Shows
I Want to Change the WorldQuick Update: Hello from Detroit!I'm back home!
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2024-03-0802 min
I Want to Change the WorldEp 23: The Question of FulfillmentIn episode 23, I welcome you back to the classroom to explore questions which led me to take myself back to "Do Gooder School" in the first place:
"Do I want to go back into the nonprofit/social impact space for the next step in my career post-sabbatical?"
“Do I need to be a professional do gooder to
feel like I'm making an impact in the world?”
"If I decide to go back into the social impact space, how can I do it in a way in which I maintain a sens...
2024-01-3141 minI Want to Change the WorldEp 22: Do Gooder School OrientationI don't feel like I've already been in Ghana for nine months, but I have! In just three months, it'll be time for me to go home and start my 9 to 5 life again.
Last month, I even officially started my job search. I polished my LinkedIn profile, updated my resume.
As I mentioned in the last episode, being in the space where I could choose to shift away from doing the kind of work I was doing before, which was working in the nonprofit sector, for
me is an invitation to step back and ask...
2023-12-1726 min
I Want to Change the WorldEp 21: Making Volunteering Sexy w/ Dave ColesIs it just me or does the world kind of seem like a flaming dumpster fire right now? The list of issues and worthy causes include things in the headlines today like the humanitarian crisis in Gaza to ongoing issues poverty, climate change, homelessness, the loneliness epidemic, and on and on.
How do we choose which cause to pour our limited time and energy into? How do we decide whether to serve a cause at all? How do we define what it means to make an impact in the world?
These are questions that my...
2023-10-3147 min
I Want to Change the WorldEp 20: Do's and Dont's for Doing Good w/ Dave ColesLet me start by confessing that I was originally set on calling this episode “Laying Down the ‘White Man’s Burden’”.
After all my interview guest, Dave Coles, is a white British man who, as a young, idealistic volunteer, ventured from his home in the UK to make a difference in Africa. Inspired by a steady diet of colonialism-inspired media narratives and the lyrics of a popular Christmas song by Band Aid, he was sure people in Africa were waiting for people just like him to come and help end their despair by doing something...
2023-09-2644 minI Want to Change the WorldEp 19: What I Thought I KnewSix months into my sabbatical year in Ghana, I've met new people, seen new sights, and had LOTS of new experiences, like getting malaria, going to a leprosarium (as in, a place where doctors treat leprosy) to see a dermatologist, and swimming in the ocean, etc. I've approached many of these new encounters with preconceived ideas about what they must be like. Yet, over these months I've found that I've had to keep letting go of my preconceived ideas, the things I thought I knew, to keep up with what I've been learning in real time through actual experience.
2023-09-1217 min
I Want to Change the WorldEp 18: Seeing Opportunity Wherever You Are w/ Kindra Parker"Every time I look around, I see something that can be done. And it just really excites me that Ghana is so ripe for not only business, but investments, collaboration with with local people." - Kindra Parker, Entrepreneur and Founder/President of MentorHer Ghana.
Episode 18 features my fourth interview in the series "I Want to Change the World...So I Moved to Africa?!". My guest, Kindra Parker is a true "Renaissance woman"! Her personal and professional background has been shaped by her passion for music, philanthropy, marketing, event production, and entrepreneurship. As I talked...
2023-07-3045 min
I Want to Change the WorldEp 17: I'm a BeginnerIt’s now been 4 months since I moved to Ghana for a sabbatical
of sorts. But, to be honest, up until a few days ago when my work contract with the organization that I had been working for in the States ended, I’d spent a lot of my time being physically in Ghana but mentally thousands of miles away.
I’d often be on my computer during the day doing my contract work (alongside personal projects) or, even when I wasn't actually working, I'd be thinking about work that I needed to do or that I wanted to get done b...
2023-07-0620 min
I Want to Change the WorldBonus Mini-Episode: "Connecting to Culture through Literature" w/ Noelle OjoAt the end of episode 16, "Black. American. In Africa.", I said that I'd be sharing a bonus episode with a few more more gems that came out of my interview with Noelle Ojo, author of The Blaxit Effect: The African-American's Guide to Relocating to Africa and US Foreign Service Officer. This snippet, which was just too good for me not to repurpose, is about how reading fiction from a culture can be a way to gain insight and feel a sense of connection to it's culture.
See below for the reading list that Noelle...
2023-06-1406 min
I Want to Change the WorldEp 16: Black. American. In Africa. w/ Noelle Ojo“I think sometimes it's just as a society, they try to box us in, especially in the United States, you can only be you have to be this to be black. And when you
start to expand your world, especially amongst black people, then you don't buy into that as much.” – Noelle Ojo, author of The Blaxit Effect: The African-American’s Guide to Relocating to Africa (2022) and Foreign Service Officer with USAID.
Episode 16 features my third interview in my series called “I Want to Change the World…So I moved to Africa?!”. I had the pleasure of int...
2023-05-2049 minI Want to Change the WorldEp 15: After Two Months in Ghana...Given that I've now officially been in Ghana for two whole months AND I just applied for my one year residency permit a few days ago, it seems like a good time to pause and reflect on what my major takeaways from my time here have been, so far.
What reflections come up for you as you listened to mine? As always, I’d love to hear from you! Feel free to drop me a line on IG @missjanaiashley or via email at janai@gilmorefacilitationllc.com.
2023-05-0720 min
I Want to Change the WorldEp 14: How to *Not* Be a "White Savior" w/ Casey Kempton“For me, I the way I view the bakery is really important. I view it as like a tool, or a step, which the people use. I picture the bakery as being like one rung on a ladder for them. Whereas I think a savior mentality is more of like, I personally am the ladder. And I think if you keep in mind that your what you're doing is just
kind of one step for them, it kind of it both relieves the pressure to fix someone's situation, but it also kind of eliminates this dependency that charities are cr...
2023-04-2249 min
I Want to Change the WorldEp 13: "Blessed to Be A Blessing" with Eunice Cox“I have no concept of privilege shame. It’s that I’m blessed. I recognize that I am blessed, and I am blessed for a purpose. And that purpose is to be a blessing to other people. So, my life, if I think about it, is framed by this. [When] I go to Ghana, and I see the poverty around me in my village, I ask myself, “How can I be a blessing in this?” - Eunice Cox, Owner of The Beach House, Ankwanda
It’s hard to believe that it’s been over a month since I arrived in G...
2023-04-0747 minI Want to Change the WorldEp 12: Finding My PlaceWhen people ask me why I wanted to move to Ghana, I usually say that I was going there to rest (in spite of the weighty to do list and the stack of books that I've brought along with me!). I would say I was going there to feel the same lightness and serenity that I'd felt on past trips here to visit my friend, walking along the beach, looking out at the ocean. I was going to be transformed through time away.
In other words, I was thinking of this time as a...
2023-03-2320 minI Want to Change the WorldEp 11: Hello from Accra!I made it to Ghana! I woke up this morning (March 7, 2023) amazed and in awe to find myself here. In this episode, I share some reflections on the journey that's led me here. I invite you to think about an idea that's been knocking at the door to your heart asking you to partner with it so it can, in the words of Elizabeth Gilbert in Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, "be escorted out of the ether and into the realm of the actual."
I know from personal experience that it's a journey. As a coach, I...
2023-03-0817 minI Want to Change the WorldEp 10: How Are We Doing?Inner transformation work is outer transformation work. Personal development is professional development. Those statements are as true whether you spend your days making widgets or organizing political initiatives around climate change.
I started off my career wanting to change the world, but showing up in my work and in my life often paralyzed by perfectionism and anxiety. And I learned through personal experience that even when you leave your job and move across the ocean to escape the forces you feel are holding you back from being at your best, most creative, most innovative and productive self...
2023-02-1415 minI Want to Change the WorldEp 9: Chasing My DreamsThe theme of this season of my life must be "chasing dreams". I'm podcasting. I'm training to be a coach. I'm preparing to leave the organization I love and where I've spent my career, to date, to rest for a while and then dive into building my business. And in less than a month, I'm heading to Ghana to stay for at least 3 months, but perhaps much longer.
All of this is amazing to me. For years I was stuck, held back from moving towards some of my biggest goals by fear - fear of failure, fear...
2023-02-0719 minI Want to Change the WorldEp 8: Learning How to FeelFor many of my 35 years, I built up the skills and practices of eating my feelings, stuffing down my feelings, lashing out my feelings, scrolling or swiping my feelings, escaping my feelings with my imagination, or busying away my feelings.
The idea of feeling my feelings is a relatively new skill that I’ve been learning and practicing over the past year or so.
Honestly, I think learning to feel has opened me up more to life, to a broader, deeper, richer, and maybe more fully human experience.
But I’m a beginner. And...
2023-01-3112 minI Want to Change the WorldEp 7: It Starts in Your Head.Hello from San Juan!
This episode may feel like a wild, unpredictable ride! I'm in Puerto Rico for Rachel Rodgers' "ROI: the Millionaire’s Summit" and it's inspired me with quite a few thoughts about my thoughts about being here!
In this episode, I talk about how learning to question my thoughts has played a critical role in helping me continuously unpack the internal obstacles that keep me from getting to "dreamspace" - a place where I'm taking the actions I want to take and being how I want to be in any given situation....
2023-01-2414 min
I Want to Change the WorldEp 6: "Wait! The Matrix Is in Me?!" w/ Petra VegaWhen I started at my first “real” (read: salaried with benefits) job in the community development field, I just knew I’d made it! I was going to get paid to do what I’d always wanted to do – make Detroit a better place for people like my neighbors and myself.
To my 24 (ish) year old mind, I was living my happily ever after.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I’d carried certain beliefs about myself, my community, “the way things are”, the impact of my work, and much more to the work. As I was...
2023-01-1747 minI Want to Change the WorldEp 5: "How You Gon' Love the World?"On Wednesday, I’m going to a funeral for someone who was very dear to me. Mrs. Sophia Ellis was my high school German teacher at Martin Luther King Jr. Senior High School in Detroit.
Over the 22 years that I knew her, I had the chance to witness her being herself, loving herself, giving herself permission to show up and be seen. As I grew up, I started to take in how radical it was for her to choose to love herself, to be seen, and have unconditional self-worth when in every way imaginable that cut against the...
2023-01-1013 minI Want to Change the WorldEp 4: Change: From the Inside Out“How we are at the small scale is how we are at the large scale.”
“What we practice at a small scale can reverberate to the largest scale.”
- Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by adrienne maree brown (p.52)
As I talk about in the very first episode of the podcast, I started off my journey as an aspiring world changer actually just wanting to solve the problems that I’d seen in my community and my overcrowded high school as a student in Detroit.
Driven at least as much by a desire...
2022-12-2717 minI Want to Change the WorldEp 3: It Don't Always Be RacismIt might surprise you to learn that I was inspired to record this episode because of experiences that I had earlier this year when I traveled to Ghana for vacation (Note: Join the "I Want to Change the World Podcast Community" to see pics and posts from my Ghana trip).
I felt privileged to be able to make the trip. At home I certainly don't feel rich. I'"normal" middle-class American.
However, being able to afford such luxuries as airfare to Ghana, vaccinations and medications from the travel clinic, visa fees, etc. put into perspective...
2022-12-1319 min
I Want to Change the WorldEp 2: "How did you make it?"We live in a “you’re _, therefore you’re supposed to be like _ ”- kind of world. We don’t get to pick the stereotypes or expectations that come along with showing up in the world as ourselves.
I show up in the world as myself (i.e., black and from the east side of Detroit, and also “articulate”, intellectually curious, well-traveled, etc.) and sometimes that surprises people.
Sometimes that surprise is expressed in the form of a question: “How did you make it?”.
I used to take offense at the question, but now, as I state in...
2022-11-2917 minI Want to Change the WorldEp 1: I'm from DetroitWelcome to episode 1! When I asked myself where do I begin, my mind went to Detroit. I’m from Detroit. And that’s where the fire in my belly for challenging injustice started. In this episode I share (at least part of) the story of how my eyes were opened to the reality of inequality and where my desire to make a difference in the world. I also ask you to reflect on where YOUR desire to create a better world came from. I'd love to hear what your reflection brings up for you!
You can drop me a line at jan...
2022-11-1514 min
I Want to Change the WorldI Want to Change the World - TrailerWelcome to "I Want to Change the World"! In this trailer, I share a little background on who I am and the journey that's led me to create this podcast.
As with every episode, I include questions to encourage YOU reflect on your journey as an aspiring world changer. If you want to drop me a line with your response to the questions below, hit me up on Instagram @missjanaiashley or send me an at janai@gilmorefacilitationllc.com.
How do you see your role in changing the world today?
What are some of the key experiences o...
2022-11-0403 min
PipocariaRepresentatividade Gorda nos Cinemas e na TVNo episódio de hoje, Gi Vasconcelos recebe Janai e Mari Bastos pra falar sobre como são as representações gordas nas séries e filmes. Entre experiências e observações, apontamos os problemas, os pontos positivos, e porque é tão importante que nos vejamos nas telas.
Estão na mesa:
Gi Vasconcelos
Janai Coelho
Mari Bastos
Mi da Pipoca
Janai: Anne with an E, Dumplin, On my Block
Mari: Euphoria, Gilmore Girls, Good Girls e as Blogueiras Ju Romano, Relaxa aí Fofa, Alexandrismo
Gi: Drop Dead Diva, Shrill, e blogueira Love Maltine
Edição: Vitor Bathaus
Trilha: Laikabot
Assi...
2020-09-2245 min