It’s not always easy to feel in control when it comes to our health.

Sometimes it’s hard to know what our bodies really need, and other times, our concerns are dismissed or downplayed when seeking advice. For these reasons (and many more), it’s vital to become comfortable advocating for ourselves when it comes to our healthcare needs.

What better way to be our best self-advocates than to make sure our healthcare toolboxes are full to the brim?

Tune in to hear from two holistic health experts, biohackers, and women’s health pioneers who will chat with us about their approach to more integrated, personalized healthcare by combining traditional and holistic methodologies.

It will be a unique conversation that will leave you feeling more confident in taking charge of your own care, and with a more complete view of the modern world of women’s health.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T. We all want to be respected as we go through our lives. But it doesn’t always happen, and respect is often denied from the places and people who mean the most.

Dr. Angelique Adams, Chief Innovation Officer for Aperam, says that there are clear steps for earning the respect you deserve. She should know.

She learned how to gain respect the hard way, beginning in grad school where, as an ambitious woman of color, her professor laughed in her face when she shared her goal of getting a Ph.D.

That experience ignited her quest to study instances of disrespect and strategies for turning the tables. She shares her insights from interviews with over 80 women from all different industries while writing her first book, You’re More Than A Diversity Hire.

Tune in to hear her story and to benefit from her advice on strategies and approaches for getting the respect that you so readily deserve.

A few takeaways from our talk with Angelique:

• Being valued for your contributions is one of the purest measures of respect in the workplace
• Two great strategies for when commanding more respect are:
  • Remaining Composed:
    • Triggering people and stressful events happen. Finding ways to remain composed during those moments will help you feel more in control, and will give you the time to choose how and when to react in a way that is productive
  • Claim your Voice: Once you have clarity on how you feel and what you want to say, speak up. Say the things that need to be said, even in sticky situations
• Exercise idea: Think about the people you enjoy and the people you dread spending time with. Put them into columns in your mind to help you prepare for tough situations when you have to face the people in your dread column
• When in a high-stakes situation with people you want or need to impress, switch from having a “performer mindset” to a learner mindset. Don’t try to come up with the most brilliant comment of the day. Instead, gain respect by asking questions like:
  • What are the metrics / KPIs that we will use to evaluate whatever we’re doing?
  • How do we define success?
  • What are the benchmarks or what are our peers doing?
• Instead of bragging about your accomplishments, track your metrics on an ongoing basis. Be familiar with and fluent in your accomplishment list so that you can speak with specifics when you do want to track achievements and contributions. Consider this format:
  • 1. Description of accomplishment
  • 2. Metric or success metric you improved
  • 3. Why is this important to my organization?
  • 4. Why is it important to me? Why do I care? Why am I proud?
• See more of Angelique’s Respect exercises & worksheets here

To keep up with Angelique check out the following resources:

• Connect on LinkedIn
• Order her book, You’re More Than a Diversity Hire
• Check out her website for more

We welcomed members, Bina Motiram and Dana DuFrane to lead us through a simple-but-as-delicious-as-it-gets cooking class while we talked all things celebrating and building on culture in a modern (Nu) way, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Whether you’re cooking along or just listening in, tune in for a simmering session of connection.

These two corporate work besties bonded over their creative energies, sustainability, and in 2020, founded and launched SugarRoti to modernize cooking without leaving tradition or flavor behind.

We are so thrilled to support another amazing women-owned & led company. Enjoy!

A few takeaways from our talk with SugarRoti:

• Delicious cooking can be sustainable, traditional, AND innovative!
• Tips for going into business with your best friend: make sure you bring different skills to the table, have clearly defined boundaries, roles, and expectations of each other, and always put your friendship first
• You can honor tradition while breaking barriers and crossing borders – it’s not mutually exclusive
• When thinking about taking risks in life – aim to become more comfortable with failure than regret
• The whole is greater than the sum of its parts!

 

To keep up with SugarRoti check out the following resources:

• Visit SugarRoti.com to check out more delicious spice blends
• Use Promo Code: NUParlayCook to buy 4; get a 10% discount.  One code per customer and it ends in 30 days!
• Explore more SugarRoti recipes
• Get in touch with Dana and Bina at help@sugarroti.com and make sure to tell them about all the dishes you add SugarRoti spices to, be it avocado toast,  hummus, or shepherd’s pie!
• Follow SugarRoti on Instagram and Twitter to keep supporting these awesome women

 

Some Favorites From the Chat:

• McBride Sister SHE CAN collection of Canned Rosé wine
• Karoun Labne Mediterranean Style Kefir Cheese
• Onion Cutting Goggles
• Wine Pairings
  • Chickpea Curry: Rosé is nice with Indian curry dishes, with the right balance of fruit flavor and acid crispness to work well with a variety of dishes. With chickpea curry in particular, a fresh, fruity rosé is a great choice to help balance the curry flavor and help the veggies’ flavors stand out.
  • Potato Chicken Curry: a lovely Grenach. It’s a fruity, low-tannin red that goes well with mild tomato-based curries: The juiciness and lightly spicy flavors in Grenache from France or Spain are great with the fragrant spices in curry and have enough acidity to mesh with the tomatoes.

Imagine being the mother of a daughter who can’t speak and spending the first 25 years of her life guessing what she is experiencing.

That was the story of Valerie Gilpeer and her daughter Emily who is on the autism spectrum. But instead of it being the end of their story, it turns out that the first 25 years were only the beginning.

We can’t wait to take you on their incredible journey as Valerie joins us to share their story and unexpected triumphs.

April is Autism Awareness Month, and we think this talk will not only raise your awareness of this disorder, but it will leave you feeling connected, hopeful and inspired.

A few takeaways from our talk with Valerie:

• Unconditional love can carry you through anything
• Be mindful about your words and reactions to people with disabilities around you. They feel and understand so much more than we’re often told
• Sometimes, we have to listen to our gut even when it takes us away from what “experts” are telling us
• Knowing when to move on from a failing effort can be just as important as being willing to try something new

To keep up with Valerie check out the following resources:

• Visit her site
• Order her & Emily’s book: I Have Been Buried Under Years of Dust on April 6th!
• Follow her daughter, Emily on Instagram for poetry and more

We’ve all heard of empathy and why it’s vital to our communities and in our connections with others. But how much do you know about what it means to be an empath?

Tune in with author and communications coach Lisa Wentz who talks to us about being a true empath and helps us understand the spectrum from empath to psychopath, exploring where we all fall. We also learn how to identify, support, and collaborate with/as empaths.

Lisa also shares her journey to realizing & accepting her true nature and the strengths and challenges that followed.

We all have skills that we take for granted but that might be hugely meaningful to someone else. Monica Prata is no exception. When she noticed that a number of her clients at the makeup counter where she worked were transgender and exploring beauty for the first time, her next life chapter emerged.

Monica helps her clients live authentically and love the skin they’re in, however they see fit, through feminine comportment, wardrobe styling, feminizing makeup, and emotional coaching and support. She is also currently creating a first-of-its-kind Gender Expression program within a national healthcare system.

Tune in, and let’s learn together.

Tune in for a deep conversation about the intersection of racism & sex trafficking as discussed in the moving documentary, Still I Rise.

Our discussion will be led by two inspirational advocates:

• Holly Joshi, Oakland Police Department’s former Chief of Staff
  Sheri Shuster, the filmmaker

We’ve got lots to talk about.

 

See ALL Parlay From Away conversations here.

When life throws unexpected curveballs that knock us down, what do we do?

The answer may surprise you.

Tune in as Ex-Googler turned photographer, Jamie Nease shares how instead of toughening up and pushing through, we can actually soften and transform through a crisis. We’ll hear her story about how a major health crisis led her to leave cushy job and follow her true passion. Jamie will walk us through her 3 lessons learned along the way and show us how we can cultivate them in everyday life without needing to hit rock bottom ourselves.

Together, we will explore the value of life’s biggest moments that force us to slow down and face the parts of ourselves which we usually avoid despite them begging to be seen.

 

See ALL Parlay From Away conversations here.

Most of us have had “ah-ha” moments when we realize that the parents and institutions that shaped us are far from perfect.

Our speaker, Cara Jones is no exception. In fact, after being raised as part of the Unification Church (the “Moonies Cult”) and participating in a mass marriage within that community at the age of 20, Cara has had to ask harder questions of her parents and institutions than most.

Cara captured her experience in a compelling documentary entitled Blessed Child, and she speaks about her journey to break free from the movement at the risk of losing her family and the challenges of walking a separate path from the people we love.

 

See ALL Parlay From Away conversations here.

You see Emily, but do you SEE Emily?

We were thrilled to welcome our youngest ever speaker to the Parlay House stage. Her name is Emily Amador and at 15 years old, she is blazing a trail of resistance and confidence for young people growing up in South Central LA.

Emily discusses the importance of exposure in disenfranchised communities. She shares her first-hand perspective on immigration and education. And, in Parlay House fashion, she speaks from the heart about her experience with culture shock while navigating the two.

Emily has meaningful insights about the potential to create meaningful change for underprivileged children today and she explains why she advocates that we all should encourage cognizance and understanding of distinctive assets to our personal identities.

 

See ALL Parlay From Away conversations here.