36 | Transform Your Work Into A Conversation Starter w/ Celeste Headlee

How many Opera singers/wellness experts/radio broadcaster/racial reconciliation thought leaders do you know? You'll meet one today: the remarkable Celeste Headlee. Celeste is a 3-time bestselling author, including of her most recent book Speaking of Race: Why Everybody Needs to Talk About Racism — And How To Do It, who specializes in studying, articulating, and teaching about the complicated nuance of human conversation. Whether that's professionally, creatively, or even culturally, I promise that Celeste will fundamentally shift the way we view human communication. She will blow your mind.

1:40 - Why Celeste has had conversations about race thrust upon her all her life

2:49 - Celeste's signature themes throughout her diverse career

4:29 - How she gets people back in touch with their base humanity

5:42 - How she balances different “modes” of work: self-help, reporting, speaking, singing, etc.

8:34 - The importance of staying present, and how music has TRAINED Celeste to be super present

11:50 - The actual definition of conversation

13:14 - What are we missing in the essence of conversation? What are our ethical obligations in conversation?

17:30 - If conversations make us feel good, why do we avoid them?

23:17 - Why accepting racial biases is the quickest way to grow out of them

25:20 - How can we begin to overcome our biases?

27:14 - How American gospel music demonstrates our unconscious biases

28:30 - Why it’s important not to shame people while they’re learning about race

35:06 - What to do when you make a mistake when it comes to race

41:44 - How Celeste’s Ted Talk opened doors in her career. (Don’t miss what she has to say about her speaker’s fees!)

44:45 - How making more money allowed her to express more of herself

46:23 - What Celeste’s book Do Nothing taught me about productivity culture and the Industrial Revolution

47:50 - The ridiculousness of “time is money”

49:00 - The shadow of being passionate about your work

Get a copy of Celeste’s books here:

Speaking of Race: Why Everybody Needs to Talk About Racism — And How To Do It

Amazon

Bookshop

Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving

Amazon

Bookshop

Visit jenniferlouden.com/podcastkit to get instant access to a collection of audios that will:

• help you with some of the most common struggles we creatives have to manage including fear of choosing,
• falling into compare and despair, managing the inner critic (s),
• and feeling too exposed and vulnerable when you put yourself or your work into the world.

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