind of the vulnerable needing to be taken care of.
35:50
So...
35:52
When I ask the question of someone like, hey, what's your top three priorities and how does this really advance those priorities?
35:58
And we used to do those in government.
35:59
People would be like, well, what do you mean?
36:01
And they would always want to fall back on, oh, we're doing this sunflower initiative.
36:05
I'm like, that's not my...
36:07
Right, it's like people aren't going to like the business answer of it.
36:13
They're going to like, or they're going in a direction, but they should be thinking first.
36:20
The business answer.
36:21
Because I truly believe... Or the commercial answer.
36:24
Exactly.
36:24
Disability accessibility should be baked into everything that we're doing because it really benefits everyone.
36:30
Yeah.
36:30
And yes, we hear that over and over again, inclusion of women is the smart thing to do.
36:36
Yes.
36:37
But disability accessibility is even a broader thing because it really...
36:42
expands our ways of us designing products and services and marketing and, and it will benefit everyone.
36:51
Yeah.
36:51
I mean, it benefits the world to have text messaging now.
36:55
I mean, and when you tell people that you're like, Oh, like that's major.
37:00
And so if you look at all of the different examples, yeah, no, I'm, I'm with you.
37:05
I'm with you.
37:05
We've just been given our, our quick little, um, timer, you know, um, bell.
37:10
So I want to kind of end on a question more about you and your childhood.
37:17
I'm fascinated by the guiding principles that we develop in childhood.
37:21
And when I was reading about you, you talk about the empowerment that your family gave you.
37:26
and being encouraged as a child to pursue every dream that you could imagine no matter what.
37:31
So I want to know what you were dreaming about and imagining as a little girl for the future and what you're dreaming about and imagining now as a woman looking towards the future.
37:45
When I was younger, I had two, well, three different dreams.
37:50
One was not really realistic.
37:52
One is like I wanted to become a detective.
37:54
Oh, cool.
37:55
I just loved, because, again, I love Mr.
37:57
Thriller.
37:57
Like Agatha Christie style?
37:58
Yeah, I love that kind of, I love those kind of books.
38:01
You're my kind of woman.
38:02
Yeah.
38:04
The second is mathematician, which, you know, I did major in math and I was going to pursue a kind of that world.
38:10
But the third was also working for the UN.
38:14
And that was when I was younger.
38:16
Now, if I look, what was your second?
38:18
Like, what's my dream for the future now?
38:21
Yeah, like your dreams as a child and your dreams now looking towards the future.
38:26
I think my dreams now is actually how do you bring people with disabilities in places of influence more?
38:32
Yeah.
38:34
So how do we bring people with disabilities to the corporate boards as investors?
38:42
driving capital.
38:43
Right now we're still very much stuck in the development aid perspective.
38:48
So that's one dream of mine on the disability front.
38:51
How do we bring the disability community into the space of power, influence, and money?
38:55
The second is, because that's going to result in actually then be able to drive a lot of different types of change.
39:00
The second is, I would love in the dark, the endodark methodology, to be adopted by organizations who really want to do change and work and build trust and
39:08
really have these difficult conversation, but use in a way that can really help humanity and humans as we are dealing with uncertainty and AI integration, all that kind of stuff, to use it as a way to foster more of these deep conversations.
39:23
I love that.
39:24
I feel like we should be doing the dark, in the dark methodology here, like as a big group, like we've got all the leaders in the world.
39:30
We should be doing it here.
39:32
Like I reckon we need to put it out into the universe right now.
39:34
You've heard it here first at Davos on air.
39:36
It's happening.
39:36
It's happening 2027.
39:39
I'm into it.
39:41
I'm going to be campaigning for this.
39:42
And we have done it for a big summit.
39:43
So yeah, I like that.
39:44
I like that.
39:45
Oh my God.
39:45
Everyone listening.
39:47
Um, okay.
39:47
Actually I have one final thing that we can end on.
39:50
You love a thriller.
39:52
I know you're an audio book listener.
39:55
What is your best rec for me?
40:01
Um, favorite book.
40:05
Favorite, that's so hard.
40:07
I love the, I'm going to butcher the name, the detective series written by J.K. Rowling.
40:20
What's his name?
40:23
Strike.
40:23
Oh, okay.
40:24
Strike.
40:25
Striker.
40:25
Okay.
40:25
I'm going to start with that.
40:28
And for me also, the narrator makes a difference.
40:32
Right.
40:32
Yeah.
40:33
Some voices.
40:33
Yeah.
40:33
I'm with you.
40:34
Reading the book.
40:35
So that's, you know, I'm with you.
40:37
I really liked that book.
40:39
It's about the Agatha Christie.
40:40
I forget who wrote it, but it's about when Agatha Christie went missing for 11 days and no one actually really knows what happened.
40:45
Yes!
40:45
that book is like up there.
40:46
I've gotten the, I've gotten, I keep getting the time thing.
40:50
So I'm, I'm speeding up my talking, but I love that book and I'm going to read Striker or Strike.
40:57
Stryker.
40:59
You can tell I'm not a, it's so funny.
41:01
I'm not an auditory learner, even though I have to navigate the world with listening.
41:05
So I take in things and then I don't remember words.
41:10
I mean, that makes sense.
41:11
I am exactly the same.
41:13
I am someone who you'll ask me the question and I will go on a tangent and then I'll really have to work hard to try and get back to what it was.
41:19
And sometimes I just can't.
41:20
Yep.
41:21
This was so awesome.
41:23
Sara Minkara, I'm so grateful for your time here at Davos On Air.
41:28
Thank you, too.
41:28
And 2027, we're going to be doing In the Dark.
41:30
I love it.
41:32
I love it.
41:32
Thank you.
41:33
Thank you.