Talks at Google

Wellness author and teacher Alexandra Elle visits Google to discuss her book "How We Heal: Uncover Your Power and Set Yourself Free." A practical and empowering guide to self-healing, this book is an invitation to heal yourself and reclaim your peace. Readers will discover essential techniques for self-healing, including journaling rituals to cultivate innate strength, accessible tools for processing difficult emotions, and restorative meditations to ease the mind. Alexandra weaves together themes like self-healing, mindfulness, and boundary setting to present the reader with easy-to-follow practices that have changed her life and the lives of the thousands of people whom she has taught. Her 4-part framework for healing will appeal to anyone who wants a clear process, while the compelling personal stories leave the reader feeling connected and ready to begin anew. Brimming with encouragement and delivered with her signature warmth and candor, How We Heal is a must-have companion for anyone who wants to unlock their inner wisdom and confidence to heal on their own. Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.

28 Feb 202359min

CEO of Good Steward LLC, financial coach, and author Shawn Rochester visits Google to discuss his book, "The Black Tax: The Cost of Being Black in America". He examines the various costs associated with being Black in America, as well as what the Black community and concerned advocates can do to help close the wealth gap.​ While Black Americans have long felt the devastating effects of anti-black discrimination, they have often had great difficulty articulating and substantiating both the existence and impact of that discrimination to an American public who is convinced that it no longer exists. Professionals in academia, the media, and the business community, along with people in the general public have struggled to explain the significant and persistent gaps in wealth, employment, and poverty between Black and White communities in what they perceive to be a post-racial America. In this book, Shawn Rochester shows how The Black Tax, or the financial cost of conscious and unconscious anti-black discrimination, creates a massive financial burden on Black American households that dramatically reduces their ability to leave a substantial legacy for future generations. Originally published in February of 2018 Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.

24 Feb 20231h 17min

Dr. Lonnie Johnson, engineer & Inventor Hall of Fame inductee, visits Google to discuss his past work with NASA, the US Air Force, and his efforts to help underrepresented communities enter STEM fields. He is the founder and President of Johnson Research and Development and the founder and President of the Johnson STEM Activity Center, a 501c(3) dedicated to educating disadvantaged and underserved children in STEM. A prolific inventor with over 150 patents, he is best known for his popular invention, the super soaker. Dr. Johnson attended Tuskegee University where he earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, a master’s degree in nuclear engineering and two honorary doctorates in science. He served in the U.S. Air Force where he analyzed space systems and worked on the Stealth Bomber Program, earning the Air Force Achievement Medal and the Air Force Commendation Medal twice. At NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he helped develop some of the nation’s most advanced technologies in the Galileo mission to Jupiter, the Mars Observer and the Cassini Mission to Saturn, earning multiple awards for his contributions. Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.

21 Feb 202351min

National Book Award winner, MacArthur fellow, and New York Times bestselling author Colson Whitehead visits Google to discuss his novel, "The Underground Railroad." The novel tells the story of Cora, a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood, where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him. In Colson Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the terrors of the antebellum era, he weaves in the saga of our nation, from the brutal abduction of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is both the gripping tale of one woman's will to escape the horrors of bondage—and a powerful meditation on the history we all share. Originally published in September of 2016. Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.

17 Feb 202342min

Brandon Kyle Goodman visits Google to discuss his book "You Gotta Be You: How to Embrace This Messy Life and Step Into Who You Really Are." From the time we’re born, a litany of do’s and don’ts are placed on us by our families, our communities, and society. We're required to fit into boxes based on our race, gender, and sexuality, and are told by others how we should behave, who we should date, and what we should be interested in. For so many of us, those boxes begin to feel like shackles when we realize they don’t fit our unique shape, yet we keep trying because we crave acceptance and validation. But is “fitting in” worth the time, energy, and suffering? As a Black nonbinary, queer person born into a religious immigrant household, Brandon knows the pain of having to hide one’s true self, the work of learning to love that true self, and the freedom of finally being your true self. In “You Gotta Be You”, Brandon affectionately challenges us to consider, “Who would I be if society never got its hands on me?” This question set Brandon on a mission to unlearn all the things he was told he should be in order to step into who he really was. Compassionate and soulful, funny and revealing, “You Gotta Be You” is an unapologetic call to self-freedom. It’s about turning rejection into a roadmap to self-love. It’s a guide to setting boundaries and fostering self-growth. And most importantly, it’s an affirmation that we are enough exactly as we are. Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.

14 Feb 202347min

In honor of Black History Month, Google is excited to welcome Dr. Clarence Jones - author, lawyer, personal counsel, advisor and friend to the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1962, Martin Luther King wrote a letter recommending his lawyer and advisor, Clarence B. Jones, to the New York State Bar, stating: “Ever since I have known Mr. Jones, I have always seen him as a man of sound judgment, deep insights, and great dedication. I am also convinced that he is a man of great integrity.” Jones joined the team of lawyers defending Dr. King in the midst of King’s 1960 tax fraud trial, which was resolved in King’s favor in May of 1960. After King’s arrest in Birmingham, Jones secretly smuggled King’s handwritten letters from jail, writings that were later printed and distributed nationally as the famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Jones continued to function as King’s lawyer and advisor through the remainder of his life, assisting him in drafting the “I Have a Dream” speech and preserving King’s copyright of the momentous address, acting as part of the successful defense team for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the landmark case New York Times v. Sullivan, and contributing with Vincent Harding and Andrew Young to King’s “Beyond Vietnam” address at New York’s Riverside Church on April 4th 1967. In summing up his sentiments on King’s life, Jones remarked in a 2007 interview: “Except for Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, Martin Luther King, Jr., in 12 years and 4 months from 1956 to 1968, did more to achieve political, economic, and social justice in America than any other event or person in the previous 400 years.” Originally published in February of 2012. Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.

10 Feb 202359min

Noëlla Coursaris Musunka visits Google to discuss Malaika, a grassroots nonprofit that empowers girls and communities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo through a school, a community center, and a clean water program. Malaika has grown into a fully-functioning ecosystem impacting thousands of lives each year, anchored by its accredited primary and secondary school for more than 400 girls. The Malaika School provides a comprehensive education for girls ages 5-18 with a STEM-focused curriculum including coding, music, theater, sport and art, ensuring that students are equipped with a 21st century education. Malaika also includes a community center that offers a range of programs to 5,000 youth and adults, a clean water program with 25 wells that service over 35,000 people each year, technical classes educating and certifying future electricians and mechanics, and a sustainable agricultural program that helps provide two nutritious meals each day to students and staff. All of Malaika's community-driven programs are free and serve as a model that can be replicated on a global scale in communities around the world. Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.

7 Feb 202356min

In celebration of Black History Month, Google is excited to welcome life coach, spiritual teacher and African Healing Practitioner Gogo Dineo Ndlanzi as she unpacks the pre-colonial history of African Spirituality and how it intersects with global systemic issues in the 21st century. Gogo Dineo Ndlanzi is a pre-eminent and pioneering traditional healer who has successfully merged the sacredness of African Spirituality with modern thinking. She is a celebrated spiritual teacher, life coach, African storyteller, actress, writer, dancer and trained facilitator. She has been instrumental in changing perceptions around the practice of “ubungoma”, a sacred form of African Spiritual Healing. This has made her a household name in Southern Africa and with Africans in the diaspora over the last decade as she continues to shift mindsets and encourage people to access African spiritual healing modalities and indigenous knowledge systems. Gogo Dineo cemented her position as a foremost speaker in the global market as she graced the TEDxCAPETOWN stage in 2019 and as a keynote speaker in Lüneburg, Germany at Leuphana University at the Leverage Points and Sustainability conference, where she spoke on how the global healthcare system can leverage from African indigenous healing practices to overcome systemic failures. Visit http://g.co/TalksAtGoogle/AfricanSpirituality to watch the video.

3 Feb 20231h 17min