Increasing Consciousness to Influence Systematic Change in Your Organization – An Interview with Aang Lakey

What does it take to influence positive change within your organization? Find out as we get to know Aang Lakey!

Growing up in severe poverty with parents who struggled with substance abuse, Aang’s life took a pivotal turn at age 12 during a conflict over racism between their beloved aunt and father. This moment sparked their awareness and began their path of questioning deeply ingrained beliefs. 

In this episode, Aang recounts their transition from skepticism towards spirituality to fully integrating it into their identity, influenced by the loss of a best friend and the guidance of mentors. Aang’s mission now focuses on promoting equity in professional settings, ensuring that everyone has access to resources and opportunities. Listen in as Aang shares how leaders can foster inclusive environments by recognizing and addressing the unique needs of individuals from diverse backgrounds. (Interview has been edited for readability.)

Can you just share a little bit about your own journey of increasing consciousness?

Aang Lakey: I have two parts to this. One is my awakening journey to increasing my consciousness from a general awareness standpoint, and one is a little more spiritual. I’ll start by talking about my general awakening experience. I grew up in severe poverty. I had all kinds of different things happening in my life as a child. We were frequently homeless. My parents both struggled with substances, in and out of jail, and so I lived in an environment that was not conducive to really thinking and processing what was happening because we were constantly in survival mode.

I had my first awakening moment when I must have been around 12 years old. My all-time favorite aunt, I loved her so much. We rarely got to see her, but occasionally, on Christmases, I would see her and her husband. It was one of these Christmases that really got to me in that she was really big on anti-racism work, and she and my dad got into it because my dad was using a really ignorant word. I grew up in this environment. People use this word all the time, and I had no idea of the really derogatory context and nature of this. I remember that was the first time because my aunt and my dad got into a fight. My aunt left.

I didn’t see her again for a couple of years, and so it was like, for me, as a young kid, I didn’t understand the importance of the word. I didn’t understand that there are people out there who are committed to their values in terms of not wanting to be around that. That was the first experience that I had to open up my own thoughts on what am I being taught in the environment that I’m in, and what does it mean to question those beliefs? It took me a few years to sort out that initial interaction. I say a few years. I just mean it took me a few years to be okay with the fact that, my aunt, I didn’t see her for a long time. It took me probably two decades to get rid of some of the racism and the other ignorance that I grew up with, and so that was my entryway.

Skipping a whole bunch of my story here but I ended up being adopted by this aunt when I was about 17 years old, and I had just lost my best friend at the time. I was suspended for 30 days from school, and I was going down the wrong path. She helped me, and I got to see in action every day what it was like to question some of the beliefs that I had grown up with because that was the first time that I had ever been outside of that environment, in that context. Thankfully, my aunt knew that I needed to get away from that. She told me, “You will go to college, and you will go as far away from here as you can.” I went to northeast Vermont, and I went to school there. I stayed there for 10 years. I didn’t leave, and I learned so much from all of the wonderful humans there.

I don’t know if you know anything about Vermont, but they are just really community centered and all full of love and so just wonderful, wonderful people there. I got to learn and I got to process in a safe environment, which was really, really helpful for me, because my – the reason I stayed so long is because I went to undergrad and I went to my first grad program there, and my first grad program was in social work. I really had to dig into a lot of – I call them my ignorant beliefs, but I know sometimes people get offended with that language. I grew up in this environment where I still have thoughts that will come to me, even 20 years removed from that situation and that circumstance. I have to pause and say what is this thought, and where did it come from? Why do I have it, and how is it impacting the decisions that I’m making right now? Thankfully, my MSW program was a really safe space for me to get to explore that. I started a little bit of it in my undergrad program.

The real meat of the work for me was in my graduate program, which is also the same time that I started my yoga journey as well. That’s the more spiritual aspect for me of really digging into meditation and mindfulness. How do I incorporate this into my life? When I was younger, I thought that was woo-woo stuff, and it wasn’t for me. I made fun of people all the time, and so the dichotomy of the environments and the transition for me I think is always – it makes me laugh.

What a massive transition! Did you have a sense of spirituality as you were growing up as a kid, or was this new for you during college?

Aang Lakey: I grew up in a very, very religious environment, which is, I think, interesting considering. It wasn’t the kind of religion that I think the majority of Americans cling to. It was a very rigid and very like this is what you will believe and this is how you will act and this is how you will be, and anything outside of this, you will go to a bad place. I really stayed away from anything related to religion, anything related to spirituality, because I had such a bad experience with religion that – at the core premise of it, it’s really great information, but when it’s twisted by organizations for their own purposes, I really, really struggled with that. I stayed away from all forms of religion, all forms of spirituality, and I really didn’t start calling myself spiritual until maybe a few years ago.

I think, for me, it was coming into the idea of I had been practicing yoga and practicing meditation and breath work. I’ve been in the community for a long time, but I had never really considered myself to be a spiritual person. Part of my own self-reflective process is, if this is what spirituality is, then why would you not say that you are spiritual? With my own self-reflection and being involved in different communities who really valued that space, it became an easier way for me to identify with other like-minded people, and so I started taking it on a little bit more. I definitely avoided it for a long time because of the negative experiences that I had with the church and with organized religion in general.

In this season of life, what is your mission personally and professionally? 

Aang Lakey: It’s so interesting, because I have been driven by a key experience that I had. I shared a little bit. My best friend passed away when I was 17, and that really shifted the trajectory of my life. It took me probably 10 years to sort through my own feelings of guilt and shame related to his passing and who he was in the world and also the fact that I survived. I lost him. Probably, the next few years were a miserable experience for me because I felt like I didn’t deserve to live because he was such an incredible human being, the most beautiful soul that I’d ever met in my life, and in addition to just the kind and compassionate human being that he was, he also – he had so much going for him in his life. He already had college scholarships. He was working full-time and taking care of his mother, who was a in a wheelchair, and he had a younger brother that he was also financially supporting.

I really struggled with losing him. I spent a lot of time thinking about how do I be in the world, especially knowing that I lived in and he didn’t? What I came to the – to with this understanding was I could be that person that he was in the world. I could be that kind and compassionate person. At the time, like I said, I was going downhill. There was no way back.

I had a mentor who sat me down and said, “You can go this way. You can follow everyone else in your life that you’ve known. You can go to jail. You can get addicted to substances. You can do all of the things, or you can go this way. You can go a completely different direction, and you can define who you are.” That was a really, really impactful moment for me to realize that I could actually be that person that he was, and I could do the things that I thought he was destined to do in the world.

That has honestly been my personal mission for a really long time to just be a kind and compassionate soul to anyone in the world who needs it, and as I started getting involved in different professional communities, it has also been something that has resonated with who I am and who I want to be because I didn’t have those social connections and those financial resources and the networking and everything that’s required to – in many cases, required to advance. I just started doing whatever I could do to promote and empower other people who were in those same circumstances and to encourage people that they can learn and grow from whatever happens to them in their lives and to use that as fuel to help them navigate the next steps in their journey and so a little bit of a personal and a professional goal there. In the workplace specifically, the same things that I’ve been talking about here. I try really hard to make sure that I am treating people the way that I think that they should be treated. Especially in some of the environments and the teams that I’ve been a part of, treating people well and decent has not always been a part of that, and so I try really hard to bring that aspect to my work. I try really hard to bring equity into what I do and how I do it in terms of making sure that everyone has access to different resources, different opportunities, and making sure that everyone has access to safe spaces and mentors and those kinds of things, and so I think I’ve been pretty consistent. You said at this time in my life, but generally speaking, I think I’ve been pretty consistent in that.

How would you define the term ‘equity’, and what does it look like to have equity within an organization?

Aang Lakey: The way I look at equity is it’s giving everyone an equal playing field, and I talk about equity as being very different from equality. Equality is we treat everyone the same, regardless, but the reality is, just like me when I was growing up, I didn’t have access to certain things. I didn’t have access to people who were educated. I didn’t have access to financial resource. I didn’t have access to half of the things that I needed. If we treated everyone the same and we gave them all – let’s say, financially, we gave them all $50,000. That $50,000 is going to go much farther for someone who already has $150,000 versus me. I didn’t have anything, and so that $50,000 would not have gotten me nearly as far as it might’ve gotten someone else.

It’s about understanding the difference between content and context and also the difference between knowledge and competency. When I’m working with leaders, I often get asked to give them what do I do in this situation? The reality of the situation is that every situation is different, the context, the people, the environment, the experiences, and so I could tell them what I think would be the most appropriate action or course of action to take. The reality is that that course of action is only going to work if the rest of the context is in alignment. I recently had an experience where I had to tell someone I’m giving you this advice because it fits with your context, but I would not give the same advice to the person who is literally in the next hallway or the next office over.

The context matters in the work that I do. When we talk about equity, it’s about what is the context of the individual that I’m working with? If the person that I’m working with doesn’t have a network and they don’t have financial resources and they don’t have education, it’s going to look very differently than working with someone who has had a social network. They’ve been around their parents who, let’s say, for whatever reason, they have financial assets. They have social assets. They were educated by their family members who all have advanced degrees. It’s just a different experience, and so it’s recognizing the context in that situation and being able to apply the knowledge competently to fit the context. 

What’s a practical example of this within an organization?

 Aang Lakey: I think an example, similar to what I was getting at a moment ago, is we have two leaders in one of the organizations that I worked with. I do a lot of equity work, and so the conversation that we were having was responding to feedback about perceived inequity in the hiring process. This person that asked for my advice has never had an experience of where she, in particular, hired someone without going through the appropriate channels, and I’ll just start by saying that I know that it happens. There are many reasons, and there’s all kinds of background for why someone would choose to hire someone without going through the appropriate channels. The first thing that I shared with this person is I think you’re making an excellent decision. You’re choosing to tackle the misperception.

You’re going to say right up front here’s what someone said. Here’s the hiring process that we have. Here’s the position that we’re hiring for. Here’s how long it’s been in the system. Here’s exactly what the next steps in the system are and standing up and saying this position has not been pre-chosen. Whoever is chosen for this position will have gone through the appropriate channels. Now, the reality of this circumstance is, for her integrity and her character, she’s able to do that.

We have another person in our office who recently hired someone without going through the appropriate channels. For me to tell him that he should stand up and say that, it would compromise his integrity and his character, which would – he would lose trust within the organization because he doesn’t have that standing to say we – this process is what it is. We’re going through the process with this. People have seen him hire someone without going through that process, and so for him to stand up there and to question that or to say this is what we’re doing, it would have another perception that could be misconstrued, which would compromise his integrity in that circumstance. As leaders, if we’re able to recognize the context of the circumstance and, also, how does it play out in the circumstances that we’re in, so what – the environment, the people that are involved in those kinds of things, then we’re able to take the best decision and the best route possible.

As an example, with this other person, if he is able to recognize I just had to hire someone because I needed to get someone in here ASAP to do this, then he could still address the complaint and provide feedback about how they’re being equitable in that process without compromising his integrity if he just shifted his perspective a little bit. He would have to rebuild trust, and he would have to say here’s why this person was hired. They met all of the qualifications, but we needed to have someone in here, whatever. I don’t know what his reasoning was, but whatever that is, if he can share that and rebuild that trust, then he can take that next step to help reassure people that they’re being equitable in that process. 

How does your work differ from other leadership coaching or conscious leadership work?

Aang Lakey: I think there’s a couple of different things that I think makes my work unique. I’m going to start by saying my background is in violence prevention, and so I talk a lot about equity. I talk about facilitating equity, and I also talk about consciousness in terms of a couple of things. When I think about consciousness, I think about it as just a general awareness of ourselves, of other people, and how we all interact with each other and what that means for us, what that means for them, and what that means for the broader context. First of all, let me also say that I love conscious leadership as a theoretical perspective and a framework for leadership. I think it’s fantastic. I think, the core difference between what I offer when I talk about bringing consciousness into leadership or integrating consciousness and leadership, it’s about recognizing the power differentials. It’s about recognizing the core components of equity and how they come into play in our working dynamics, and it’s also – comes back to that knowledge versus competence framework.

If I know something is important, it’s one thing to know it, and it’s completely different thing to be able to competently apply that in practice in the circumstances that require it. A lot of times, people will practice different skills, which is good, and they’ll practice those skills so much that it becomes reflexive for them, which is what we want leaders to do. What we also need leaders to do is to recognize that that skill is not always relevant in every circumstance, and so unless they have the consciousness to be able to say that this is who I am and these are the biases that I’m bringing to the table, this is who this person is and these are the biases that they’re bringing to the table, and how – all of the other factors that are coming into play, the organizational structure, the policies and procedures related to that, the leadership dynamics of the other leaders and managers that are involved, all play a part in that context. If you can increase your consciousness as a leader, then you are much more likely to be able to recognize when the context calls for something that might not necessarily be considered the best course of action, and you can be able to confidently apply whatever that knowledge or that skill is to the context as it’s being presented instead of having someone come to you and you giving them this is the cookie cutter approach to leadership because this is what I was told to do in this circumstance. Bringing equity into our work means we are able to recognize that not everyone is going to come to us with the same background, and if we have three people come to us about the exact same problem, those three people, more than likely, are all going to require a different approach. As leaders, we have to be competent enough to reflexive – well, consciously and reflexively respond to that person in that context.

You just brought up the example of three individuals coming with the same concern. Can you give us an example of that? 

Aang Lakey: Let’s say social capital. Let’s say you’ve got three different individuals who are coming to you. It doesn’t matter where you are, what level you are in the organization, but you’ve got three people who come to you. One person may be from a marginalized community, whether it’s a person of color, whether it is a non-binary, or someone who identifies outside of the sexual norm, or whoever. One person might be from an underrepresented community. One person might come from a disempowered background, whether it’s from lack of financial resources, lack of education, or something along those lines, and one person may come from a school of – I’ve been to Stanford and Harvard, and my entire family has been to Stanford and Harvard. They have a knowledge and understanding that the other two groups might not have.

A lot of what I do is I talk about intersectionality. Of course, when we talk about underrepresented groups, typically, a lot of the other areas come into play, and we have to be mindful of that as well. For right now, I’ll just use these as three separate examples. Let’s say it’s a woman of color. We know that, historically, women have been disenfranchised and marginalized, and we also know that people of color have been marginalized. One thing that we could do as a leader is be able to recognize what does that person as a female person of color need that this person who, let’s say, hypothetically, is a white male, who’s been to Stanford and Harvard, and also has six generations, who’ve also done that? I’m going to use those two because they’re very, very extreme examples, but that person who doesn’t have any social capital, they don’t have any mentors. They don’t have any networks of people who can help them. They probably don’t have an education that is comparable. They probably don’t have the professional background that is going to be required, if the example is helping them get promoted, we’ll say.

Let’s say the example is to help them get promoted, so you’ve got this one person. Let’s say that, outside of the norm, they may have a quality education. Let’s say Stanford or Harvard because that’s the same as this other person over here. What they don’t have because of their marginalized or underrepresented background might be social capital from before that or financial capital from the environment that they grew up in, and so if they don’t have either the social connections or the networking opportunities that the other person has – personally, if it was me, I would work with them on how do we build your network? How do we get you mentors? How do we get you coaches, and how do we use that to our advantage to leverage what you do have, which is your Harvard or your Stanford education? How do we use that to get them to wherever it is that they want to go?

Now, the same question with this other person is they probably already have mentors. They probably already have had coaches or at least parents or family members who have been able to help them to figure out who do I need to talk to? How do I need to talk to them and those kinds of things? If we’re talking about helping someone get promoted in that, it could be as simple as do they have mentors? Do they not have mentors? Do they have sponsors? Do they not have sponsors? How does their background come in to play in those circumstances? We know, historically, that people of color often have less financial resources, have less social capital, and have less access to whoever it is that they need access to, and so if we know that right off the bat, then we can help them get that and that will help them get promoted.

This other person, what is it about them if they already have all of those connections, they already have all of that clout, we’ll say? Is it a personality issue? Is it an issue where they don’t get along with other people in their workplace? What is it that’s preventing them from getting promoted? It’s just going to look like a different conversation and recognizing who has what, and what do they need to get to the next level right? When we talk about equity, it’s about giving people the resources that they need based on the circumstances that they’re in.

This all seems to start with the leader’s own consciousness of themselves. Is that true?

Aang Lakey: Yes. I think why it’s so important for leaders to work on their own consciousness first is, because of the unique situation that they’re in, they have a lot of influence and they have a lot of credibility with individuals in their organizations, and people are looking to them to set the example. Now, when it comes to processing bias that we have, we’re talking about all kinds of things that we learned that we didn’t even know that we learned, and so when we think about – let me use myself as an example. I constantly struggled with having racist thoughts based on how I was growing up. I also really struggled with homophobia. I was homophobic for a really long time. I didn’t think that there was anything other than a masculine and feminine in the world and all of those things that I grew up with. If I had not taken the time to ask myself do I actually believe these things to be true and, if I don’t believe them to be true, what do I have to do to make sure that I don’t bring those thoughts and those feelings into the dynamics that I’m having – and so let’s say I’m a leader, and I’m working with individuals. If I know that I have unconscious bias related to racism, sexism, homophobia, whatever it is, then I can be conscious and be aware of that as I’m coming to the table.

Now, the problem with a lot of socialization is our egos are massive, and trying to manage them in the middle of conversations if we’ve never had to question it before is really, really hard to do. When our ego starts coming into play, if we don’t have the ability to say is this my ego or is this something that I was socialized to believe, that maybe I don’t actually believe to be true, and when we are in this state of mindful or conscious practice, then we’re able to look at it. We’re able to take a step back, and we’re able to say these are the thoughts that I’m having related to this. These are the bias that I can see that I’m having, that I can feel that I’m having in my body. Is this a conversation that I need to have right now, or do I need to take a step back? If I am able to have this conversation right now, is the person that I’m sitting across from able to have the conversation right now? Maybe my unconscious bias triggered something in them, and they’re all of a sudden like I don’t feel safe. As a leader, it’s so critical for them to do their own work. If they haven’t done their own work first, then they bring that baggage into their interpersonal dynamics, and their interpersonal dynamics are going to disrupt the dynamic of the person sitting across from them. If I am triggered in a conversation, that’s going to trigger the other person, and if you have multiple people, it’ll trigger multiple people.

The flip side of that, as a leader, if you are able to say pause, breathe, I’m having this experience and then say I’m so sorry – I said this and I don’t know why I said that. I don’t believe that to be true, and I don’t mean that to be true. I want to make sure that I’m taking care of you and I’m taking care of everyone else. I want to make sure that people continue to feel safe. Can we just pause, and I will acknowledge that I said or did something that maybe I shouldn’t have or the other way around? If someone else is getting heated and they’re getting – their face is turning red and maybe they’re raising their voice. As a leader, if you can recognize that in a way that is calming in your presence and also say I’m hearing you, some frustration in your voice, and I’m noticing that you might be a little uncomfortable. Should we pause and maybe take a break? Should we come back to this? Should I give you time to think, whatever it is that they want to say?

If they don’t have the ability, the self-awareness to say these are my own feelings or this is how they’re coming at me, then we just end up in this cycle of our – my ego is going to trigger your ego, and we’re just going to keep triggering each other until someone finally stops. Honestly, in organizations, you see it all the time, but it never stops. It just pauses, and then, as soon as we’re back together with that person, that same dynamic kicks right back up. We just go at it and at it, and we’re both trying to prove that we’re right. If we can bring consciousness into this dynamic, then we can pause that, and we can start to repair whatever it was that may have triggered that or caused that interrupted interpersonal dynamic in the first place.

Although we’re talking about issues of race, gender, and sexuality, it seems like this also pertains to different personalities and values in the workplace. Those can be so triggering without a sense of awareness or consciousness of what I’m bringing to the table.

Aang Lakey: I will say that a lot of the work that I do with people – even though technically I work in diversity and inclusion and I do equity work and I call myself a social worker, everything that I’m saying, it helps everyone, regardless. If you can manage yourself and your emotions, then every interpersonal interaction that you’re going to have is going to be enhanced, whether it’s your partner, whether it’s your family members, whether it’s the people that you work with.

I’m a big proponent of bringing consciousness into everything that we do. My professional background happens to be working with leaders, and that’s what I like to do because they have a lot more influence than just your everyday person.

Over the years, you’ve worked with the Army National Guard, US Navy, US Coast Guard, and the US Department of State. Why have you chosen these environments to live out your mission?

Aang Lakey: I’ll start by saying at first it wasn’t a choice. I joined the Army because I needed a way out. It gave me that and even though I have my own feelings about the Army and my experiences there, but at the end of the day, it gave me a way out of poverty. It set me up on the path that I was on. I’ll start by saying that, in the beginning, it wasn’t a choice. It was a dire need, and I end up staying for a couple of reasons and that is – I shared briefly with one of you in a – with one of our previous conversations that we have these massive structures that are – out of necessity, require people to come into them and to do really unfortunate things, I’ll say. Whether it’s the military services, or some other branch of Homeland Security, or something along those lines, we have to ask people to come into those circumstances, and they have to be in a certain kind of way of life. Specifically, with the military services, they have a background of recruiting from impoverished communities because those people don’t have any other choice.

I talked very briefly earlier about intersectionality, and one thing that we know is impoverished communities lack education. They lack financial resources. They lack social capital. They lack all of these other areas that many people come into the world with. Even if you don’t grow up impoverished, you still get access to some of these other areas, but when we talk about impoverished communities, they’re lacking everything. One of the key elements of the work that I do is that socialization of ignorance, and unfortunately, it comes from, many, many cases, impoverished communities not having access to all of these things that people need to function in the world. If you have access to education, then you can learn that, actually, we’re not really that different from people who are LGBT, or who are a different skin tone, or whatever it is. If you have financial resources, then you’re – you don’t have to worry about surviving every day, which pulls you out of that fight or flight mode and doesn’t prompt your ego every five seconds to react, react, react, react, and all of these components that come into play in the work that I do.

Just like me growing up in that environment, I was – hands down, anyone you talk to that knew me then, I was an ignorant, terrifying human being. I meet people sometimes who knew me back then, and they’re like, “Wait. What? No, no.” For me, it’s about helping people who don’t necessarily have access to some of the things that they needed, whenever it was. Especially in the military services, you’re talking – these people are between 20 and 40 years old, and so sometimes, when they go into the military, they serve for 20 years. They still never were given the opportunity to get an education, to get financial security above and beyond a retirement package and those kinds of things. They sometimes are not able to get some of the social capital that they need and other things.

They carry these really toxic beliefs with them, whatever they are. I won’t go into all of them. We’ve talked about a lot of them, racism, sexism, homophobia, and if they are never given the opportunity to question some of those beliefs and why they should question those beliefs, then I don’t think we’re ever going to get to where we need to get as a global community. So much of the work that I’m doing right now is centered around how do we increase the global consciousness, not just the United States, not just third-world countries, but how do we – as a global community, how do we raise our consciousness so we can reach the next evolution for ourselves? The military services and some of the other areas that I’ve worked in, they have a lot of people who’ve never had to question things before, and if we’re going to start anywhere, might as well start with those.

Talk to us about the connection between consciousness and the prevention of violence, specifically in the military. 

Aang Lakey: Let me start by saying with this one that, had I not been in a violence prevention position in the military, I don’t know that I ever would have consciously been able to put together many of the concepts that I have been able to. For me, when I first started, I was doing sexual and domestic violence work in the military. If you know anything about that world, it’s so, so hard to work with individuals who constantly feel betrayed not only by the person who perpetrated harm on them but also by the organization, having to go through the criminal justice system and having to put up with their commanders and their leadership teams and their environment that they look to as family and have them call them all kinds of names and to ostracize them, to totally cut them out of their world when they come forward with this. I spent the first few years going hard at crisis intervention. How do I help these individuals make it through? Then I really started struggling with the organization is doing a terrible job. How do we help them be better so that that – and if the organization is better, then we can help the individuals who are going through that process.

Then that transitioned into how do we actually just stop this before it happens? In my research journey of stopping it before it happens – actually, in my first graduate program and in my second graduate program, I talk a lot about this concept. How do we prevent violence before it occurs? There’s a lot of research out there that talks about the connection between various forms of violence and how all of those forms of violence stem from the premise of an establishment of difference. Essentially, what that means is I’m different from you, and therefore, you can perpetrate harm on me. We talk about sexism. It is I’m masculine. You’re feminine. Therefore, as the masculine person, I am better than or more than, and therefore, you have to submit, or if we’re talking about queer individuals, then you’re different than I am, and therefore, I can perpetrate harm on you.

Whatever the form of violence is, it stems from this establishment of difference, and that establishment of difference is socialized from a young age. Of course, socialization is going to be different depending on where we grow up and how we grow up. At the core of this is how were we socialized to believe what we believed in the world, specifically as it relates to difference? This is where concepts of diversity and inclusion come into play. Civil rights come into play in order to prevent some more traumatic forms of violence, and so we talk about establishment of difference. If we want to prevent sexual assault from happening, then we have to prevent sexual harassment, which is a civil rights concern. We want to prevent sexual harassment. Then we have to prevent gender inequity, which is a diversity and inclusion term, and if we want to prevent gender inequity, then we have to establish socialized beliefs around masculine and feminine gendered norms so re-socializing people to believe that the masculine gender is no different than the feminine gender in terms of equality and being treated fairly.

We have to do that by going back into our thoughts, our own self-awareness. What are we being taught? What have we been taught? What are we teaching others? Then we also have to bring into play everyone that we’re working with. What are they being taught? How did they get taught it, and how were they teaching it to others? In this interconnected dynamic that we’re all interacting with, we have to, as a whole, decide that we’re going to redefine that dynamic, that establishment of difference, and we’re going to say, nope, we’re actually all the same, but In order to do that, you have to be willing to let go of your ego. You have to be willing to let go of socialized – deeply held and deeply ingrained beliefs that we’ve had our entire lives, we have to be willing to let those go. Then we also have to be willing to reflect on what that means. How do we do that, and how does that continue to come into our lives?

Like I shared earlier, I’ve been removed from southeast Texas for 20 years now, but I still have bias that come in – that comes into my life every day. Thankfully, now I can say I’m having this thought. That’s such a strange thought for me to have. I’m going to take it. I’m going to put it over there, and I’m going to keep going. We have to be willing to do that, and so for me, I see this as a very clear connection between consciousness, emotional intelligence, diversity and inclusion, and violence prevention, very clear continuum that we have to address all of the levels to be able to create change. It all starts, for me, with helping people to increase their consciousness.

How do you specifically help people with your organization? Is it through one-on-one coaching, group programs? 

Aang Lakey: I offer a couple of different things. I do one-on-one coaching, but right now, my one-on-one coaching is limited. I have two options for one-on-one coaching. The first option is I have a methodology that I use for just general life coaching, and so that focuses in on your habits, your behaviors, your thought patterns and those kinds of things to help you all around in your life. Then I also work one-on-one with leaders in a leadership coaching program, so there are two different methodologies and so two different price points in two different ways that we would move through that. Again, the one-on-one is limited because I have other jobs that I do in addition to my consciousness work.

The other area, I do a lot of educational sessions, and so the vast majority of the people that I have been working with recently have wanted me to do education for their teams. Usually, someone is like I love this. It makes so much sense. How do we bring this to everyone? That’s something that I love. I love to get to share my message, to help people make connections where they didn’t make them before, and so I love doing education.

I teach various workshops, and if you want me to talk to your leadership team, just reach out to me through my website at www.increasingconsciousness.org. I try really hard to be on social media, but it’s not really my forte. I’m trying really hard because I know a lot of people like that, but website, email, phone calls, those are the best ways to reach me. Of course, on my website as well, I have an option for you to schedule a Zoom call as well, totally free. We can talk about whatever it is that you’re looking for, and I can help you navigate whatever the next steps are for you, your company, or your organization.