Analiza: Welcome to the Women of Color Rise Podcast. I'm Analiza Quiroz Wolf, proud Filipina American, mom of two, and former CEO of a nonprofit and Captain in the US Air Force. I'm on a mission to support having more diverse leaders at the table. We'll be talking with successful CEOs and C suite women leaders of color and learning about their leadership journeys. If you're a woman or woman of color, who wants a seat at the table, you're in the right place. Now let's get into today's show.

I am thrilled to be talking with Arva Rice today. She is the President and CEO of The New York Urban League, which has this really long and rich history of service to New Yorkers. Today, New York Urban League focuses on African Americans and other underserved communities. The goal is to help people get a first class education, have economic self-reliance, and respect for civil rights through programs, services and advocacy. Arva has been in this work for more than 25 years in the nonprofit world. Her experience ranges from working with New York City entrepreneurs in microlending to working with young people as a counselor, mentor and tutor she has a ton of experience in collaboration, strategic planning, fundraising, marketing, and most recently, Arva was nominated by our mayor to be Interim Chair of the Civilian Complaint Review Board. Arva, I come from the same university Northwestern in Evanston. And she currently lives in Harlem. Arva, thank you so much for being here. I'm excited to talk.

Arva: Thank you so much for the invitation.

Analiza: Arva, let's start with just your journey. Because coming from young Arva to where you are now. How did your family, your race, your class, any of that influence your journey to where you are today?

Arva: Thank you for that great and big question. I think that my family, my race, my gender are all absolutely contributors to where I am today. Both of my parents are originally from a little town outside of Little Rock, Arkansas. And they were actually sharecroppers and so they grew up picking cotton. And my father was actually very good at it, like, you know, the head of the sharecroppers, and my mother was picking cotton. And they decided that they wanted to have a better life for their kid. And so they ended up moving to the first big city that they went to was Chicago, when they got there because the job my father was supposed to take on had been given away. So then went to the next city, which was Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and it was there that they sent their kids to all of their kids who ended up going to college. And when the last one graduated, my little sister, they closed up their small business. And they were done and ended up moving back south again. But my mother always said to, you know, leave the door open for the next person, she always told us to whom much is given much was required. And so that those are two ethos that have been a constant in my personal and my professional life. And I don't think it is a coincidence that I'm the result of my parents’ Great Migration from the South to the North. And that's when the Urban League's were started was for individuals who were making that great migration that came to big cities, and were bewildered and needed to find a place to create home and create community in urban links. We’re there for them.

Analiza: The story of your family, having moved from the South to the North, affording all of the children college educations, and then you actually coming back to leave the door open for the next person. I mean, it's just like this. I mean, while we hope for the great American dream, right for people to hopefully have been invested in, and then be able to give back. So I love that story so much. And thank you so much for all that you contribute you in New York Urban League to the city. I've known about your organization for many years. And I really appreciate the personal connection. So I want to ask more about that young Arva. And any ideas besides this idea of to whom much is given much as expected, much as hoped for? What would you say were beliefs that you also took in that you found out actually weren't so true?

Arva: Right, I often talk about the Urban League has a big celebratory dinner every year. It's our big fundraiser. It's our Frederick Douglass dinner. And it was started by a woman who was very committed to the work of the Urban League. The year that she started the Frederick Douglass dinner here in New York City. It was unprecedented because she was Jewish and she put together this dinner that was gonna bring together black and white people, which even though New York was in the north, it's not like black folks and white folks were hanging out that much, even in the early 1970s. And so she put together this dinner, and it became, you know, a marquee of New York City Life. Well, at the same time, I was just an infant. And my mother was in Milwaukee where she had migrated with my dad, and was at a shopping center. And there was a white woman who approached her and said, Oh, what a pretty baby, you know, can I hold your baby? Well, this is a different time. And so my mother was like, Oh, okay, and so she hands this little baby who was me to this white woman. And as she did it, her hand brushed against the hand of the woman who she was handing the baby to, it was the first time my mother had ever touched a white person. At first, she was 23 years old. And so even though that was her first time brushing whiteness, for me, living in Milwaukee, and my parents being encouraged to put us into majority schools, and so we were very much the minorities there, I touched whiteness, all the time.

And so some of the things that were told to me more subliminally than others was that White was better, right. And so for my parents who wanted to make sure that their kids went to college, at that particular point in time, sending their kids to a school that was predominantly white was better, right, it was a place where they could guarantee that their child was going to, you know, get as strong of an education as they could. And so that was the message that was given to me early on. And then I got to college, and went to Northwestern, which we share in common and got there and one of my professors said to me, you know, how did you get into Northwestern? I'm looking at your essay, your report, your what have you and you can't write, I was appalled. You know, I've been raised as, you know, the smart one, the, you know, the one that was going to do well, in life, all these sorts of things I got into Northwestern, for goodness sake, right. And I remember walking back to in, you know, this out to Elder Hall, which you know, was on the north end of campus, right. So I walked to Elder Hall, and I was happy that I at least got into the building, but my dorm closed before the tears started. And tears were rolling down my face, because I had always defined myself as being the smart girl. And so here's a college professor telling me like, how did you get into the school? I found out later that he had issues with a lot of the people's writing that was there. And we ended up going and taking a writing class at Northwestern, and it was fine. And I ended up graduating on the Honor list. But at that moment in time, I was told that I was not enough, right? And that is clearly not true. And it served as a motivation for me, in my best of times. But when I have moments of doubt, I sometimes hear that professor about how you get into, and you fill in the blank. So it's not Northwestern, it's into that program. It's into this room, it's into this meeting. And you just need to remind yourself that the message is about how we particularly as black women, as women of color are told that we're not enough. How do we get into the spaces because we deserve it?

Analiza: And stop, we deserve it. Arva and stop. And there's no need to prove right? We're here. And that's enough. And what a powerful story Arva because I can so connect with that in places where even without them seeing it, you can tell by their eyes, the way they look at you the way they talk to you that Why are you here? How did you get here? So Arva? Can you tell us about ways in which you can remind yourself because in the best of times, you're motivated, let me prove them wrong. And then also like, there can be some self doubt and self flagellation of just like, am I enough? Am I good enough? And there's so much brain space this takes and so can you share your journey of how you? I mean, you have this important position in New York? And so how does one begin to believe in themselves and know that they're enough? And even knowing intellectually, right, how do we actually begin to feel that could you talk about that journey, or any methods or ways that you've helped to remind yourself of your value?

Arva: Sure. I'm a very spiritual person. And so I believe very powerfully in prayer. And so in any issue or situation, my first answer is going to be that, you know, I'm going to pray and to talk to God. And people, I think, do that, whether they're spiritual people or not, in various different ways, right. So the other thing that I would encourage people to do is to do affirmations. You know, I wrote an affirmation at the beginning of 2020. And it's one that I still carry with me today that talks to me talks about and says, it starts with, you know, Arva Rice, and I'm a, you know, I'm God's daughter, right? And so if I'm God's daughter, how am I going to be in the world? How am I going to express myself in the world and then it goes on to say all these other affirmations about things that at the time when I wrote them were very aspirational. And over the course of the last two years, people talk a lot about manifesting over the course of the last two years. Some of the things that were in this affirmation are very much true for me, but I was reading them at that time, and it wasn't, you know, and so being able to positively affirm yourself and you know, some people can do it very formulaically and they, you know, read it in the mirror every morning or that sort of thing or they may read it from their journal at the end of the day.

But I think being able to pray or to say positive things over your life, I think is really important. I think the other piece is, you know, to remember where you've been, it is amazing when we think about I mean, our grandmothers would be amazed at the lives that we all live today, right? Imagine if our grandmothers could see us right now. And so it's sometimes it's being mindful of that, you know, we begin and end years all the time, but we had that moment of New Year's Eve, you're looking back over that year, and you're saying, you know, where have you? What have you accomplished? What have you done from the year before? And I think that in my moments of self doubt, or my moments of questioning, I have to think, well, you know, where were you one year from, you know, one year ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, and look at your accomplishments, but also on balance, right? Because you may have those years where you feel like you went forward. And you may have those years where you went back or historic Zora Neale Hurston says, the years that have questions and the years that have answers, so you may not have a straight line to success, but even in your darkest of days, remember the darkest of days, right? So remember, the times when you know, things were a struggle, things were a challenge, and you got through them.

One of the things that I say to the young professionals that are part of the New York Urban League is is that if there is a single person that they admire, that they respect that they say, Wow, I want to be like her, she's doing this great thing, you know, she's a star, any of those things, I guarantee that person has cried themselves to sleep at night, because you just don't get to that level without having that level of struggle.

Analiza: Yeah, that's true. It's interesting how much we put ourselves or people on a pedestal. And then we think that that's not us, right, they can't have gone through the struggle to get where they are. But yet, we're all human. I so love that to be able to have affirmations, whether it's prayer or affirmations to yourself, but to believe, and then to remember where we've come from. And then finally, to see that no matter who the person is that they all struggle, there has been a time of tears. So thank you so much for that, I want to talk more about just being white proximate. Because Northwestern right, when you went to school, when I went to school was still white. And even if it's more diverse, there are so many, you know, white supremacist ways in the way it's that sense, embedded in our culture. And now as this, you know, very high profile leadership role that you're in, you are also proximate to whiteness. And so the question I have here is, how do you as a black woman, how do you navigate understanding that this is part of our culture? And yet also stay true authentic to you, whatever that means? I'm curious, like, how do you see that whether it's deliberate or not? Or if you can just ponder on this question now, but when it comes up you want to ask that question.

Arva: So you're asking me how I stay true to myself, but still working in a predominantly white environment, working with an organization that was designed to work with African Americans, and to help them to move to quality but still very much in a white world with, you know, white spaces and places. And then one of the things that I find equally challenging is, my board of directors is primarily African American, and I have a number of different African American, you know, donors, or volunteers or that sort of thing. But we've all been acclimated in very white spaces, right. So even though sometimes I may be in a room that is seemingly all black people, there are still times where this standard is still very much a white standard. And that is very challenging. And for me, it has been about being able to accept the difference. And I'll give you a concrete example of this. And to be able to, because of that knowledge, be able to walk in it and make decisions on it.

I'll give you a concrete example of that. I had just recently become CEO of the Urban League, and I was going to be matched in a great program called Greater New York, which matches nonprofit leaders and for profit leaders in these kinds of mentoring roles was the first year of the program. And I was very anxious to be paired with a CEO of a Fortune 500 company or something like that, right? That'd be kind of cool. And so everybody got their matches, and I still didn't have a match. It was taken forever. And finally, I called the people back and I was just like, look, when you guys gonna come up with my match? And they're like, Well, we really couldn't find Would you be okay with having a black woman who's a consultant because we couldn't really find a CEO to be matched with and I said, No, I want a CEO, you want to match it with the white guy? That's fine, Famous last words.

So they did so they matched me with the white male head of an of a company and we were paired together and he told me some things that quite frankly, didn't sit so well with me sometimes. He talked about what passion looks like, I'm a very passionate person. That's why I work in the nonprofit sector. And he said, and he talked about how passion is sometimes perceived by white male and how being able to be aware of that and be able to follow the passion with the statistics or follow the passion with the you know, where's this is the goal, the objective, that sort of thing would be better received and perceived by some of the folks I was interacting with. Did I want to hear that? Absolutely not. I don't want to hear that. Do I think it's right? Absolutely not. But it gave me another piece in my toolkit in order that if it's about me being able to get the grant in order to move my organization forward, or if it's being able, you know, to develop the partnership in order to move something forward to gab another strategy, so I can reach people, I don't love it. But guess what I'm the better for it, right. So I have that knowledge. And so I can choose, I can choose to step into that. Or I can choose to step out of it or being able to do a dance because I'm actually better suited to make a presentation to multiple audiences, because I can speak in different ways. So that was something that I have learned about having to be in a majority culture.

Analiza: I love that analogy, Arva of a dance, and also that there are comments and feedback that doesn't sit well. And yet, we also have choice about whether to take it or whether or not, and it sounds like when you're sharing this very concrete example. So I appreciate how specific it is that you decided this would be better for the cause that in this dance, if you're able to see multiple perspectives, you can therefore choose to get the partnership get the donation or whatever it was to be able to move the larger cause forward. And that's so beautiful. And I'm curious, do you ever have in your mind a litmus test? Like here it is where you know, it's not worth it to me enough. I do have an example of when someone gave you a suggestion, and it was more borderline, three possible ways that the organization could move forward. But you just personally couldn't stomach the idea of compromising more of your value? Do you have any of that when you actually said no, I'm not going to move forward with that.

Arva: Two things sort of came to mind. One was about receiving a contribution from an entity that at the time was very controversial in New York City. And I was told by, you know, one of my board members will, but nationals had already taken their check from them. So they have the check that should have gone to New York. And I was just like, Okay, well, I'll take a meeting with them hear more about what what they're thinking about what they're, you know, pros and cons, and that sort of thing, that it was a difficult moment, because I believe in how they were moving in New York City, and the impact that it was having on the housing market and that sort of thing. So it's definitely a challenge to kind of maneuver through that was definitely an example of that. So that was the first thing that came to mind.

And then the second that comes to mind was just my work with the civilian complaint Review Board. And that's challenging as well, right. So we're responsible for policing the police, you know, we're responsible for looking at issues where there is excessive force, offensive language, where there is offensive language. And we're looking at their use of body worn cameras, as well as also we recently expanded our purview and are looking also at issues of racial bias and gender based policing. And so I have to do this dance, because we want to make sure that the police department is able to do their job, but the police commissioner and I are going to disagree at various points, because the police commissioner has to be accountable to her members of service. And I have to be responsible for the general community, right. And so there are times in places where we make a recommendation for a discipline that we think should happen because of a police and civilian interaction. But ultimately, she has the final say on whether that discipline is actually implemented and at the level that we suggest from the CCRB. And so that's a challenge. Sometimes I'm making sure that we stand firm by the individuals who work at CCRB, who do these investigations and who do this work, but then are ultimately, our work is either implemented or not based on the police commissioner herself. And so that has definitely been a challenge for me as well, trying to make sure that I kind of navigate those waters.

Analiza: Tricky. I mean, you're coming with recommendations to which the person can decide to take it or not, it's not, you know, there's definitely a power imbalance there. So to note it, but also to do your job on behalf of the people. And at the same time, there is a decision person who is going to decide, and I appreciate again, the example of how you've been able to toe this line, where do I step in? Where do I go with the flow and allow for the bigger movement to happen. So appreciate those so much. I really want to go further into your role now and how you're leading through I mean, now we're talking about a few years of COVID. And you're looking forward to trying to do this mission, and yet there's been so much need, right? There's just so much need throughout and your mission is very expansive.

So I'm curious as you look at the New York Urban League and your own leadership and how much you've guided the vision. I'm curious what comes to mind for you, as you say, you know, here's really what I believe for this organization. I've shifted this if you have at all shifted, you know our focus or even expanded our impact on the people we serve, but can you share you know, when These leadership moments that you've had, with you being at the helm of New York Urban League,

Arva: For the civil rights organization, it's either you know, what happened before George Floyd and life after George Floyd because all of our lives change just unbelievably in eight minutes, 46 seconds. So I think that the leadership lessons are broad. In the beginning, when COVID started, it was about, you know, what's our place and space? And how can we be the best support to the children and families that we serve, because it was all just so unknown when Governor Cuomo then Governor Cuomo sent us home, you know, I literally went home with like, two pens and a notebook, I figured, you know, we'd be home for a week and a half or so right? Never imagining what was about to come before us.

In the beginning, it was just, you know, we're doing these town of these virtual town halls, just trying to give people an understanding, because within our communities, it was like, Oh, well, if you know, you freeze, you know, ice or something like that, then you can't get cold. But it was just like, I mean, just like just crazy, ridiculous stereotypes and ideas and fables that were going on about COVID. And so it was literally like bringing on whether it was the head of Harlem Hospital, or whether it was bringing on elected officials who had privy to additional information was just about getting information out there, right, that a vaccine came out. And as we all know, there was some so much inequities around who would be able to access the vaccine, and then being able to be in contact with folks would say, literally, like, Alright, there's two vaccines that are available, if you can get there within the next hour calling and trying to get people to go and to get their vaccines are to be able to get appointments. And so there's different stages of it.

And then, like I said, in the middle of it came, George Floyd and the whole world because we were stopped, I had an opportunity to see something in real time. And it had a huge impact in our community. And for the first time going out to march and realizing Whoa, there's no more white people that this martson black people, which I've never experienced before in my life. And so, you know, I had people calling me and literally, they're just like, Hi, I'm like, hey, you know, you're Arbor rice. Yes. You know, we heard your black. Yes, I am black, you know, we heard you work with black people. Yes, we do work with black people, and just wanting to like, have this connection to blackness, which in some place in some spaces was very real and genuine and other places, they were just like, you know, can we just send you a check. And I'm like, you send us a check for what, right. And so trying to figure out who we're in this for the long haul, and who just want to make sure literally that they could check the box and just show that they're not racist, right. And so that just became a little bit of my life for a little while after George Floyd. And then what we decided to do was to create two initiatives as a result of both COVID and George Floyd. The first was our Small Business Solution Center, which was to deal with all the small businesses who, you know, had lost income and employees. And you know, we're trying to come back online, or figuring out how to, you know, whether it was to work out their back office operations, because they wanted to get a PPE loan, or, you know, whatever it was, but we wanted to help them through our Small Business Solutions Center.

And then the other side, we created something called our diversity and inclusion lab. And the DNI lab was really to talk to those corporations who said, you know, I want to eradicate racism. It's like, okay, I'm giving, you know, $40 million to eradicate racism, what have you really done? How can you do that? You know, you're looking at the squares that your Zoom meeting and realize that all the squares have white men in them. And so what do you want to do? How can you change that? And so we created the diversity and inclusion lab with some of our core partners and new partners and said, Look, if you'll you know, join hands with us and try to take on something that clearly hasn't been solved, right, all these years, and we're still living in a lot of places very segregated lives, how do we come together and work to create truly places that not only recognize and celebrate diversity, but are able to really build on inclusion, so that folks, no matter who they are, feel like they have a sense of belonging within their corporation? So long answer, but many points of leadership along the way, as you figured out what our role was, and helping with COVID. And then what kind of partnerships can we develop to the corporations who wanted to pair with us either, you know, just they wanted to be able to diversify their corporations?

Analiza: Arva could you share maybe an initiative that one of these businesses did with you through the diversity and inclusion lab? That sounds fascinating, and I love that you actually put people's not just money where their mouth is, but actually say like, let's do some work, like actual work that will create change?

Arva: Yeah, I'll give you two examples. So the diversity inclusion lab itself has certain components to it, right? So you become an actual member of the lab. And once you become a member of the lab, then it allows you to be in conversations, we call them, you know, courageous conversations about race. And so we have conversations about you know, how do you put together a supplier diversity program and or how do you move people from entry level to leadership level and so we're constantly doing kind of like workshops with them around how to address some of the issues of the diversity inclusion issues that they're having within their corporations, then we also have an opportunity for them to present so it's, you know, starting a career in sports or you know, move up in retail and so they'll be able to Macy's will be able to do a What we call a lunch and learn. And so then they could present their company, the Urban League curates the conversation, make sure that you know, it's well attended, thinks about who are the partners that it makes sense for us in order to make sure that kind of happens. And so every member of the lab has done a lunch and learn every member of the lab has, you know, participated in these conversations. But then there's certain things that folks did that were stand out as unique, right. And so two of them that will describe one was in the very, very beginning of COVID.

And the other one was just as recently as last week, the one that happened in the beginning of COVID, was a longtime partner of ours has been partners with the Urban League literally for decades. And after George Floyd, members of their community came to the leadership and we're just like, you know, what are we doing about this? Like, what are we doing about our diversity and inclusion? You know, what are we doing in order to to support our staff members, and so it was at the exact same time that the Urban League had just released our state of black New York and the state of black New York is a statistical analysis of how New Yorkers are faring, you know, against the majority white population and looks at in a couple of core and key areas in education and employment and health and criminal justice, I kind of where are we at in the Statistics found that you know, more than 50% of black New Yorkers have an average income of $50,000 or less? Well, you know, that doesn't go very far in New York City, right. And so we were putting together and talking about the statistics.

And so this particular partner of ours said, We want you to talk about the state of black, New York, with our entire staff. And so we did a presentation of the state of black New York, everybody was on Zoom broke out into smaller breakout groups had conversations with them about like, what was their reaction to some of the statistics talked about, like, you know, what is their proximity to blackness, right, so have regular interactions with some of the people that they claim that they want to have in their corporation, right. And so to me, it was a really big moment to be able to have that conversation across an entire company, and one that we had been partners with for so very long.

There's other smaller examples, and you know, having a conversation with the CEO who literally was in tears, because he had a focus group with some of the black women in his company. And they were talking about how they feel like they've been treated and how a sense of not belonging that they have as a result of working there. And he's like, uh, you know, I had no idea I didn't know. But so he's talking about and like I said, literally in tears about, you know, the situation that was there.

And then most recently, Odyssey, which is one of our partners, or one of our radio partners, just at a town hall conversation about how to use what's called breaking through glass, glass ceilings and cement walls. And just talking about how can black and brown folks, you know, progress in whether it's in the corporate space, nonprofit space? What have you? And what does that mean? What is a glass ceiling? Well, how does that differ from a cement wall? And what are some of the strategies that we can utilize in order to move through them? Because when we talk about diversity, you know, it's about talent? And so how do you have individual as the folks who are the talent to develop in order that they can take on more leadership roles to be recognized to be given the chance given the shot. And so that was the focus of that conversation. And that was part of a series that we did with them, focusing on the diversity efforts that they've done in Odyssey. So those are a few of the examples of the work that we've done,

Analiza: Over the conversations, how powerful they can be, because often information we don't even know, we don't know. So to have a CEO in tears, now, we will listen to the experiences of the black women who work for this person, he, the CEO cannot not know anymore, right? Your information is there. And now you know, you can now do better, right? You know, better gotta do better know better do better. So I want to actually clarify, you had named this. So I want to just share with everyone, glass ceiling versus concrete ceiling, glass ceiling. In general, we know that women have barriers to reaching the top positions of power. But what we don't know is that there's a concrete ceiling. So it's not enough to say glass ceiling for women of color, particularly black women, and then women of color. To have a concrete ceiling, you don't even know what the possibility is, it's not even in your head that it's reachable because you don't see it. And then you don't see it represented people, women of color in those positions.

And then second, it's not even within your purview to dream that big. So dream big was I mean, and so our final question, Arva, can you tell us like did you have in your head that you would be CEO like did you in your busting to the concrete ceiling? How did you take this concept of wanting to have this journey for black people, people of color to help them and I know that you have this family journey, but for yourself? How did you know for you, I want to be in this top position, this concrete ceiling, I'm going to bust through it. So can you share about that for you?

Arva: Did I grow up and decide one day that I wanted to be the head of a nonprofit organization and be involved in the civilian complaint Review Board? Absolutely not. That was not on my dream board. As a kid, I talked a lot in school. So because I talked a lot of people always told me that you should be a lawyer. So that was the only job aspiration that was given to me was like, Oh, she talks a lot. So she should be a lawyer. But it wasn't until I had been working in the nonprofit sector for a while. And I was trying to figure out what could be next for me that it came to be, wait a minute, the next thing for you to do is to actually lead one.

And so I've actually led three nonprofits who are very, very different along the way. But this has been running for the Urban League is the third time I've done this. And so it wasn't something that I concretely set out to do. But I've always said two things, my personal mission is to make a difference in the life of a girl. And so being able to do that is paramount. And what motivates me that I also always wanted to, and this is based on a gentleman that I just had a lot of admiration and respect for a gentleman named Richard Murphy, who is the original founder of the reelin centers for Children and Families, which became Harlem Children's Zone. And he was also the commissioner of the Department of Youth Services under Mayor Dinkins. And one of the initiatives that he created at that time was something called the beacon centers, which are after school community centers open in communities. And so one of the things that I always thought was amazing about Murphy is that he had an impact in the lives of children who never would know his name, right. So as a result of the work that he did, there's, you know, 1000s and 1000s of kids playing in the school centers, and that the work that he's done that has become the Harlem Children's Zone is just amazing. And, you know, a lot of people don't know his name, but his impact is amazing. And so that's what I've really modeled my life pattern after is to be able to make such an impact that people's New Yorkers lives of course, those girls but New Yorkers lives are better and bigger, because I would have been able to serve.

Analiza: I love that so much. Arva, with that, let's move to lightning round. Are you ready?

Arva: Okay.

Analiza: Okay, chocolate or vanilla?

Arva: Chocolate.

Analiza: Cooking or takeout.

Arva: Takeout.

Analiza: Climb a mountain or a jump from a plane?

Arva: Oh, my God. Climbing mountains.

Analiza: Have you ever worn socks with sandals?

Arva: Yes.

Analiza: How would you rate your karaoke skills? 10 being Mariah Carey?

Arva: Ah, ha. I'm gonna give myself a six.

Analiza: What's a recent book you read?

Arva: Hmm, what's a recent book I've read? I'm gonna have to go with the Bible.

Analiza: What's your favorite way to practice self care?

Arva: Going for tea?

Analiza: Hmm, what's a good professional development you've done?

Arva: I like to do board development training and how to specifically Imagine your board and then to do a job description of it and then figure out how to get there.

Analiza: What's your definition of a Boss Mama?

Arva: Michelle Obama and my mama.

Analiza: What advice would you give your younger self?

Arva: You are going to be fantastic. So just lean in.

Analiza: And where can we find you like LinkedIn? Or if you have any other social media?

Arva: Yes, LinkedIn. And you can also find me on Instagram, and also on Twitter @arvarice.

Analiza: Perfect. And then last question, final ask recommendation or any parting thoughts to share.

Arva: The first is that the only people that don't make mistakes are people that aren't doing anything. And it's something that I have to tell myself all the time. And just secondly, in relation to it is to extend ourselves the same grace that we extend to others.

Analiza: I love that so much. And it actually ticks out that perfectionism that's part of this white supremacy culture. So with that, lovely Arva thank you so much for the life story and these big lessons, I so appreciate you.

Arva: Oh, thank you so much.

Analiza: Thank you so much for carving out time today to hear today's podcast. Three things before you go. First, if you found it helpful, please leave a five star review. Second, please share with someone else you can share the link and posts on Facebook and say check it out. Lastly, I want to thank you for being a listener and you can go to get a free self care bonus called juice your joy at analizawolf.com/freebonus. Thank you so much.