- 1 day ago
Disrupt or Be Disrupted
Caroline Wanga, President & CEO, Essence Ventures
Rechelle Dennis, Co-Founder Girls United
Caroline Wanga, President & CEO, Essence Ventures
Rechelle Dennis, Co-Founder Girls United
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00for our next conversation it is entitled disrupt or be disrupted i'm gonna say it again because
00:11the message is in the title of the conversation okay disrupt or be disrupted and we'll be checking
00:18in with essence president and ceo caroline wonga and girls united co-founder rachelle dennis
00:25spinning the block they're gonna break it down all the way to the ground on what it really means
00:32to be a disruptor in today's always on digitally driven and socially charged era let's welcome
00:40caroline and rachelle
00:42all right i'm bringing my phone up on the stage because you know mine in my pocket
01:08i'm a gen zier you are you're cute though you know i tried but you got the fit on i mean i mean this
01:15is bruce glenn and spellman miss wenga woman you need to give everybody a twirl no i can't i'm not
01:21my equilibrium and the way it's set up y'all just got to imagine the twirl
01:24all right let me make sure i close my how are you madam uh brand lead out here killing y'all know
01:32this is who's in charge of your girls united you know i try i try you know i mean i'm with the
01:39biggest boss that there is so oh wow the room got quiet on that i know they're surprised do we have
01:48any introverts in the in the crowd you know why they're not here because we unite separately in our
01:52homes i mean we love a good homebody i'm actually homebody too so people be surprised i know it's it's not
02:02easy to come up on stage but as you guys know i am honored right now to be sitting with our president
02:08and ceo yes and ceo the one and only caroline wenga yes ma'am thank you for having me thank you for
02:18allowing auntie to come visit y'all we love aunties aunties got the greatest advice they do and they go
02:24to bed at nine yeah but yes auntie is like a state is more of a state of mind rather than a state of say
02:30anymore so what i mean by that uh-huh i got friends that are aunties right do they know that you think
02:36they're aunties they know okay you know if you're an auntie but sometimes i'm an auntie to another
02:41friend so it all kind of balances out now is it possible that auntie could be a niece or it doesn't
02:46go the other way y'all didn't say nothing never mind question answered you know i never i can't be gen z
02:52by just declaration got it i'm gonna sit in my auntie chair and be cute
02:56and so how you guys obviously know that the theme of the summit is air of disruption right
03:04yes can we grab the door so right now what we're gonna jump into yes how to be a disruptor right
03:13and how to disrupt or be disrupted yes so ms wenga let's jump right in yes so question number one yes
03:22you shared some very personal information about who you are yeah that slide yeah show we saw and
03:29a big part of living and thriving in this era of disruption is being able to be authentically you
03:34oh yeah have you always been that no i mean so here's why i said that with so much energy
03:40and and rachelle and i have the honor of spending a lot of time with her and so she knows
03:45she knows a lot about me what i will tell y'all is i spent about i became pregnant at the age of 17
03:51and that got registered as a failure for most of my life so i was 17 years old for 20 years
03:57that's how heavy the failure was in me because everybody tried to renegotiate my potential
04:02without my permission yesterday i could have gone to harvard today you're sending me to the community
04:06college because i'm pregnant those things don't go together my cousins can't talk to me because i'm
04:11pregnant it ain't contagious but because that's what i experienced at 17 i believed it and so i started
04:18to live small and what i started to do especially when people react to my style or my aesthetic or
04:23my personality the the less noticed i was every day the better because anytime i was noticed i was
04:30reminded that i failed so i tried to live every day as blended and quiet as possible and i actually
04:38somewhat disassociated being caroline and just allowed myself to be cadence's mom because that's how
04:45it consumed my life and then i was at a development conference where they helped me realize that's
04:49what happened and so i started to do this exercise of psychological birthdays to try to catch up to
04:55where i actually was and one of the things that came with that was i've always had my own style
04:59aesthetic i've always had a point of view in my intellect i've always had a really odd view on the
05:04world that i suppressed because people wouldn't accept it as good they would accept it as girl your job
05:10is to raise that baby and nothing else mattered don't be smart don't go to college raise that baby
05:15so she's not a statistic so as i started to step into it what i wanted to wear became more important
05:20i don't have a stylist this is my only creative hobby i can't plant nothing right but what it became
05:25was the armor can you cook i can cook but i don't consider cooking creativity i consider it nourishment
05:31because i don't have no presentation styles but it tastes good but but for me when i started to
05:37step into this like okay now i'm going to operate from where i am and there's things i'm interested
05:41in or there's things i'm good at or there's thoughts i have in the world that i'm not sharing as i started
05:46to do them people started to react to them and so when i started to get positive responses to the way
05:52that i was operating it gave me the courage to do more people think i'm confident i'm one of the least
05:57confident people you know even today what you're experiencing is courage the courage is what i now know
06:05on that journey that i went through being stuck plus the time i decided to not be stuck
06:12is i now live to get rochelle all of y'all to do what i did after 20 years sooner
06:20so you can contribute your purpose to the world so on the days where i don't want to get up and do this
06:25which is often you know why i get up because of you and you and you and if i got to tell something
06:33that sits in where i'm not confident or touches on something that hurt me it's worth it because
06:38you'll do it sooner what you experience is courage not confidence the courage to do it anyway whether
06:44i want to because of what it'll do for you so you said something about playing small and when you were
06:50playing small you know you felt like you weren't at your best what was that switch or was there anybody
06:55or anything that got you over that and you saying that you were stuck how did you get unstuck
07:02oh lord see now
07:05carefully and here's what i mean by that i'm not i don't tell stories that make it look like nothing
07:13went wrong i'm not good at that i sat in audiences and listened to women tell stories of nothing that
07:18went wrong and i knew i was in the wrong room because i am particularly exceptional at failing
07:22so for me what became important in this pivot was i would every day go look up this girl i went to
07:33high school with to see if i had a better job than her and somebody was sitting next to me one day was
07:41like why you keep looking at this white girl picture i was 36 and still looking i was so embarrassed
07:50rochelle that somebody saw me doing that and i i because it was i just told the truth like
07:57because she told me i wasn't gonna be able to go to harryford 18 years ago and so when i got
08:03embarrassed explaining to somebody why i was looking up this person that wasn't relevant yeah i got caught
08:08and it caused me to go why are you embarrassed and how are you going to fix it so my unstuckness
08:15and again i had help i discovered most of this path in a developmental program that i did when
08:21i worked at target the facilitator told had to tell me because the the place where they saw me
08:26looking at my phone was the development conference i was supposed to have been paying attention in so
08:30somebody was just looking over your shoulder i mean all in my business that's the that's the next
08:34disruption conversation privacy screen people's elbow but i was so embarrassed that i didn't do the
08:39elbow but my point is i was there and the facilitator had enough sense of mind to realize something was
08:44happening and he pulled me outside to get in my business and out of it he told me that i was 17
08:50years old in my mind and he gave me homework this was the first unstuck thing he gave me some really
08:56simple homework he said i want you beginning today to choose whatever good thing happens on any given day
09:05whether it's your daughter or you and every time something good happens i want you to celebrate it like
09:10a birthday his charge to me was catch your psychological and chronological age up and then
09:18you will activate your purpose so he didn't give me no big burden he said i need you to find a way to
09:22turn 18 tomorrow you've met my daughter she's 27 she like y'all when she graduated from nyu i turned 18
09:32when i lived alone for the first time in my life at 36 i turned 19 because i realized it's really fun
09:41when i'm when i got the opportunity to come be a part of this brand called essence i turned 20
09:50so the exercise of getting unstuck was not visible to anybody yet it was me replacing all the years
10:00that i didn't celebrate accomplishments in an accelerated manner so that the way that the world
10:07saw me at the top of a fortune 50 company started to be the way that i saw myself and once i got those
10:14two things aligned what my purpose in the world was became really clear and so the audacity to operate
10:20in it became what my mission became because i remember the pain of not operating in it and i don't
10:26want anybody else to have to go through that and so i think that goes into you know one of my next
10:32questions is being you know the the ceo president and ceo of essence and knowing right that there's this
10:41next audience that is probably sitting in this room what we like to call our next episode right
10:46anybody who didn't watch time of essence on hbo max go do it it's a nice juicy story juicy about the
10:55creation of essence and the history of essence um and there's five episodes and so caroline likes to
11:01say that we are all episode six everybody that's sitting in here that's the next generation right
11:07that's what girls united is all about so my question is is how do you encourage disruption
11:14and how do you encourage disruptors how do i encourage disruption and how do i encourage
11:20disruptors so so i'm gonna show you a couple slides to explain something but before i do
11:25i am very dissatisfied about a part of me that people consider disruption that i just think is crazy
11:33the amount of time that people are like you're so real you're so authentic you just tell it like
11:39it is we should be really concerned that that's dope in 2023 because if you happy that i'm real
11:46who are you talking to who are these inauthentic people that are sitting like if you do right shaggy
11:53right so so my point is this like as much as we don't want to admit it to your point rochelle
11:59the fact that the you's and the me's of the world are complimented because we just tell it how it is
12:03and who you meet is who you meet and we're the same people from nine to five as we are from five to
12:07nine it is ridiculous how much we celebrate that what it tells me actually is most of the people
12:12around you are not real and are inauthentic how you feel about that because here's the thing about
12:18disruption right bring up that slide please the first one so do you guys remember in math
12:24the rules of math if you were auntie they said please excuse my dear aunt sally and then what's
12:31the fancy one you people want pendos y'all made it an acronym we made it please excuse my dear
12:36aunt sally same point so i'm gonna do a test real quick what was the p all right what was the e
12:42excellent what was after that and then and then and then so all y'all that think aunties and nieces
12:54are different i just proved you wrong but my point is this i remember being at target and this is how
12:58do i encourage disruptors because i have already decided how i want to be disruptive i'm just going
13:03to be authentic i'm aware crazy stuff tool on a tuesday adult princess on fleek whatever i'm doing my
13:08life if you don't like it you have to be my friend i'm an introvert anyway but my job is to make sure
13:14that each of you step into as much disruption as you can as quickly as you can so i took what was
13:20this common way that we all learned math and what i did is i took that formula and instead i created a
13:27personal activism formula that used the rules of math so in parentheses on this personal activism formula
13:34which was okay so y'all said i'm gonna be a teacher my parents are professors i never will be
13:40so please excuse my dear aunt sally or whatever you pen boss people say
13:47right that's the rules of math flip to the next slide what i did is i wrote it when trump became
13:53president i was at target and when i came into the office that day everybody was crying
14:00and everybody kept saying i want to march i want a movement somebody needs to do something about this
14:07i was like why are y'all waiting for somebody to do something about this regardless of if anybody
14:13starts a movement there is power within your hand to disrupt the thing that his election causes you to
14:20think will ruin your life so i wrote this in my office that morning and here's what the personal
14:26activism formula is it gives you an opportunity to fill in particular spaces to impact the thing
14:32you've decided is important don't worry about trump that had to be a problem but all of you have
14:38something you want to disrupt and i'm going to say this because i know rochelle agrees with it
14:42if you don't have one you're you're not fulfilling your obligation if you don't have something you want
14:49to disrupt you're holding up somebody's seat and the longer you sit in it the less they can get to it
14:54it is not okay to exist without something you're going to disrupt because somebody disrupted
14:59something for you so what i did is i just made it really easy to to fill in and you're going to do
15:04the same i don't care what you want to change this is just a formula to fit in to disrupt whatever
15:09you want to so in the parentheses your individual authenticity who are you do you know that's where
15:19you start you should fill in here what makes you you don't start trying to disrupt things till you
15:26know who you are are y'all taking notes do you understand what i'm saying because if you don't
15:29know who you are then you won't be comfortable with the truth that disruption is a lonely journey
15:35there's no passenger seat you'll feel the most isolated you have in your life so you have to
15:43strengthen yourself you take your authenticity and you double it you get real real gall about it
15:48the second thing that you do parentheses exponents right as you multiply your authenticity by the
15:57worst thing you're scared has happened rachel what's the worst thing you think could happen in the world
16:01today make it up um i mean there's a lot pick one there's a war going on there's a war going on
16:08so go ahead yeah um there's a war going there's a war right so rachel knows who she is double time
16:18she's anchored she started gu she's doubled on that but she's worried her worst case scenarios that a war
16:26will break out so she takes her authenticity and she multiplies it by the worst case scenario what do
16:31i mean by that you then rachel would actually do an exercise to write out everything that would
16:38happen if a war broke out we're actually giving you permission to brainstorm and articulate your
16:43worst case scenario write down the thing you're afraid will happen the next thing you're doing
16:49is dividing that by systemic participants what do i mean by that everything that you care about
16:55has participants law enforcement politicians entertainers teachers stylists influencers there are
17:05systemic participants in everything that you do who are you times two what is the thing you're worried
17:09about will happen divided by the people who help make it happen or stop it from happening
17:14and then all you're gonna do is add personal connections this is what y'all call networking who
17:19went to speed mentoring you just made a whole bunch of personal connections so once you've identified
17:28who are the systemic participants ask your friend who they know that does that thing that you need to get
17:34connected to to prevent your worst case scenario from coming to life and then you simply take out
17:40self-preservation what does that mean it ain't about you boo if at the point that you're supposed to
17:46disrupt you get worried about yourself stop because here's what's true rachel and you know this you are
17:53not going to be able to disrupt anything in this world if you think you need to be okay at the end of
17:59it this is why it's an obligation not an option you need to prepare yourself to take the daggers and
18:06the arrows that disruption brings with it they're not going to kill you you know why because when we
18:14go back to the beginning of the formula you're doubled down on who you are and you've thought
18:18through the worst case scenario which is probably where they're going to hit you so believe that the
18:22armor that you've built for yourself is strong enough to take the daggers expect them time them out
18:28stop worrying about whether or not you'll be safe you won't be safe what you will be is legendary
18:34that's what disruption looks like the math is mapping the math is mapping pen boss we got girl math we got
18:42boy math and we got wenga math come on girl math boy math does that make sense to y'all like it's the rules
18:50of math it's the rules of disruption pick one do you want to be a disruptor or be disrupted because it's
18:57going to happen anyway where you want to be on the side watching it or driving it so how do you also
19:03encourage people that are on the side watching disruption because as a leader every single day
19:09yeah you always got you know something or somebody that's against what you're trying to build or kind
19:16of how you see it how do you deal with that and how do you get off of the sidelines can you ask me a
19:21question again because i got in my feelings while you were asking it can you just repeat it again
19:26please so being a leader it's about you're crazy you're creating and causing disruption but you
19:33have people that are on the sidelines that are watching things getting disrupted and have a
19:38resistance to that disruption how do you deal with that and how do you manage that you know people
19:45who twitch their foot when something's wrong so here's the real of it essence doesn't belong to
19:54me essence belongs to the community y'all be coming for me in the comments and the dms don't act like
19:59you don't tell us what we supposed to do with it but why that is okay is because i respect the fact that
20:04it's owned by the community i respect the fact that there's people that work there that have a passion
20:09for what it's supposed to do so when the spectators want to offer their parade confetti to what
20:19this brand and this role means there is a quote that i use that helps me every day
20:28not stop them from talking but turn my own personal volume up higher
20:32the work that we have to do as disruptors especially your generation is an all-in full
20:39contact participatory endeavor everybody plays a role not the same role but the role their best
20:44position to impact the choice not to play a role still plays a role which means there's no such thing
20:52as a spectator your choice to sit on the sideline and throw rocks your choice to talk smack because you
21:00don't like what was decided your choice to refuse to transform when the org is transforming your
21:04choice to make up stories about what's true and not true your choice to be worried about yourself
21:08versus what needs to be delivered for the brand your choice to be selfish is not inaction
21:16it's opposing action you have now positioned yourself in a war you cannot be a spectator on
21:23disruption even your choice to sit out is participation so the question becomes
21:30if you choose to sit down and think you're spectating disruption by the way remember i
21:35asked how many of y'all have friends who are inauthentic and not real they're the spectators
21:38in your life another session they're sitting closest to you watching you so they can beat you
21:46that that pain in your spleen your best friend gave it to you think about that so
21:52i'm not a pastor i'm a d plus christian but i'm a saint and i ain't but why do i say that because
21:58rochelle knows what i'm why do i say that because what i need you to understand if you choose to be
22:03a disrupter which i really need you to because i got to go to bora bora i need y'all to step into
22:09your chair so i can step out of mine i'm serving here till you're ready i'm not staying here so if
22:15you choose to sit and spectate and throw rocks and talk smack when when rochelle dennis builds girls united
22:22because you don't like how she built it you think you could do it better but you didn't
22:27then understand you are not safe on the risers you are participating and so if you are sitting on
22:36the sidelines thinking you're not participating and you are what do you think the result is going to
22:41be i'm going to tell you all these people sitting next to you in this room are going to do what
22:46they're supposed to do to move things forward and you're going to turn around tomorrow and you'll
22:49be the only one in the chair with the next generation of people coming to coming to talk
22:53to you which means you failed your grade sleep on that tonight oh you can't not participate
23:05where's rich with the uh johnny black johnny walker black yeah he got a drink for me when
23:11i get off of here i got feelings so standing strong on what you know is right to impact real change yeah
23:21so can you give us a time that you felt extremely blessed to have a village to have support on your
23:28journey being a disruptor when i learned i had depression i was in a job where i didn't take
23:34care of myself but my job was to tell people what to do that didn't want to do what i was telling them
23:39what to do and their boss would tell them they didn't have to do what i said so people were quiet
23:43when it was good and loud when it was bad and you know me i'm just out here taking the hits like you
23:46gonna do this right but i wasn't taking care of myself i kept ignoring the signs i'm driving home
23:51from work one day and i have a complete mental breakdown while driving wasn't a bad day it just
23:56happened to hit that day you'd have thought it was raining because i couldn't see out but those
23:58are my tears it was that snotty cry that disrespectful snotty cry you know it
24:02right snot tears you don't know which liquid is what your foundation anyway so so i'm having that
24:12i'm driving on the highway i think i'm gonna crash i pull over i'll call somebody from my job and say
24:15i think i need to go to the psych ward she was smart enough to know don't listen to me verbatim but she
24:20did get me home the next day she put me out on leave i went into a semi-institutional program and
24:27finally learned what depression was and that my lack of taking care of my body and lack of letting
24:33cortisol reduce the stress in this job that was really stressful was causing my body to make
24:38decisions about how to survive and so it starts to do things like mess with my insulin and my serotonin
24:43which is why i got gifted with diabetes and depression it was a twofer it was a bogo if you
24:49don't understand why people with crazy jobs have heart attacks it it manifests physically so i learned
24:56about depression i learned what it was and i learned how to live with it i came out of that
25:01with a self-compassion plan that self-compassion plan was a list of things that those those folks
25:07helped me write down that would help me manage what's going to be a stressful job and a heavy
25:11purpose differently so that i was healthy it said 15 minute breaks three times a day so cortisol can
25:17do its job in reducing the stress of the morning before you add on the stress of the afternoon then it
25:21hits you at lunch then it hits you after and i used to sit in my office and color and coloring books
25:25for my 15 minute break it at things like i don't come to the reception the dinner and the after
25:33party the essence people could tell you this my boss is an extrovert you should see us together it's
25:37hilarious i'm an introvert i'm not coming to the reception or the after party if they want to talk
25:42to me they can come to the dinner i can't do all three my social battery gets drained and i have to
25:47keep my social battery drained because y'all got to be disruptors and i got to give you everything i
25:51need so you can do your job so if i go to the reception and i don't have enough energy to talk
25:55to you i'm failing you so i built this self-compassion plan and then the hardest part of it
26:01was giving it away because if i was good at it i wouldn't need it so my mandate from the program was
26:08to come back to work and i was told to give that self-compassion plan to my peers now you can think
26:14about how reputationally damaging this can be at work i had to give it to my peers i had to give it to my
26:19boss i had to give it to my direct reports and i gave it to them with a very simple sentence i need
26:26you to love me disrespectfully through this plan i'm going to resist it when you try to give me time
26:33off i'm going to resist it when you try to get me to honor the day i said i was coming i'm going to
26:36resist it when i say i'm going to the reception anyway i'm going to resist it when i tell you to
26:40schedule over a 15 minute break i am not good at managing myself i need you to love me more than i love
26:47myself and just do it because i have to stay alive to fulfill my purpose and as much as i was worried
26:54about what would happen with my reputation what i was met with was love and i survived and stayed alive
27:02because a group of people took what i said i needed to do to fulfill my purpose in a healthy manner
27:08and applied it whether i let them or not they don't even ask for my permission but the best part of it all
27:15the absolute best part of it all is that no matter what that self-compassion plan said
27:22no matter what it took no matter what it did from the day that i left that hospital
27:29the only thing that keeps me focused on it is the fear of being psychologically paralyzed again
27:37i will never again not be able to get out of my bed even though i can walk i will never again not be
27:41able to talk even though my mouth is fine i will never again not be able to go outside when i can
27:46go outside i am not motivated by how it makes my life better i'm motivated by how that moment made my
27:52life hell and because of that when i try to resist somebody activating it all they got to remind me is
28:00do you want to go back to bed and not be able to get up and i'll be like you're right turn the lights
28:03off let's go honor yourself self-compassion is how you manage it and depression was getting in the way of my
28:10ability to fill my purpose because i didn't take care of myself so in order to have my purpose i have
28:14to take care of myself but i'm incapable of it so the people that love me more than i love myself
28:19are who helped me fulfill my purpose by managing that plan
28:24clap it up so as we come to a close what is some advice you would leave for all of these disruptors in
28:33the audience on how they can go and and create disruption in whatever it is that they're doing i
28:41know we talk about career a lot but personal life how can they do that who you are is who you are
28:49if you cannot be who you are where you are you change where you are not who you are that where
28:55maybe those inauthentic and unreal people that sit next to you and are why you compliment me on being
29:01real and authentic they're aware get away from them the where might be your mental state where
29:06you believe there's nothing you can do to disrupt something as big as what's happening in a war
29:10because you're waiting for somebody to start a movement for you to join versus believing you
29:13are a movement as a person i want you to understand that you're where could be where you work it could
29:19be where you go to school it could be the person you're in a relationship with it could be your best
29:22friend it could be your hair it could be your clothes it could be your voice it could be your touch
29:26it could be your products who you are is who you are if you cannot be who you are where you are
29:34change where you are not who you are because if you don't fulfill your purpose in the world the world
29:40goes without sleep on that tonight
29:45and that's right yeah that was disruption right there and that is a great way to leave our audience
29:51so can everybody please again clap it up for miss caroline wenga thanks rachelle for letting my auntie come visit
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