Talks at Google

Janney Marin Rivera—better known as Chiquis—is an artist, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and television personality. She first captivated audiences on reality shows with her late mother, Jenni Rivera, and their family. Chiquis launched her music career in 2014, making her musical debut on international television at the Premios Juventud. Her 2015 memoir, Forgiveness, was an instant New York Times bestseller, and in 2020, Chiquis won her first Latin Grammy for her album Playlist. This week, Chiquis visits Google to discuss her memoir Unstoppable: How I Found My Strength Through Love and Loss. Bringing her signature warmth, humor, and positivity to the page, the book picks up where her memoir Forgiveness left off. Reeling from her mother’s tragic death, Chiquis finds herself at a major crossroads. As a new parent to her younger brother and sister, she struggles to balance her family’s needs with her dreams of becoming a successful singer and entrepreneur. Filled with life-affirming revelations, Chiquis ultimately shares her greatest gift with her fans—the accessible lessons that have made her unstoppable. Moderated by Liliana Cerilo. Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.

29 Mar 20221h 4min

In celebration of #IamRemarkable Week, Luvvie Ajayi Jones visits Google to discuss her New York Times bestselling book Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual. With humor and honesty, and guided by the influence of her professional troublemaking Nigerian grandmother, Luvvie walks us through what we must get right within ourselves before we can do the things that scare us; like how to use our voice for a greater good, and how to put movement to the voice we've been silencing - because truth-telling is a muscle. The point is not to be fearless, but to know we are afraid and charge forward regardless. It is to recognize that the things we must do are more significant than our fears. This book is about how to live boldly in spite of all the reasons we have to cower. Born in Nigeria, bred in Chicago and comfortable everywhere, Luvvie is committed to creating content and doing work that informs, inspires, and convinces others to make positive change. What started as a hobby has become a global business and has allowed her to help people in more ways than she could have ever imagined. Using her life and her story as the anchor, her professional troublemaking is all in the hopes of leaving people feeling more powerful than they ever have. Moderated by Alex Okosi. Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.

25 Mar 202246min

Guneet Monga is an Indian film producer, a BAFTA nominee and amongst the first producers from India to be inducted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Most recently, she was the recipient of the second highest civilian honor of France, the Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. She is the founder of Sikhya Entertainment, a Mumbai-based production house that carved an unprecedented space in the Indian film industry by producing films that focused on heartland stories that resonate globally. Additionally, Guneet served as an Executive Producer on Period. End of Sentence. which won the 2019 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject. In celebration of #IamRemarkable Week, Guneet Monga visits Google to discuss her personal story and career, as well as how she is using her position as one of the most influential female film producers in India to facilitate change and normalize gender equality. Moderated by Roman Matla. Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.

22 Mar 202256min

Psychologist Kelly McGonical explores what influences us to procrastinate, why we fail to resist temptation, and teaches that small interventions can have large, positive outcomes. Based on her wildly popular course "The Science of Willpower," her book “The Willpower Instinct” is the first book to explain the science of self-control and how it can be harnessed to improve our health, happiness, and productivity. Informed by the latest research and combining cutting-edge insights from psychology, economics, neuroscience, and medicine, McGonical explains exactly what willpower is, how it works, and why it matters. Readers will learn that willpower is a mind-body response, not a virtue. It is a biological function that can be improved through mindfulness, exercise, nutrition, and sleep. Willpower is not an unlimited resource - too much self-control can actually be bad for your health. Guilt and shame over your setbacks can lead to giving in again, but self-forgiveness and self-compassion can boost self-control - in fact, giving up control is sometimes the only way to gain self-control. Our willpower failures are contagious—you can catch the desire to overspend or overeat from your friends­­—but you can also catch self-control from the right role models. “The Willpower Instinct” combines life-changing prescriptive advice and complementary exercises to help readers with goals ranging from losing weight to more patient parenting, less procrastination, better health, and greater productivity at work. Originally published in January of 2012. Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.

18 Mar 202256min

For so long, we’ve been told that success means having it all and doing it all. But working more and harder is holding us back, not moving us forward. In Becoming Super Woman, New York Times bestselling author Nicole Lapin redefines what it means to be a woman who "has it all"—and shows you how to find lasting success by your own definition, on your own terms. Nicole candidly shares her own story of career burnout and an emergency hospitalization that prompted her to take her mental health seriously for the first time. Along the way, she discovered that not only was this priority shift not a defeat, but rather the key to unlocking even greater achievements. In her third and most personal book yet, Nicole lays out an actionable, 12-step plan to guide you in taking control and becoming the hero of your own story, with the skills it takes to be a real Super Woman, from productivity hacks to boundary setting. She makes the case that the real secret to success doesn't hinge on the hustle or how many degrees you have, but rather in "putting on your own oxygen mask before helping others." In fact, self-care is the biggest asset or liability in our careers—when it's on-point it can help us soar, and when it's neglected it can bring us down faster than anything else. Entertaining, honest, and life-changing, Becoming Super Woman shows us how to banish burnout, ward off a breakdown, and achieve true balance. Originally published in July of 2020. Visit http://g.co/TalksAtGoogle/SuperWoman to watch the video.

15 Mar 202251min

We hear the terms trauma and PTSD more and more these days. Yet many people still believe that trauma can only result from experiences that are particularly extreme. But trauma is an emotional response that can stem from a wide variety of upsetting experiences, leaving us feeling anxious, weighed down by negative emotions or memories, or feeling like we lack security. As a licensed therapist, Kati Morton addresses this challenge by asking, “If we don’t have an understanding of trauma and how it’s defined, how can we work to overcome it?” The urgency of meeting this challenge is increasing in a time when we are bombarded with a constant flow of frightening stories—about global pandemics, ecological disasters, riots, and mass shootings—that can trigger our emotional stress. We must find a balance between staying connected to the world on social media while avoiding the false facts, hate-filled comments, and passive-aggressive posts and internet accounts that feed negative thoughts. In her book Traumatized, Morton shares a unique perspective on trauma in the online age. The book includes tips to be more mindful of what we do and who we follow online, which is key to improving our relationship with social media and not spreading trauma to others. It also includes helpful therapeutic techniques to heal from childhood trauma, teaches skills to identify transgenerational trauma, and teaches how to break harmful cycles in your home. Moderated by Jessica DiVento. Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.

11 Mar 20221h 3min

Shaz Kahng has been a scientist, a consulting partner, an e-commerce expert, an executive at Nike, and a brand & marketing strategist. She eventually became the CEO of multiple companies in the apparel, retail, footwear, sports, and technology sectors. Frustrated by the lack of successful, inspirational female business leaders in fiction, Shaz wrote and published a novel about women succeeding with smarts, scruples, and style. In this Talk, Shaz discusses her book The Closer, the first book in the Ceiling Smasher series. This series focuses on positive & powerful female leaders, fictionalizing Shaz’ decades of top business experience and sharing a thrilling story about the first female CEO in the sports industry. Kahng’s experience working in male-dominated boardrooms enabled her to provide a behind the scenes look at what it really takes for a woman and a person of color to shatter the glass ceiling. Moderated by Nadia Gil. Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.

8 Mar 202255min

Volcanologist and natural hazards expert Jess Phoenix has dedicated her life to scientific exploration. Her career path—hard-earned in the still male-dominated world of science—has shoved her headlong into deep sea submersibles, congressional races, glittering cocktail parties at Manhattan’s elite Explorers Club, and innumerable pairs of Caterpillar work boots. It has also inspired her to devote her life to making science more inclusive and accessible. As part of her mission to learn as much as possible about how the Earth works, Jess has done science in many remote and dangerous environments. Her work has taken her to the mountains and jungles of South America, rural Mexico, the Hawaiian islands, the Australian Outback, the expanses of the American west, and remote parts of Africa. Jess is a strong advocate for "boots on the ground" science, believing that seeing things up close is the best way to understand them comprehensively. Jess’ book, Ms. Adventure, skillfully blends personal memoir, daring adventure, and scientific exploration, following her adventures from jungles to glaciers, university classrooms to television studios, and even to the side of the world’s largest volcano, where she fixes a tire with a ballpoint pen, bubblegum, and duct tape. Moderated by Lauren Harrell. Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.

4 Mar 20221h 1min