Cultural Self-Awareness for Journalism and Leadership with Doni Aldine

Transcript:

Hey there!  It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.  Boy, I’m excited to share with you Doni Aldine today.  She is a globally mobile Afro Latina, who has lived in and identified with seven cultures on five continents before the age of 19.  Aldine is passionate about creating community for cross-cultural populations and has extensive global experience in communications media and marketing.

She is, in fact, the editor in chief of Culturs magazine, which is amazing.  It is beautiful, a beautiful magazine.  She presents around the globe as a keynote speaker for conferences at major universities and major media outlets as an expert focused on communications, marketing, branding, and cross-cultural identity.  Using these skills, she is on faculty in journalism and media communication at Colorado State University.

Welcome to the show, Doni!

Doni Aldine:  Thank you so much.  It’s such a pleasure!

Andrea:  I believe, since last we talked, you were in Brazil.  What were you doing in Brazil?

Doni Aldine:  So, I was in Colombia and Peru, and, actually, I’m leaving for Mexico City in just a couple of days, ahh!

Andrea:  I was off! I was off!  You were south of us.  Wrong country.  What are you doing down there?  What do you do when you’re out and, you know, living your global life?  What do you do?

Doni Aldine:  Well, a couple of things, that trip was a little different.  I was five months in South America.  So, I’m back for a month and then I’m heading out again.  And then I’ll be back for a few weeks and then I’ll head back to my homeland of Costa Rica, or one of my homelands.  But I was there for two reasons.  So, for the magazine, we have a destination in each issue.

And so, we go to that destination; we really dig in.  Everything’s about the people, really, it’s about human connection, right?  So, we do recipes with people in their homes, sometimes in cooking classes, sometimes in  restaurants. We find out, because food is often the heart of every culture, right?  So, we find out what that’s about and get recipes to put in the magazine.  We find out about the place that we’re in, what makes it special, what makes the people special.  We just do all the things, and we bring in that to you in what we call our destinations.

But this one was extra special for me.  My father is Costa Rican, and he passed of COVID.  He was fighting cancer and he passed of COVID.  He was fighting very valiantly, which really, really inspired me.  And he got COVID on a Thursday, and by Easter Sunday, he was gone.

So, no one knew except for me – this was in my head for decades – because when I was little, I lived in Spain and so in my life, everyone spoke Spanish.  And I was like, “I wanna be different.  I wanna speak something different.”  So, I took eight years of French.  And then I ended up going to university in Germany.  So, those were languages that I learned, but, you know, I have like baby Spanish, right?

So, 20 years ago, gosh, was it 20 years, maybe 30 years ago now, because I was with my ex-husband for 23 years and I haven’t been with him for 12.  So, I think like 30 years ago, maybe it was 20.  I don’t remember, we didn’t get married right away.  So, I intended to speak Spanish to him as a surprise at our celebration and I never got to it.  And then in all the decades since it’s been on my mind, I’ve been meaning to do that and I never did it.  You know, I started, stopped, whatever, whatever.

So, when this happened, we did a tribute to my father in our summer issue last year.  I’m looking to see if I have a copy here.  And it’s called “Time for a Change.”  And so, we talked about COVID around the globe, and we talked about blackness around the globe, and I did a tribute to him in that issue.  So, the rest of my tribute is to learn Spanish by the end of this year.

Andrea:  Wow!

Doni Aldine:  So, I practice every day.  I was in South America, I mean, in the end, it’ll be like eight months that I would have been down there.  It would have suited me better to not be around so many English speakers.

Andrea:  That would have helped, huh?

Doni Aldine:  It would have helped.  So, Colombia, I didn’t move as far north as I should have, but I learned my lesson, and we’re on the track now.  So that’s why South America.That’s even with our other destinations.  That’s what we do.  So, Culturs – the next year will be the year of Latin America.  So, you know, I’m going to Mexico City.  We’ll be covering that one next.  Our next issue has Colombia.  The one after that has Peru; then there’ll be Mexico City.

And then my other homeland, Trinidad and Tobago, we’ll be there for carnival.  I haven’t been to carnival as an adult.  This is going to be interesting.  I must tell you, I’m like living my best life these days.

Andrea:  Oh, I love it!  Okay, so, first of all, why do you have so many homelands?

Doni Aldine:  Oh, well, my mother is Trinidadian; my father is Costa Rican.  I was lucky enough, you know, I was interviewed as keynote for this conference.  And the woman had said to me, “Oh, these are…this is your heritage.”  And I said, “No, this is me because I lived there.  It’s not just my parents are from there, I also lived there.”  I was born in New York City.  At age two weeks, I moved to Trinidad and Tobago.  And so, my first accent was Trinidadian.  I was there until I was about four, and then we went to Spain.

And so, multiple countries after that.  I’m what’s called a third-culture kid.  And those are people who are culturally fluid and geographically mobile.  In this case, globally mobile.  If you’re mobile within one country, it’s called a domestic third-culture kid.  And, usually, it’s because of parents’ occupation.  Sometimes it’s for education, sometimes it’s for, who knows, in my case, my mother was a little bit of a nomad.  And it took me many years of doing this research to finally figure out that my mother was a third culture kid as well.  And so that really helped me understand them.

You know, I’ve been in this field for 18 years, and doing so much research and hearing so many people’s stories.  But it wasn’t until I finally realized that both my parents were TCK’s, it took my understanding of them to a whole other level.  So that is why I moved so much, third-culture kid.  And there are 238 million people around the globe that live outside of their passport country as of 2018.  So that’s one of the groups.

Andrea:  Sure, sure.  So, what about knowing this about your parents?  What changed for you and your understanding of them?

Doni Aldine:  Well, that’s such a great question.  In this research, I learned so much about the dimensionality of the people within that realm, within that subculture, right?  And I think that’s something that a lot of people don’t think about.  So, whether you’re a military brat, or an immigrant, a missionary kid, an educational TCK; all of those different things have different nuances because of the way you experienced that cultural fluidity and geographic mobility.  And the way you experienced it changes how you see the world.

And so, once I realized that and realized the dimensions that each of my parents came from, it gave me a larger picture of who they were and why they act certain ways.  I knew certain things just because of where they came from, and having lived in those countries, I understood those things.  And now realizing, “Oh, well, they have some of the same traits that I have.  Okay, they’re not crazy.”

I actually did think that, “Oh, okay, now this makes sense.”  But it also gave insight to how people might see me, right?  Like, I didn’t really see my parents as crazy.  But clearly something in me thought they were a little quirky or something like that, because there was a switch once I realized. I was like, “Oh, yeah.” That was the missing piece for me, now I understand them fully.

Now, it gives them a little more grace with certain things because I understand that it’s not just that they’re an immigrant or it’s not just that they’re thinking of things from the homeland.  But they also have that in between space where your foot is in two different worlds.  And remembering that whenever a certain situation happens, makes a difference in how you experience that situation, and you give more grace for that.

So, it goes back to that saying that people say, “You never…” something like “Be kind to everyone, because you never know what people are going through.”  And I try to remember that all the time.  And this was just another example of “A-ha! This is why!” You never know what people’s stories are.  Sometimes they don’t even know. Because my parents didn’t know this, right?  So, now I have a piece of their story that they didn’t even understand.

Andrea:  So, having a foot in two different cultures changes the way that you experience things that are going on in the culture that you’re in currently is what I’m hearing you say, and did it complicate things?  Does it…What are the markers, or what are the benefits or even some of the challenges of being a TCK?

Doni Aldine:  Well, you’re a 100 percent correct, and there are a lot of both.  So, some of the benefits is you’re very adaptable, typically.  You are very observant, typically.  You kind of have to be, especially, you know, all of these changes happen when you’re a child.  So, a lot of people, they turn 18 and they start traveling, they say, “Oh, I’m a TCK.”  Well, actually, you’re not, you’re a third-culture adult, which means you were geographically mobile and culturally fluid as an adult, after 18.

An adult TCK, which is what I am, so I was a third-culture kid, because I experienced these things while I was forming my identity as a child.  And now my identity is formed.  And as an adult, I live out the traits that, I don’t want to say learned, formed as a child, okay?  So, again, you’re more adaptable, you are more open, you tend to really absorb the culture and environment around you and the people around you.  You’re more resilient because you have to move so much.

You know, at the beginning of COVID, I had to chuckle a little bit, because, as you mentioned, the challenges are some of those same things that, okay, you’re constantly picking up and moving, or some people don’t move that much, but most TCK’s do, right?  You constantly have to make new friends; you constantly have to learn a new place, a new culture, a new language, all these things, right?  That different people accept in a different way, right?

Sometimes, it makes you more gregarious and outgoing because you learn how to really be a magnet for people.  Sometimes it turns you into a wallflower because you just want to keep to yourself and you don’t want to be noticed.  Sometimes, it makes you what’s called a screamer, which is you want to be yourself, you don’t want people to put you in a box and tell you who you are.  So, you’re like “rahh”, you know, whether you get tattoos or paint your face, or whatever the case may be, however you want to lash out. that is your way of doing it.  So, those are some of the gifts and some of the challenges that come with it.

You know, TCK’s tend to be, as adults, entrepreneurs because, you know, you’re used to striking out on your own. You have that adaptability, that resilience, some of the traits that are needed for that type of career.  They also tend to be more highly educated than the general population.  Often, it’s because whether someone is a missionary kid or an educational TCK, you’ve been around more education, so that’s probably why.

But also, it might be that you just seek more things, you seek more knowledge because of your experience as a child.  So those are just a few of the gifts and the challenges that you have to face.

Andrea:  It sounds like learning, learning about other people, learning about your culture that you’re in, and the different ones that you end up being in, probably, I would think that it would do something in the brain to make you more adaptable, that brain plasticity, you know, things aren’t getting carved out quite so deeply in terms of the pathways of this is the way things are for me.  I could see how that would also translate into wanting to continue to learn, because when your brain is already, you know, I guess, ripe for learning, it’s sort of like, you know, an object in motion stays in motion, I think, you know.  I could see that that would be the case.

Doni Aldine:  Definitely.  I do think, you know, there’s a spectrum too, and some people are way at this end.  I think I am way at this end.  And so, I love to learn all the time, right?  And there’s some people that it’s like, “Okay, I’m done with this, I’m out.”

Andrea:  Sure.

Doni Aldine:  “I did enough learning,” and that goes for everything.  I did enough moving, I did enough traveling, whatever.  There’s some people, a smaller section of the population who are on that, let’s say, left side of the spectrum.  But there’s a lot of people on the right side who really embrace a lot of the things that come to them, a lot of the gifts and hopefully overcome the challenges that come as well.  But, you know, a lot of times there could be abandonment issues.  There could be attachment issues, commitment issues, because you’re not used to staying around, right?

Andrea:  Sure.  Yeah.  So, what role does Culturs magazine play for TCK’s?

Doni Aldine:  So, Culturs, thank you for asking.  Man, it’s near and dear to my heart.  It’s really more than a passion, I feel like this is my purpose.  I feel like, you know, having had this life since age two weeks, that, plus my media and marketing experience and business background, really all brought me to this place where we created a media conglomerate that is focused on human connection.

So, Culturs celebrates cross-cultural identity because we think everyone should feel like they matter.  So, TCK’s, and immigrants, and refugees, and mixed-race people, all the people who are in between tend to be people that are overlooked.  They’re the marginalized of the marginalized.  So, we want to give a voice, give a place where they can feel like they belong, where they feel like other people understand them.  Because when you live this life and when you have a breadth of experience, you see the world this way and you can understand the perspective of many different people.

But if most people you encounter see the world in this perspective or this perspective, you’re always the one who has to go through the machinations to understand, to build the bridges, to help people come together; those are some of the gifts as well.  And the challenge that comes with that is, sometimes you feel like, “Gosh, I wish I didn’t have to explain myself so much” or “I wish people understood me.”

Andrea:  It’s a lot of work.

Doni Aldine:  Yes, it’s a lot of work, constant work, constant.  So, when you’re around people who just get you, it’s fantastic, and that’s what Culturs is about.  It’s about really having a place for that understanding and being around people who get you.  So, whether it’s our media, it’s the products that we create or the experiences that we have that we offer to our population, it’s really about feeling like you belong and being in a place where people get you.

Andrea:   Hmm.  And every human needs that and it makes so much sense.  I like I like that you’re focused on human connection.  How does a magazine focus on human connection?

Doni Aldine:  So, you know, it’s interesting.  I think it’s easy for people to get lost in, say, the destinations or the things like people always say, “What’s your next country?  What’s on your bucket list?”  And it’s really funny because I don’t see it as a bucket list, right?  I just see it as experiencing people, right?  So that’s what we do at Culturs, whether we’re visiting a place or we’re doing a thing or creating a dish.  It’s really the things that brings humans together, right?

A lot of the articles, they’re really about the humans. Even when we visit the places, it’s about why people are the way they are and how they think.  And so, a lot of the stories we discuss, you know, it’s interesting. 

 Any entrepreneur knows that along the journey, there are certain things, and any business owner knows, you have to let certain people go at certain times.  Every stage of your business is different, and you have to let it flower and grow.  So, you have to move through those different stages.  And one of my stages was realizing.  Well, I started with, “Okay, only people who are part of this population can be part of the magazine because they’re the ones who are going to get it and can give good stories,” right?  But that was difficult, because not all those people had a media background or a writing background and it was a lot of work to train them to show them how this works, right?  And a lot of expectation from them for us to show them how it works.  I’m like, “Good Lord, this is a lot.”

So, and then I said, “Well, maybe I just need trained journalists, people who know how to do this work. They should be able to tell the stories because they’re supposed to.”  That’s what we do, right?  We’re supposed to be able to adapt and learn and put ourselves in the perspective of other people.  Well, that’s what we’re supposed to do, but, you know, not everybody is great at that, right?  So, oh, gosh, it’s so funny.  The two issues where I had the most experienced writers and editors and designers and paid the most money to get those.  Well, we pay more now, but at the time had paid the most money to get those issues done, I feel are our driest issues.

I had the most complaints from our contributors who are part of this community because when their articles came out, they called me complaining, “My story changed.  Why did they take this out?  Why did they take that out?”  It’s not even, you know, it doesn’t even talk about her being a TCK anymore.  And therein lies or line or lay, whatever, therein was the problem: that they took the humanity out of it for the people who are in between.  They took the in between out of it because they didn’t understand what it felt to be like in between.

So, it might be a key word.  In a whole article, maybe one or two words, maybe a couple sentences, maybe a reference that they thought was extraneous.  “Why is this in here?  We don’t need this, let me take it out and tighten up the story.”  Well, the story might be tighter but now it has no interest to the population because the population doesn’t see the connection to them.

Andrea:  Sure!

Doni Aldine:  So, that’s the human connection part.  That is the storytelling.  It’s really about humans and their experiences and explaining it in a way and describing the feelings and the outcomes in a way that other people who are like you understand completely.  They get it right away; you don’t have to explain it to them.  But the people who don’t, even though they’re very experienced in their field, “Ahh/1 this isn’t necessary, why is this here?”  And they take it out.

So, yes, many of our contributors were up in arms.  The editors were frustrated, because they felt like, “Oh, it’s too much work to clean up the stories of these people who didn’t know how to do the writing in the way that they ‘should.’ ”  And then I embraced that, “Okay, we have to teach people with this experience, how to be journalists because it’s much more difficult to do it the other way around.”

People who have the skill but not the experience of living this life, aren’t going to be able to get it as readily as people who have the experience living this life, but don’t have the skill, whatever, to be a journalist, to be a columnist, to be a writer, photographer, whatever the case may be.  And so, we went back to having people who are part of the population contribute the stories.

So, hopefully, all of our stories are really heartfelt.  In every single issue, we go through, we make sure, visually, we represent all different people and that we also represent the hidden diversity in our population.  So, whether it’s an immigrant story, or a refugee story, or a military brat story, a missionary kid’s story, or a mixed-race story; all the things we try to make sure that we have representation.  So, everyone can have something that they really hold on to.

Andrea:  You really feel seen and, like you said, connected, when you see yourself represented.

Doni Aldine:  Yes.  I’m so glad you said that because really that’s what it’s about, you know, feeling seen, not feeling marginalized, not feeling overlooked, not feeling like you constantly have to explain, not being exhausted.

Andrea:  You know, it’s funny, even my son, we live in a very, honestly, homogenous kind of area, I’ll be completely honest with you.  But even just when it comes to personality and gifting or whatever.  He’s 12, and I asked him the other day, “What makes a great friend or how do you know when you’re really connected with a good friend?”  And he said, “When I can show my true colors.”

Doni Aldine:  Oh, wow!  I was listening to something the other day, they were talking about bringing your representative like when you’re dating, right?  Have you ever heard that?

Andrea:   No. Tell me.

Doni Aldine:  Well, your representative is the person that you show to people when you want them to accept you, right?  So, you’re dating and it’s not the real you that’s dating.  It’s two representatives that come.  So, they were just talking about how long it takes until the real you comes out, right?

Andrea:  So true.

Doni Aldine:  Yeah, that’s kind of what your son was saying, “Oh, when I could show my real me, then I know that’s a friend.”  Because then you trust the person, right? You feel safe, you feel seen.  You know that the person knows you, you know, from every nook and cranny.  So whatever they see won’t scare them, because they’re still your friends.  They’re still going to stick around.  Yeah, I like how insightful at a young age.

Andrea:  Yeah.  You know, I think of all of the dissension and the culture wars and whatever is going on right now with and probably has been forever, but we’re really feeling it right now.  It seems like, you know, when we dig down deep that if, like, everybody needs that human connection, everybody needs to feel seen.  And when we have that sense, like a rooted sense of identity, and that we’re acknowledged for that, there’s less to be threatened by when other people are different.

Doni Aldine:  Yes.  Well, it’s interesting that you say a rooted sense of identity.  One of the big things about TCK is rootedness or restlessness and that’s kind of the spectrum I was talking to you about.  Do you want to just stay in one place, or do you feel like you need to move every two years like you did when you’re a child, or you need to explore the world… that there’s no place that you can settle?

And so, that’s what Culturs really is all about.  It’s about identity and feeling comfortable in that identity, having that space to be that friend who gets you and sees the good parts and the bad parts and still loves you, you know.  Yeah, identity truly is what it’s about. And knowing that you can feel comfortable in your identity, that there are other people like you.

Andrea:  You know, I’m not sure how all this relates, but I feel like I have personally just been going through this, a little bit of this looking at my culture and saying, “Okay, so what of this stays and what of this is gonna go because I’m not happy with everything, that’s for sure.”  You know what I mean?  And trying to get back down to some- a little bit more of an essence of it,  or something, like I want to feel rooted.  I want to feel like I come from somewhere.  I want to feel like I love my people.  I don’t want to feel like I’m upset or frustrated with them all the time. I want to…

I love that idea of feeling like you’re a part of something but at the same time, there’s a little bit of, or a quite a bit of a dissonance or this frustration still in me about it.  And do you think that that is something that people, in general, we’ll just say, experience? I guess, as a TCK, you get to pick and choose what you’re going to adopt and what you’re not going to adopt of whatever culture you’re in.  Maybe. Maybe you get to pick and choose, maybe it’s more formed in you.  I don’t know, maybe you have a different thought.

Doni Aldine:  No, I like that.  I mean, I never thought about that.  But I guess you’re right, you do get to pick and choose because you eventually leave that place, right?  So, when you go to a new place, they have new, different customs and norms.  So, yeah, you get to pick and choose which ones you bring from the old place.

Andrea:  What are you going to keep?

Doni Aldine:  Yes.

Andrea:  That’s interesting. Because I mean I wonder how much of that is just “Well, I’m going to keep the things that are the easiest to keep,” or, you know, that it’s not conscious, and how much is conscious.  I mean, I’m at a point where I’m realizing how much was not conscious in me for so long.  And now I’m wanting to be conscious about it and actually pick and choose.  I don’t know, what are your thoughts on that?

Doni Aldine:  Yeah, I agree with that.  That’s why I’m saying, “Oh, wow, I never thought of it that way” because it wasn’t conscious for me, right?  I was just doing the things.  And I guess, there were some things that were conscious like, I call my mother mummy, right?  And I remember this guy, actually, over pandemic, my massage therapist.  I was doing something, and I was like, I think I was on the phone with my mom, she called when I was over there.  And I said, “Mummy, blah, blah, blah,” and he was like, “Mommy.”  I’m like, “How did mummy sound like mommy?”  I’m like, “It’s different! No, that’s not what I said,” right?

And what was packed in that statement or that word that he said was like, literally, you could see air words for me like, “Why do you still call your mother ‘mommy’?”  Well, I don’t call my mother “mommy.”  I call my mother “mummy.”  And in that culture, you do that your entire life, right?  You might say “mom”when you’re talking about her, but when you’re addressing her, you say mummy.

And, actually, my older brother and I, I mean, we’re in our 50’s.  So, we called our dad “daddy.”  That’s the thing.  That’s something I chose to hold on to.  My little brothers are much more American.  So, they call my mom, they call her “mom.”  I don’t know if they ever called her mommy because we all call her “mummy,” I think.  But as they got older, as many people in the US do, that changed to “mom.”

And, yeah, that’s not something I chose to pick up.  It’s something I like and had I had children, they would have called me mummy, which probably would have been weird for them because they probably would have grown up in the US and been like, “Why do you want me to do this?”  Because nobody else calls their mom mummy: this is strange.  I mean, I don’t know why I love it so much.  I just love it.  That’s who she is, and I don’t want to change that name.  That’s, yeah, I love it.

Andrea:  I wonder why we choose certain things and don’t choose others, when we do have the choice.  I feel like I’ve had to really think about what is loving and helpful and kind and generous about my community, and what I can let go of.  And when I let go of these other things, I can appreciate the good things even more.

Doni Aldine:  Uh, huh.  Now, I agree with that.  I agree with that.  I mean, our brains can take so much, which is also, you know, at university, I see it every semester gets deeper and deeper for students.  I think they have a higher level of anxiety and depression these days because we have so much – my theory is, we have so much information coming at us.  It’s a lot to handle.

Our brains can only do so much.  So, you know, all the technology and our phones and all the things all the time. They’re fantastic.  But, you know, I wonder what the new research says, but a few years ago, researchers had said that we get more information in a year than someone in the 1500s received in their entire lives, right?

Andrea:  Yeah.

Doni Aldine:  So, you think of the same brain, the same human brain processing that information, and now having the expectation of acting like you always did before.  You know, we need to find ways.   I think that’s why self-care and that’s a big theme in Culturs as well, because of how much we have to process as mobile people, as people in two different places, two different worlds, whether it’s cultural or geographic.  And, yeah, self-care is huge, because we have so much coming at us, and how are we going to process that?  How are we going to stay sane?  How are we going to stay stable?  So, yeah, I think that’s a big observation.

Andrea:  Does self-care look different in different cultures?

Doni Aldine:  Ahh, that’s interesting.  You know, yes, I think 100 percent, yeah.  And it’s interesting, even within regional differences, I think self-care is different.  And what I’ve come to is, people have to decide what self-care looks like for them.  A lot of times a lot of magazines will show taking a bath, or, gosh, what are some of the things, getting a massage and all those things are self-care, right?  But I think a workout is self-care.

I think some time alone, And I love music, and I play music all the time.  I’d say most of the time, music is self-care.  But like last night, I just sat in quiet and the silence was self-care, right?  Taking a walk, being in nature. So I think each person is different within each culture, and your cultural differences in your surroundings are going to change what you choose to enjoy for self-care.  But it’s whatever fills your cup, whatever nurtures you, whatever makes your soul sing.  To me, that is self-care.

Andrea:  So, it’s important to explore that.

Doni Aldine:  Yeah, very much so, I mean, figure that out yourself.   And sometimes it’s being around people.  Sometimes it’s being by yourself, sometimes it’s reading, everyone is different.  And whatever it is that fills you up, take some time, I think, to do it every day because you want to be proactive, right?  You want to kind of fill that cup before it gets depleted and not wait till it gets depleted and then try to fill it up, which is much more difficult.  So yeah, I tried to do that every day.

Andrea:  Okay, so I was looking at one of your articles in the magazine and was just reminded of cultural power and lack of power and power dynamics between cultures.  And I’m curious, you know, you’re talking about journalism, you teach journalism, what role can journalism play in shifts of cultural power?

Doni Aldine:  Wow, that’s a big question!  Well, you know, it’s really interesting.  So, university just started for this semester, and lifestyle looks different for most people around the world.  And so, students are still adapting: one, to coming out in the world and seeing people.  Boy, I do see a big difference in people now that they’ve been locked up for a while, right?

Andrea:  What do you see?  What do you see?

Doni Aldine:  I think people are more open.  It’s really interesting, whether it’s dating or hanging out, or making friends.  Even in myself I see it, where people are much more open.  They’re doing things they wouldn’t have done before.  They’re associating with people they wouldn’t have associated.  Now, within this lockdown, which I don’t think is an accident, we also had all the social strife, all the upheaval around the world.

And so, I think people also were able to glean perspectives that were different than theirs and so they emerged different people, right?  They emerged more, I don’t want to say growth minded, but yeah, I’ve just been really interested to see, especially in the dating world, how much more open people are to new experiences and other people and doing things they never did before, myself included.  I’m doing all these things.

It’s so funny, a friend said to me the other night “Oh, it’s like you’re a teenager again, you’re doing all the things you should have done as a teenager.”  I’m like, “I didn’t even do these things.  I don’t even think about these things as a teenager.  I’m doing them now,” which by the way is a TCK thing.  It’s called, oh, gosh, delayed adolescence.

Andrea:  Interesting.

Doni Aldine:  You know, because you mature so quickly.  So, you’re very mature at an early age, and delayed adolescence is when you can revert back.  So, apparently that’s what I’m doing now.

Andrea:  How fun!  How great would that be, you know, to be able to have that kind of fun as an adult with all the wisdom you already have.

Doni Aldine:  All the wisdom, much more cashflow.

Andrea:  Great, you got the money, you got the wisdom, and you’re ready to go.

Doni Aldine:  You also have to be careful because you can’t do those silly things that you would have done as a kid, and people go, “oh,  you’re just a kid.” Now it’s “You should know better! Why did you do them?”  I was like, “I don’t know. I was reverting.”

Andrea:  COVID.

Doni Aldine:  Yeah, COVID. That’s the answer for everything! I love it!

Andrea: So, shifts in power dynamics and journalism.

Doni Aldine:  Yeah, I’m sitting here trying to think what that would be, with that way to tell.  So, the reason I started to tell you that story about my students with university starting, is that I already have had the conversation with them that when they look to media that’s out there, it’s not necessarily representative of how it’s supposed to be done.  Right?There are a lot of poor writers in the media right now.  There are a lot of poor habits in the media right now.

And so, my students look at that and they think that’s happening, you know, this is professional media, this is how it’s supposed to be done.  And they turn it in and they say, “Well, why did you work me out for that?”  “Well, this is not how you’re supposed to…”  I mean, saying things like “This is not how you’re supposed to do….”  It sounds strange in certain instances, but when you’re getting trained for a skill, the skill has particular parts to it for a reason, right?

Andrea:  We look to, we want to be able to at least look to journalists as people who are truth tellers, people who are able to see things the way that they are and report them back in a way so that we can see things with clarity.  And so, there’s a lot of integrity that we are hoping for. There’s a lot of, you know, best practices that we don’t know about that we’re hoping for.  We’re just sort of counting on journalists to have those.

Doni Aldine:  And those expectations are real. And it’s a tall order, because most people have a hard time thinking outside of themselves.  So, when we talk about that breadth of experience, you know, for instance a TCK should be able to give you a better perspective, because they’ve lived in a world where they had to be outside of themselves on a regular basis.

And I can tell you that in my class that’s an essential for my class.  It’s called media and global culture identity.  And people who take it, I warn them in the beginning that it’s really about extending yourself thinking outside of that box, outside of the world that you’re used to.  And I can tell you that it’s very difficult for most people.  The people who have the hardest time, are the people who think they know what we’re going to talk about when we’re coming into the class.

So, ethnic studies students, I tell them, “Okay. You might have to throw out everything you know.”  And actually, it’s not throwing it out, it’s keeping that because that has a realm, that has a certain place.  That is usually a US based way of thinking of races and ethnicities, etc., etc.  But what we talk about in my class is culturally based.

So, someone might have a specific race and you might mention it, but it’s not about their race, it’s about their culture, right?  And people, the ones who have the hardest time are the ones who have extensive experience in ethnic studies, because it’s hard for them to think outside of what they’ve already learned. To realize that this is a different way of learning and something new that they need to absorb and ascertain, right?

So, the same thing with journalism.  I think many journalists have a hard time thinking outside of themselves.  So, when you get news stories, we must remember, as a critical consumer of news, we must remember that we’re also getting the insight of the person who reported that story.  And if that person has  limited ability to think outside of their own experiences, be open to new experiences, to consider other possibilities even when they’re doing their reporting. So, to look to other people to give different perspective and give a balance of perspective, then the information that you’re consuming, I don’t want to say it’s tainted, but it’s limited, right?  And that is the hard part, I think of news today.  And, actually, I think that’s what people need to do to make a shift, a cultural shift, right?

Right now, it’s all about empathy.  It should always be about empathy.  I think it’s just the thing right now, empathy and understanding the other side.  If we took more time to do that, if we learned how to do that.  That’s what I try to teach my class.  But people come to me, they’re like 20 some years old.  It’s like trying to change who you are in 16 weeks.  And some people do it very successfully. Many struggle, because they don’t see why do they have to do this. “I never have to do [this] to get on in my life.

But the tools you learn in my class, actually, are very helpful in career,  they’re helpful in business.  It’s helpful for self-care even, because if you can understand other people better, just like going back to what I said about my parents, that understanding changed the dynamic of our relationship and changed how I saw them.  So, now there’s less confusion, there’s less strife, there’s less wondering, and there’s just a sense of peace.  So, when you can think outside of yourself and understand others better and give empathy, experience empathy, it actually helps you as well.  So, for me, that’s a form of self-care that I practice daily.

Andrea:  Mm hmm, yeah.  I mean, it’s always interesting to me that the need for and then also somehow balance, I don’t know what even that word means, but the balance of a journalistic integrity with their humanity.  And like you were talking about, you guys also focus on human connection.  And that’s not necessarily what every journalist focuses on.  But yet, there has to be some sort of connection, like, why does this matter?  There has to be a reason why something matters too.

It’s all really interesting to me.  I feel really grateful for really good journalists, and more and more so, I think, even with investigative journalism.  And what I’ve seen, of course, you know, go back to Ronan Farrow in the #MeToo Movement, and really picking up again with his work on Harvey Weinstein.  And then just like all of these things being exposed, which I think does help shift dynamics.  When things are exposed, they’re exposed.  And then people see them for what they are and then they start to reorient themselves.  It just seems like a really big responsibility, an important thing.

Doni Aldine:  It is a big responsibility and I think that’s a great observation.  I just had that conversation with one of my team members at the university the other day, because, you know, right now that word professionalism is being challenged because often in the past it was used, as a way, to not demean, but to tell people that they weren’t enough to do certain things.

So, even the way my hair looks right now, there’s a time, a very recent time, when this wouldn’t have been considered professional, which is funny because I think of some of the styles that I would wear to work, and I feel like this is more professional than that.

Andrea:  Describe your hair because it’s beautiful and tell me why.  People listening aren’t going to know what you’re talking about.

Doni Aldine:  Yes, well, I love my hair.  And it’s so funny, sometimes, I do wonder, I’m like, “This is professional.”  So, okay, so my hair is salt and pepper in the front and it’s black in the back. You can see it more if I put it up.  Well, you can see it, it’s black in the back and I have it in locks.  So, just for some of you out there, they’re not dreadlocks, they are locks.  And because the curl pattern is locked in and kind of stretched, I would say.

And there are different ways to do locks.  The way I have mine, I feel like it looks fantastic.  And I also have some platinum locks throughout and a couple of auburn locks and some what’s called bronze.  It’s like a brownish blonde.  So, like three or four of my locks are dipped and dyed.  So, you know, there was a time when different colors in your hair would not have been accepted, right?  And so, three or four it’s not a lot, it’s not extreme.  But I already have the silver and the black going on.  So, it already looks like I have all these colors.

Andrea:  It adds dimension.

Doni Aldine:  I get stopped all the time.  People love it.

Andrea:  I love it.

Doni Aldine:  I’m like, “I don’t have time to dye my hair.”  That’s self-care for me.  People spend all this time putting on makeup, spend all this time.  Yeah, I remember I had when I worked for Johnson & Johnson and we’d go to conferences, and I had the same roommate all the time who was within the company, because we’d come from all over the country.  And she would spend two hours every morning getting ready.

Andrea:  Oh, wow!

Doni Aldine:  And I literally spend maybe 10 minutes and five of those are in the shower.  So, I’m really about maintaining yourself, maintaining your skin, maintaining your health, maintaining your nails, so that you look your best at all times, and there’s not much effort to put into going out, right?  Okay, we put on some lipstick and zuzz my hair, and I’m out.

Andrea:  I mean, we’re talking about professionalism but also humanity.  I mean, I think that your hair is a really great representation of your voice.  It’s part of your voice.  It’s part of your self-expression.  To me, when I hear you speak and you laugh a lot, you’re …I don’t know, the tone goes up and down, you know, like there is dimension to who you are.

Doni Aldine:  Animated.

Andres:  Yeah, you’re animated.  So, your hair just is like this natural kind of… even though you’ve crafted it, if you will, I mean, it’s a natural expression of you and your voice.  So, how does a journalist be able to bring their humanity, their voice to the story, while at the same time making sure they’re not going over and they’re not skewing the story in a way that’s with an agenda?

Doni Aldine:  That’s a very interesting question.  Okay, the first thought I had is, they’re not supposed to bring their voice to the story, right?  What they’re not supposed to bring – their perspective, right?  It’s supposed to be objectivity. Let’s face it, that’s hard.  Nobody can take themselves out of anything to be so objective that it’s 100 percent clean, right?  There’s always going to be your perspective because that’s the way you see the world.  That’s the way you see things.  That’s how you reported the story.

But, I guess, in terms of voice, it’s style.  That’s what we’re trying to, if we go back to hair, that’s just style, right?  So, you’re right, this is reflective of my style, of how I live my life even.  And so, a journalist can do the same.  Your manner of writing, let’s say, you’re a broadcast journalist – your manner of speaking, your manner of presenting all of that comes through.  So that’s what really people relate to, in addition to the work. Your style is what makes the work appealing to other people.

So, when you think of Oprah, as an example, they didn’t think she was the greatest journalist.  She didn’t excel.  She excelled, actually, quite well, but not to the level that she wanted because she was too emotional in her journalism.  You know, it’s supposed to be objective.  You’re not supposed to cry at the firefighter, you know, telling the story about who they just rescued.  You’re supposed to have a steady face and just present the news to people.  But that style of hers was perfect for a talk show where people want to connect, and they want to feel that emotion, and they want to know that, because they’re not there, you know.  Of course, energy is different when you’re sitting in a place with someone.

But one of the gifts I think Oprah gives us is that we get a sense of that energy coming through her because she reacts to the person, right?  We can’t do that; we can only feel through the television.  I’m an empath, so I can still feel their energy, but not everybody can.  So, Oprah gives us the gift of “Oh, this is how it impacts me in this moment.”  And then we get a sense of what that impact would feel like for us.

So, your style, I think is how you get those messages across whether it’s how you write the words, how you choose to form the sentences, how you speak the words, how you act in an interview; all of those things are part of your style.  Even with you, this is your style, right?  And that’s what your listeners are looking for when they come back.  They might not know it, but it’s the style that you bring across, that they relate to you, and it makes them it gives them something, whether it makes them feel good or it makes them trust you, whatever the case may be.  And that style is what makes the difference.

Andrea:  Two more questions for you.  First of all, where can people find Culturs magazine, find you, connect with you, and whatever you’d like to share?

Doni Aldine:  Yeah.  So, right now, it’s a very good question because starting in, I think, October of this year, we’re still deciding, but I think we’re going to pull off of newsstands.

Andrea:  Wow!

Doni Aldine:  Yes, yes.  I know, it’s a big decision.  I’ve been contemplating it for a couple of years.   But we could find this in select Kroger stores, Books-A-Million, university bookstores, independent bookstores, or else I feel like I’m forgetting some.  Oh, in Army and Air Force Exchange stores, that’s where you can find us.  If you go to our website at cultursmag.com.  So, there’s no E in Culturs, it is plural.  The missing E stands for the hidden diversity of our population.

So, cultursmag.com.  And on the navigation bar, you’ll see About Us and that will tell you where to find a print store near you.  Right now, there are many, many hundreds of stores that carry us.  And yes, I think as of October 2021, that will not be the case.  I think that we’re going to go to an internal distribution.  It’s a scary decision.  So, that’s why it’s not finished.  But as of November 2021, or excuse me, yeah, this is 2021, we will be featured in American Airlines on all of their flights.  So, reach of about 5 million people, so we’re excited about that, yeah.

Andrea:  That’s awesome!  How amazing!

Doni Aldine:  Yeah, yeah.  So, lot of things, I mean, we’re all around the world. Our digital editions are read in 208 countries and territories.  And our print edition was / is in many hundreds of stores, and we’ll see what that looks like for the future.  We’re always evolving.  It’s kind of scary.  But our subscribers have a hard time, sometimes, [with] the store thing because we’re not in every store, because not every store has the population that will read our publication.  So, it makes it difficult for people to find us.  So, we’ve been trying to work through that.

Andrea:  All right.  Well, okay, so my last question for you is what last piece of advice would you give somebody who really would like to have a Voice of Influence?

Doni Aldine:  Whew!  Be yourself.  I mean, that seems so generic.  But here’s what I mean: you know, there’s so many ways that society tells us that we’re not good enough, we need to be different.  We need to be better.  We need to be like this person.  And whoever you are, I think you just need to embrace that, right?  Like I embrace that I’m all about taking care of yourself so that you don’t have to spend all this time putting on paint and putting things in and on that make you look better, right?

Like, I’m all about getting ready fast, being prepared for anything that happens, whether it’s at work, or personally, whatever.  So, having systems that are foundation, and that’s what is key to me.  So, I would say find what’s key to you?  What makes your life hum? What makes it work the way you want it to work, not the way other people tell you that it should work?

So yeah, “be yourself” seems generic, but I need you to go deeper on that now.  What does that mean to you?  Who are you?  Do you even know, right?  Take the time to find out. It might be years of exploration to figure that out.  And once you do, stick to it, which actually is not an easy task.  It sounds so simple, be yourself.  That’s pretty hard in today’s world, in any world.  But that would be my suggestion to have a Voice of Influence, because when you’re yourself, you’re truly authentic.  People can feel it and then you are able to influence people.

Andrea:  Ahh, love it!  Thank you so much!  Thank you for being here, for sharing your Voice of Influence with our listeners, with the world and your magazine.  And I’m really honored to have you here today.

Doni Aldine:  Thank you so much!  I really appreciate it!  It was such a pleasure, so much fun!

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