RESOURCES
Following are some reports highlighting the Biden-Harris Administration's progress and work through the U.S. Department of Education, White House Hispanic Initiative and President's Advisory Commission on Hispanics:
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"The Impact: Fighting for Public Education | January 2025
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White House Hispanic Initiative Final Report and Community Resource Guide | January 2025
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President's Advisory Commission on Hispanics Final Report | January 2025
Following are some leadership and personal development resources I highly recommend. This list will be periodically updated.
App & Workshops
I signed up for the GrowthDay program run by Brendon Burchard during the pandemic because I knew I would be craving positive and motivating messages to keep my energy and spirit up. I have truly enjoyed their regular monthly workshops led by personal growth, financial literacy and wellness leaders like Brendon Burchard, Mel Robbins, Glo Atanmo, Jenna Kutcher, David Bach, Dr. Daniel Amen and others. In addition to the thought-provoking regular live and recorded zooms Growth Day offers, the app also now has personal development courses with leaders like Deepak Chopra and Wayne Dyer as well as tools you can use for journaling, habit tracking, daily inspirational messages and more.
Book
Lawyer, professor and mindfulness thought leader Rhonda Magee's book is a rich read -- and her audiobook is fantastic to listen to as well. She shares personal experiences, lessons learned about the importance of healing ourselves and closes each chapter with a mindfulness exercise. As the publisher's summary states, "In a society where unconscious bias, microaggressions, institutionalized racism, and systemic injustices are so deeply ingrained, healing is an ongoing process. When conflict and division are everyday realities, our instincts tell us to close ranks, to find the safety of our own tribe, and to blame others. This book profoundly shows that in order to have the difficult conversations required for working toward racial justice, inner work is essential. Through the practice of embodied mindfulness - paying attention to our thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations in an open, nonjudgmental way - we increase our emotional resilience, recognize our own biases, and become less reactive when triggered... It is only by healing from injustices and dissolving our personal barriers to connection that we develop the ability to view others with compassion and to live in community with people of vastly different backgrounds and viewpoints. Incorporating mindfulness exercises, research, and Magee's hard-won insights, The Inner Work of Racial Justice offers a road map to a more peaceful world."
Book
Drawing from his experience coaching executives and leaders worldwide, Marshall Goldsmith highlights in this book the point that all too often you may have a sense of what tactics are helping you advance professionally. But, he shares, there often comes a point where leaders stop rising, get stuck or fail to realize why they're not progressing. Few will tell you what you should stop doing in order to advance, and that's what this book focuses on. By uplifting some of the top habits and tendencies that tend to hold people back, Marshall's book provides lots of useful tips to reflect on what you may need to stop doing -- or shift -- in order to rise and serve as the leader you want and need to be in the world. Take a scan of his list of 21 harmful workplace behaviors to consider which, if any, might be holding you back -- or which might be at play in your workplace and re in need of countering.
Book
Another book that is also a great audiobook is this key read by Brené Brown. Building on years of research around vulnerability and courage, as well as drawing from her personal experiences, she explains how "stepping into the ring" and courageously stepping into being vulnerable can transform the way you lead professionally and develop strong relationships in life. Her work is rooted in Theodore Roosevelt's quote: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; ...who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.” Brown also has a new book out which I haven't read yet but am looking forward to -- Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience.
Book
Shawn Achor, a NY Times bestselling author and expert psychology researcher on happiness, has a must-watch TED talk, The Happy Secret to Better Work, with over 16 million views. The talk and this book share Achor's research proving how critical cultivating happiness is for our productivity and our life. He says happiness is a practice that requires training -- just like working out any other muscle -- and offers tips on how to do so. I had the pleasure of being in a training he led for the White House Presidential Leadership Workshop I was in as an appointee in President Obama's administration. Data-driven and funny, his site captures the spirit of his work noting, "We’ve been taught that if we work hard, we will be successful, and then we’ll be happy. If we can just find that great job, get a raise, lose those five pounds, happiness will follow. But recent discoveries in the field of positive psychology have shown that this formula is actually backward: happiness fuels success, not the other way around. When we are positive, our brains become more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic, resilient, and productive. This discovery has been repeatedly supported by research in psychology and neuroscience, management studies, and the bottom lines of organizations around the world."
Program
Georgetown University's School of Continuing Studies offers an 8-month Leadership Coaching certificate program that I completed and highly recommend. The faculty are detail and results-oriented coaches rooted in sharing their knowledge and experience with the next generation of coaches. My classmates in my cohort as well as the alumni community are incredibly active and supportive. As the site shares, "The Leadership Coaching Program in the Institute for Transformational Leadership at Georgetown prepares coaches with the mindset, presence, and skills to challenge and support leaders. As a student, you'll grow by focusing on both the being and doing of leadership coaching. This deeply transformative program goes beyond teaching coaching skills and challenges students to grow as human beings in order to help them grow as coaches."
Workshops
With deep experience providing virtual and in-person transformational programs, including some the Luna Jimenez Institute for Social Transformation was founded by Nanci Luna Jimenez - one of my favorite trainers, facilitators and speakers on the topic of healing yourself from the effects of systemic oppression. I first participated in one of Nanci's workshops through the National Hispana Leadership Institute in 2014 and the work left a mark in my memory that inspired me to also collaborate with them by having them lead an in-person and virtual sessions for educators and women in D.C. during my time at the National Education Association. As they explain on their site, "We inspire individuals and organizations to deepen their commitment to social justice and create transformational change, one revolutionary relationship at a time." Check out their impressive lineup of on-demand and virtual workshops, as well as their longer-term programs.
Note: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases made when you click through to make purchases from that site. I also earn commissions for referrals to GrowthDay. While there are earnings associated with some of the items I list, these are products I genuinely recommend based on personal experience.