Transcript

#462: KICK Bias to the Curb with Anu Gupta, Founder & CEO of BE MORE with Anu

From Heather Monahan · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 56 min · 10,749 words · 62 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "#462: KICK Bias to the Curb with Anu Gupta, Founder & CEO of BE MORE with Anu", an episode of Heather Monahan published September 17, 2024 (56 min, about 10,749 words). It mentions 8 people, works and ideas, including Breaking Bias, Anu Gupta, Ted Talks, NYU Law, Fast Company.

What this episode is about

Anu Gupta, an educator, lawyer, and scientist, discusses his work as the founder and CEO of B More, an educational technology company dedicated to advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and bias reduction across various sectors. Drawing from his personal experiences with racism and homophobia, Gupta emphasizes the importance of unlearning bias through mindfulness and compassion, ultimately aiming to foster social healing and empowerment within organizations.

Key takeaways

  • Bias isn’t just a personal flaw; it’s a learned habit we can unlearn—like forgetting how to ride a bike.
  • Feeling uncomfortable discussing bias? That’s just emotional baggage; let’s unpack it to spark real social healing.
  • Every individual, from the bluest eyes to the brownest skin, has danced with bias. It's part of our shared humanity.
  • You're not just a victim of bias; you might also be the perpetrator—an inconvenient duality we must confront.
  • Social psychology shows it’s time to upgrade our consciousness—let's evolve past bias, not just in rhetoric, but in reality.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Breaking Bias, Anu Gupta, Ted Talks, NYU Law
  2. – 15:00: Breaking Bias
  3. – 20:00: Breaking Bias, NYU Law
  4. – 25:00: Breaking Bias
  5. – 55:00: Breaking Bias, Ted Talks

Notable quotes from "#462: KICK Bias to the Curb with Anu Gupta, Founder & CEO of BE MORE with Anu"

  • Amazing human I'm so excited for you to be back with me this week okay this week we've got a new Gupta he's an educator lawyer scientist and the founder and CEO of B Moore an…
    about Anu Gupta · at
  • Author he has written and spoken extensively including on the Ted stage the Oprah conversation Fast Company Newsweek and Vogue business oh articles I'm big fans of he is the…
    about Fast Company · at
  • Advent of our species but it's definitely a lot more Amplified and this is what I talk about in the book is why is it so Amplified and then what do we do about it right because…
    about Ted Talks · at
  • It impacts us how it impacts others so we could really unlearn it and that's where you know the tools that I talk about in the book I call the prison tools really come into play but I'm jumping the gun okay well so let's start here.
    about Breaking Bias · at
  • Bias and that's when I was like what that's crazy but I was still you know after law school I was working as an attorney I was working in the criminal justice system and I…
    about NYU Law · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Anu Gupta — Person · Main guest · 2 mentions · first at
    Primary interview subject; discusses his personal story, research-backed framework (PRISM), and his work training organizations to reduce bias and improve DEIB and wellness.

Books & papers

  • Breaking Bias — Book · Primary recommendation · 10 mentions · first at
    Central to the discussion, authored by the guest, focusing on understanding and overcoming biases.

Companies & orgs

  • NYU Law — Company · Affiliation · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as the alma mater of the guest, where he earned his JD.

Places & events

  • Ted Talks — Event · Referenced work · 3 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as a platform where the guest has spoken.

Media & podcasts

  • Fast Company — Media · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a platform where the guest has been featured.
  • Newsweek — Media · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a platform where the guest has been featured.
    Author he has written and spoken extensively including on the Ted stage the Oprah conversation Fast Company Newsweek and Vogue business oh articles I'm big fans of he is the…
  • Oprah Conversation — Media · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a platform where the guest has been featured.
    Author he has written and spoken extensively including on the Ted stage the Oprah conversation Fast Company Newsweek and Vogue business oh articles I'm big fans of he is the…
  • Vogue Business — Media · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a platform where the guest has been featured.
    Author he has written and spoken extensively including on the Ted stage the Oprah conversation Fast Company Newsweek and Vogue business oh articles I'm big fans of he is the…

Full transcript with timestamps

hi and welcome back we are getting into an incredible topic today with an amazing human I'm so excited for you to be back with me this week okay this week we've got a new Gupta he's an educator lawyer scientist and the founder and CEO of B Moore an education technology benefit corporation that trains professionals across corporate nonprofit and government sectors to advance deib and wellness by breaking bias we are going to get into bias people his work has reached 300 plus organizations training more than 880,000 professionals impacting over 30 million lives he holds a JD from NYU Law um I can't even oh Philadelphia development studies from cabridge University a ba in international relations Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies from NYU as a gay immigrant of color he came to work of breaking bias after almost ending his life due to lifelong experiences with racism homophobia and islamophobia the

realization that bias can be unlearned help Le him out of that dark point and inspired a lifelong mission to build a global movement for social healing based on principle of mindfulness and compassion oh my gosh the world needs more of that right now a peer-reviewed author he has written and spoken extensively including on the Ted stage the Oprah conversation Fast Company Newsweek and Vogue business oh articles I'm big fans of he is the author of breaking bias where stereotypes and prejudices come from and the science back method to unravel them I new thank thank you so much for being here today thank you so much for having me it's such an honor oh my gosh it's an honor to have you and as we were just talking about before we started recording it is such an incredible not that there isn't always a good time to have this conversation I've never had it on the show before so I'm just I'm really

pumped that you're here because we're watching so much division in our country right now with the political landscape it just seems Amplified more more than ever I mean h H have you always seen bias this front and center or is it really Amplified right now it's definitely Amplified I mean bias has been around for since the Advent of our species but it's definitely a lot more Amplified and this is what I talk about in the book is why is it so Amplified and then what do we do about it right because the way I Define bias is that it's a learned habit and just as it's learned it can be unlearned and that's kind of the goal for me is that when we think about bias like even if you reflect on it for a minute like we think about bias we've never talked about this open on this show why is that how does talking about bias make you feel it's uncomfortable it's uncomfortable right there's like shame arising there's like blame there's

guilt if I say something wrong did I do something we're always walking on X shells and that's the problem we have made this topic too heady But ultimately what I realized you know from a lot of my research and as a social scientist working on the courts as a lawyer before the bias ultimately is emotional and we need to be our fully human selves and be vulnerable and open to understanding how it impacts us how it impacts others so we could really unlearn it and that's where you know the tools that I talk about in the book I call the prison tools really come into play but I'm jumping the gun okay well so let's start here because I know I know this because in you know just being totally honest and transparent before we were going to get on for I paused for a minute to say like like who are you Heather to even have this conversation this guy's going to look at you and say say blond hair blue

eyes born in the US oh give me a break this woman doesn't know anything about bias and the irony is when you and I got on immediately you said Heather oh your story you dealt with so much bias and you had to explain to me how that was the case yeah you shattered so many glass ceilings in your life and also the fact that you're a blond hair blue-eyed woman right woman first of all but blond hair bluee one there's so many stereotypes that come to mind around your competencies your intellect your abilities you right and these are things that are happening often times at an unconscious level both internally like even when you shared that you know hey Heather like these are limiting beliefs like what do I what do I know about this topic I'm born in the US I'm you know blah blah blah but these are the stories that we really have to become intimate with and transform because bias is a human issue and that's for me it's so

important because regardless of who we are what we look like who we love what our political leanings are we have experienced bias I mean you could just be a middle child or the youngest child in a family and experienced bias from your parents or your teachers or you know your your ministers at church you name it right and the feeling of bias is something that's really familiar it goes to exactly what you said it's uncomfortable and it's not fair and for me I feel because of so much work that's been done around Neuroscience social psychology positive psychology it's time that we evolve our human consciousness Beyond this thing called bias that we do to ourselves like you had just done unconsciously and also we do to each other so for anyone that's listening that's saying I've never been biased against someone else because I guarantee somebody is thinking that right now because and I understand why because

there's this negative connotation with it I want to think but I know just based on what you were saying like parenting and whatnot so so how can we help people to understand that everybody's I don't want is this properly say you've been a victim of of bias thinking and you've also been the perpetrator of it yeah absolutely that's exactly it because bias is a learned habit and just as it's learned it can be unlearned but there are two forms of biases right there's conscious biases which are learned false beliefs and that they are unconscious biases which are learn habits of thoughts and both of these types of biases distort how we perceive reason remember and make decisions so for example if I ask you to think of someone who's a surgeon or a yoga teacher or a lawyer or a leader right what are the associations that come to mind right you don't have to share them with me but think about the gender the race the

color the height the age you name it the class background these are all associations these are unconscious associations that when becomes a lens like through the lens through which we perceive the world it impacts the way we make decisions you know I've had so many students who are doctors who happen to be women you know they're surgeons they're pediatricians they're you know opthalmologists and at least once in their life they've had patients ask them can I see the doctor right it's not that patient doesn't want to see them because they're a woman but like the Assumption even though like almost 50% of all doctors in our country are women so these are little ways bias plays itself out and we're doing it you know we're doing it at the supermarket we're doing it in our workplaces we're doing it in our homes even with our relatives and unless we make the unconscious conscious we're going to

continue to do it and it hurts it sucks and it's kind of the root cause of every challenge we face you know in our own lives but also in the lives you know in our social political economic systems is there any way and I'm just curious because I don't understand I don't know much about this topic is there any way bias can be helpful so the way I Define it you know I'm talking about bias very much as a learned habit between human beings so oftentimes bias gets confused that oh you know like I'm biased towards puppies versus lions and I need that limic you know that limic signal in my own bodies to warn me that I'm with a tiger and not a cat as a result I have to act but that's not what I'm talking about and that's like how common the language has become around bias that oh we're all biased but actually what I'm talking about is why is it that we think of you know association between men and women

for example that men are strong women are weak right that's bias because that's the perception or you know light-skinned people are beautiful and dark skin is not beautiful you know rich people are hardworking and poor people are lazy like these are the little ways that you know we trivialize ourselves cuz if we're rich or poor or middle class whatever we're trivializing our own existence and those are the limiting beliefs that we hold on to that become internalized biases that limit our own potential my I just have to share right now this is wild I don't spend a lot of time outside of the United States for whatever reason and I was invited this year to speak in Saudi Arabia and everyone close to me said do not go for fear you know they're projecting fear obviously now I'm understanding from bias that they had against you know Saudi Arabia Middle East they or what they don't know or what they saw on TV

or whatever it is yes it's so interesting I did my research and I everything I found factually said it was safe to go and I said I'm so scared that I have to go because I I just believe fear is a green light that means go and go faster so I was very nervous I got out there and I will tell you it was top two trips in my entire life I had the most unbelievable experience I went to the Palace became became friends with the princess truly like remarkable I'm going back in February and I now have such a different feeling and I love the opportunity to tell people about it because there is this complete misconception here in this country just because people haven't been over there to see themselves and I definitely had that bias and people I love still have it and have a hard time believing me so just wild how deep this bias concept goes your business gets to a certain size and the cracks start to emerge

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where do they learn that stuff I'll be from the media or education so these are like four of the five root causes that shape how we learn about bias and in this case around nationality right around being Saudi Arabian versus being American and this is the Crux of it and unless we make this conscious we we won't be able to come close together now you said you friends with people who are from there right you're going back in a couple of months that's what you're doing you're breaking biases by giving yourself The Experience well I'm going to just go and see how it's going to be and it was fantastic because you're like oh these are human beings they of course believe in different ways of being they have a different system that's cool but we can still party and have fun together right well what's so interesting is they actually my people my driver that I had for the week he and I listened to the

exact same music we love Biggie and Tupac All nights hip hop and rap we know all the s he doesn't speak the greatest English but he knows all the words to all my songs knows every NBA player oh my God we spoke the same language in so many ways that it didn't matter when we actually couldn't and we are I mean it it's amazing the friendship that we were able to develop because of music because sports like these these similar loves and passions that we have that the the issue of speech and language wasn't an issue at all I agree and you know you made me think of you know after college I lived in South Korea I was teaching English there for a year and I had a Homestay family who didn't speak a word of English so I had to like learn Korean a little bit my broken Korean except like my second week there they're like we're going to take you for a surprise I'm like okay where we going to go um so

we ended up at a karaoke bar because karaoke is a huge in Asia and South Korea and my Homestay mom sang slen Deon word for word pitch for pitch in English I was like what you don't speak a word of English how do you know the song but she had memorized so many English songs I was like wow this is a language of music that really like struck us like that's the language of the heart right because she was really trying to show me that this is what matters to her and these are the things we share together even though we don't speak the same language we're from two different countries and we have different backgrounds and that's the work of breaking bias giving ourselves permission to get to know one another um and really be with one another as we are versus living in ideas of one another oh that's that is so true and so powerful all right so I love to get into people's story tell us a little bit about your

story as to why you got into this work how you got into yeah so you know my story is I came to the US when I was 10 years old my family's from India and we immigrated here and um in India I lived in a pretty like upper middle class family like from you know my parents are doctors and of course I'm a guy so I just was always given a lot of preferential treatments when I came to America I became an Untouchable because of my name people can pronounce it because of the way I spoke the way I dressed and because a lot of people smelled or perceived that I was gay I didn't know what being gay was by the way until I until one of my bullies actually asked me hey go look up the word gay in the diction in and I did I was like 12 years old I was like oh my God there's a word for how I feel inside and oh my gosh I am gay and yet a second I sensed that oh this being gay thing is wrong or the reason why I was being

bullied I like totally went into the closet and for me like these were the micro experiences that I had dayto day um but I always like shoved them inside and I just pretended to be what others wanted me to be so I kind of went through my life like this until I went to grad school then I went to law school and in law school I thought we would talk about these issues because you know criminal law and Tor all of this is about bias and how we can overcome if you know think about civil rights and human rights and yet there was no you know at that time at least there was very little you know recognition of bias as a concept you know unconscious bias in particular so I started feeling like oh maybe what I'm feeling wrong what I'm feeling inside is wrong I am wrong so I basically right before my second year of law school I found myself on the 18th floor of my window about to jump off like literally I was like I'm done

with this life I was like in the throws of depression I had internalized all these false stories about myself because of my nationality because of my sexuality because of my age you name it um but that was the moment of Grace instead of falling forward I somehow fell backwards and I can't explain it you know to this day I'm like wow I'm alive because of God or some bigger Universal force that I can't understand and that minute I was like I'm about to I almost like took my life so I called someone a friend of mine who lived really far away from me she happened to be walking on my block literally she happened to be walking on my block she showed up in my apartment within 3 to 5 minutes and she talked with me for God knows how many hours the next day I started my breaking bias Journey went to the counseling center and basically started looking at a lot of these interventions that I talk about in the books that have that in my

book that I that basically help us break bias but I was using these interventions to just like overcome the limiting beliefs the self-loathing the self-hatred the self judgment I was experiencing but the more I was helping myself go through my own healing journey I started looking at the science you know the Neuroscience social psychology science and they were saying that these tools that I was using to help myself actually helped us reduce bias particularly unconscious bias and that's when I was like what that's crazy but I was still you know after law school I was working as an attorney I was working in the criminal justice system and I started seeing a lot of inequities like I would be in the courtroom for example and I would just see like you know poor black boys being sentenced to prison for like four or five years at a time for breaking cell phones for like lowlevel in possession of lowle you know little marijuana here

and there where my classmates and law School were like dealing every control substance known to Earth and working at some of the most prestigious firms in the world so I was like this is a weird discrepancy but also the people that were doing this the judges the prosecutors the security guards they weren't bad people actually worked with that you know they gave to charity they were really you know up outstanding members of their Community but this is where unconscious bias really comes in the association between someone who's poor someone who black someone who's a man or a woman or a gay person and that impacts the way distorts the way they perceive reason remember and make decisions toward them and that's where I was like wow like we can change all the policies we want in the world unless we shift hearts and Minds we can't move forward and that's why we're still here right the reason there was a me too

movement is because despite we changing the law women still earn 70 cents to the dollar right despite you know so intellectually we've done it but now we have to really shift and go deeper and that's these tools what I call the prism tools are really helpful in doing and I test it on myself right I started testing you know tools of mindfulness and individuation and stereotype replacement on how I felt that emotional aspect you know that discomfort that you feel around this and over time with practice they really help us cleanse the nervous system from you know just these afflictive emotions and be more comfortable in our own skin but also be more comfortable with other people so we're with people for who they are versus our ideas of them so bias actually negatively impacts the body then oh yeah oh my goodness there are there's so much research around um how carrying biosis toward oursel or other

people help you know basically raises our blood pressure makes our hypervigilant creates I mean all the negative thoughts we have right often times that manifest physically in our bodies you know there's a phenomenon known as weathering which is basically the idea that the more we experience bias whether it's unconscious bias or conscious bias like little things oh you're too pretty or wow you know you know you're smart because you're Asian whatever it may be like these are just trivial examples um these are micro Cuts but then over time when they accumulate they reduce life expectancy it's been shown like five to 10 years you know in the case of African-American for example you know of course creates depression and anxiety where people have to seek various things to cope whether it's food alcohol sex you name it right these are all addictive behaviors and this is why like you know a lot of times in our

society you know socially in our communities there's so many addictions that we see because all of these humans are suffering and they don't have the words to describe what's happened to them and for me this is why breaking bias is so important and how the work of breaking bias is actually rooted in compassion and mindfulness and really starting with ourselves oh my gosh when you're just explaining that I'm thinking of so many micro cut moments just in the past two days that I never thought one of my dearest friends who I love so much is in Ai and so she's always tagging me in posts and I was reposting your stuff today and calling her a nerd just because I don't understand AI so I'm calling her a nerd but then I'm when you're talking I'm like oh my gosh I am because I don't know this or because I think that's you know too hard for me to understand I'm labeling it this I never even understood that that's any type of

bias like this is I just know for me and I'm just think of myself as probably similar to a lot of people I don't think people have any idea about this stuff yeah and I think there's a difference there right because since she's your friend she already knows you so when you're calling her nerd because my a lot of my friends call me a nerd too so like and I proudly wear that title I'm like oh yeah because I think they're saying it to me in an endearing way but the bullies in middle school and high school when they called me a nerd it was like a nefarious intent there they wanted to hurt me so that's where context is so important right so um it's really you know between strangers of course it happens so much you know on you know within in a in a workplace of course it could be really hurtful you know and this is very true right you know you're so articulate for a woman or a person of color you name it right so those are the

types of things that can hurt but I think within friendships if there's a mutual understanding yes but if not it could also be I mean can also hurt I mean this is why a lot of people are I mean I've been in therapy for so long because this is what my dad said this is what my mom said right and I hold on to their words like it was the Bible and I'm like Oh no I got to let go of that really loosen it and also this is what the work of breaking bias is when we break those biases for ourselves we're able to offer Grace and benefit of the doubt to others you know I think about my mom she became my mom when she was 2 years old heck I didn't know who I was when I was 24 you know what I mean right so like those are the types of things that I never think about because for me is just her my mom but I'm like oh no like there's a human there who's like Beyond this title of mother who has a full life and has had also a lot of her

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Monahan you can thank me later what are some of the steps people can apply to their life that um you share through your teachings and through the book yeah so there are five tools what I call the prism tool kit and prism is an acronym for each each one of these five tools we really start with M and then we move our way up to p and it really starts with M is for mindfulness so really becoming aware becoming conscious of anything that's happening right in our bodies in our minds especially in an interaction or with ourselves or others so for example right I grew up in this cultural setting where being gay is wrong right that was the story and I didn't even acknowledge that until like I started my healing Journey when I was 23 24 I was like oh wait who made up that story being gay is wrong what so becoming mindful of that you know like knowing about AI is something that only smart people can do whatever that means right

that's a story right but we become mindful of it without judgment also if judgment comes up let's become mindful of the Judgment let's become mindful of the shame let's become mindful of the discomfort so the sematic experience is also really important because it's telling us something because in the past we may have been harmed you know belied or in some way felt marginalized because we were a certain way so then we move to stereotype replacement which is we we basically bring to mind a real life example that doesn't live up to that stereotype so being gay is wrong right for me for example I think of Pete budich right he's an incredible you know former Marine super accomplish also happens to be gay he doesn't live up to these stereotypes of being gay is wrong there's so many Anderson Cooper there's so many people so really think of them and we're basically loosening the associations in our minds with those

stereotypes so there's a there's a famous saying neurons that fire together wire together so that's what's happening and what we're doing is we're rewiring the brain by firing different neurons so then we move to individuation which is C osity we're basically dissociating the person we're with from the group based associations that may come to mind we don't judge the group based associations we just become mindful of them so if I'm with Heather who happens to be a woman who happens to be a blonde there are all these ideas cool let the ideas come but I'm really with Heather for who she is versus the ideas I want to believe so this is really interesting right where we kind of really individually and then we move to perspective taking and proo behaviors those are the last two tools and these are actually tools tools they heart tools cultivating compassion empathy through practice so a lot of

times people like be kind or be compassionate be empathetic but actually scientists have shown that we can build compassion and empathy or joy as a skill and it takes anywhere from three to eight weeks to build these skills but the simple way we do this is affirmations you're really familiar with this affirmations and what I did you know in my healing Journey for two years straight for 20 minutes a day I would just say compassionate phrases to myself only may I be happy may I be healthy may I be safe may I live with these simple two years and just transformed so much of the self-loading I was carrying of course we have to do this earnestly not just like you want something to go away and at first it can feel really Brad but over time it softens the heart because what it's doing is again neurons that fire together wire together there's a negative it bias in our nervous system so what this is doing is building

bringing those warmhearted those warm feelings to counteract the cynicism the doubt the hate that we've learned from our surroundings and really reaching in our soul level who we actually are love compassion you know we are completely interdependent so those are the things that this really brings forth and that's for me what the Neuroscience has shown the opportunity for us to really evolve our way out of this thing which we're seeing everywhere but I'm really hopeful we can get out of it through these practices yeah I love that these are not only are they science back and base right which is it's I mean that's factual so this can be done you've done it right you've done it and worked with other people and seen these success stories you have these success stories you know it's all it's all possible now it's just educating and spreading this message so that other people number one aware because I think for me that was

that's the first issue right I didn't even realize I was being biased to myself as you were explaining this I didn't know that I was doing that so as soon as once we know we've got a problem then we can start yes to address it and fix it and implement it and then it can start impacting like you were saying you know how we treat others and how we treat ourselves and how we approach things I was also thinking when you were talking about that dating oh my gosh that is gosh yes that's got to be like one of the biggest issues when you're s meeting someone for the first time and the Judgment comes up and the bias oh my go okay I'm I'm G to share a story here which is quite personal it's actually not my story but I I hope my partner will forgive me but basically so my partner was born and raised in Texas um he comes from a Filipino family and his grandfather was the one who immigrated to the US they're very Christian

Methodist and my his grandfather had a dream for him that one day you know as as they were walking to church I think it was like seven or eight he said you're going to have a beautiful blonde wife and you will have a white picket fence and you will live the American dream so here's this like brown Filipino boy who's gay but you know he learned this from his grandfather so every single person he dated until he met me four years ago was mostly a blonde white man and it wasn't that I mean of course he has a very diverse group of friends of course he's you know but but it it was so unconscious and I think he was he actually was seeing a therapist because his last relationship hadn't worked out and his therapist was like asking him to really go deeper and deeper into the type of people he dates and why he dates them and that's when he discovered like whoa like I only give chance you know dating wise to only one type of human

what's that about and that if he hadn't done that work if he hadn't broken that bias which was on such a at a surface level he was like this is ridiculous but he wasn't even conscious of it and it was dictating how he was making decisions thankfully he looked at that thankfully he swiped right thankfully we met and here we are I love it we're engaged right away so oh congratulations I'm so happy for you guys and I'm so happy for him like that he pumped the brakes and said something's not right here I've got to go deeper because so many people won't do that I'm just so proud of him that's incredible and that he had a good therapist to help discover that but now that you're telling that where just hit me it's so wild that you say this and guys look into your own life peeps because here's the thing as you're talking I'm thinking to myself my biological father my mother left him when we were all little children I've

there's four kids in my biological family and so I always had daddy issues my whole life and I was thinking yeah that affects you in relationships you know what I didn't think of for a long time it was affecting me in business and I would always find myself the relationship that played me most in my life was the man I would work for in different corporate environments yes and it wasn't their problem it was my problem right it was all about me I could never do enough for them I could never shine bright enough I could never win make enough Millions for them I had to drive drive that sale price higher and the pressure I would put on myself and again it's not about them forget each one of them they were different whatever it didn't matter it was about me picking men that at work that I could go and try to get to see my value and constantly praise me and nothing would ever be good enough unless I was I got

them to be so ecstatic with me that it was killing me and I through therapy and you know selw workk you start discovering this stuff and saying wait a minute I don't work for anyone else but myself it's so true and like this is what's running a lot of corporate America like at least I'll speak from my example right so so many of my friends and classmates from law school these were the daddy issues that they had and they were mostly some of them were Mommy is but for for the most part was these were D issues whether they're men or women or anyone in between same issues which is why they would overwork 80 90 100 hours a week trying to prove to themselves to the partner in charge that they were worthy that they were good enough and I was like wow like this is that inpersonal play from their childhood but these are also a lot of internalized biases these biases of unworthiness not being good enough you

know needing to prove themselves over and over again overcome compensation as it's known as and also sometimes it could be under compensation where they succumb to the stereotypes I am worthless I good for nothing so why even try and that happens to us you know in different phases of life for some people right and so these are the way it manifests and it could be you know just heartbreaking and so painful unless we make it conscious like you did like I did right like my partner did yeah but it's so interesting in your partner much like me I didn't know that's what I was figuring out it sounds like he didn't he was kind of like stumbled into it to say something's going over here with dating what is that about and then and that was the same for me why am I making myself so sick at work all the time but it doesn't matter where I end up working I'm falling back into negative work environments where I'm not treated well

and then I try to get these people to love me and and praise me what's broken here was finally you know what changed things then this you're not g to be surprised by this when I did go out on my own I had this like paralyzing fear of failure that how can I succeed without some man telling me what to do when PS there was not one person I worked for that I didn't outrun and outd deliver on so I like I I knew intellectually I was the one always calling the shots so of course I can do it on my own but something physically within me my own limiting beliefs were telling me wait you can't do this without a man leading that was the hardest breakthrough for me becoming an entrepreneur and I didn't realize it initially I mean I I wish more and more women are listening to you like because that's it I mean that's the reason why my mom has been where she is all her life because to this day she makes more

money than my dad I mean they're both wonderful humans but the fact is she's always needed to feel like she needs a man in her life to validate her existence this is a learned story it's a learned story and it can be unlearned people it so can be unlearned and I'm so glad that you're doing this work because you know what's interesting I'm kind of having this Epiphany right now is that the work you're doing is not so different than a lot of psychology that are out there right like it's you're approaching it from a very different perspective angle but it's very similar in that you're talking about mindfulness meditation self-awareness you're talking about tactical T tips and strategies from psychology that you could Implement into your life but you're approaching it and and so important I'm so proud of you too for doing this because some people are only going to relate to it with the science B backed approach and they're

only going to relate to it you know you've been a lawyer and you like your background is is so you're so educated that some people will only listen to someone like that some people will only listen to a woman's perspective on it or yeah but all voices need to be heard in order to connect and and reach the masses and and this work as we know just has to be done yeah and I think we've like you said like it just seems like it's everywhere right and why do neighbors hate one another like why do we there's like ruptures within our families where we've believed these stories people have told us about each other because of our beliefs that we completely break our relationships and for me that's the sad part you know for me like writing this book is I've had you know I have family members who are across the political spectrum and you know through these practices I'm like oh like I can be curious I can be loving

and vice versa right some of my family members don't share much of my you know political beliefs and yet they still buy me you know Christmas presents they still take me out right so there's that love that's present there um and that's what I want to remain that these are just these are just little things like little things have become big things but we have to make them uncon make them conscious and really break them and eventually hopefully people will be able to talk to one another you know across the aisle so we can actually create solutions that benefit all of us you know move away from the negativity move away from the divisiveness one of the things that's coming to my mind is that yeah this stuff is important and of course everyone understands in their own life you know how could it affect their family negatively their work negatively as we're talking about relationships Etc okay but let's talk about the elephant

in the room which is you know let's Islamic culture right now and and you know and Israel and when you start talking about these real I mean there it's so much fighting like some topics are harder is it harder to address bias on something so big like that do you not even start there or because I'm just thinking I you know I I have friends on all different sides and from different so I hear all of the different viewpoints and anger and upset and and I can also sit and empathize with each of them when I'm sitting with them but then I I empathize so how do do you address it or is it too heated to address right now you know it's so interesting that you asked me this because yeah like you I have friends on all sides you know and also I lived in Israel after college I worked at the Holocaust Museum in New York City I was an Islamic St Studies major because I went to Israel so like it was really it's been something that's really

personal to me um and even though I'm not Muslim but I'm often confused for one because of the way I look again those associations um but I think none of these topics are too big because the root cause is the same these are learned habits learned stories right that can be unlearned the reason why it's so challenging with this particular topic around Israel and Gaza and the Middle East in general is because the emotions that arise are really big feelings they are really big feelings and folks don't have the tools to manage those big emotions and that's what that's why I feel like let's start small and really build the resilience and really train our nervous systems because that's what's going to be helpful in resolving these bigger conflicts you know because ultimately we all want to live we all want other people to be able to live why can't we all live together or why can't we come to an agreement so that that we

can live together right these are kind of the big things but there are reasons you know people will say well this is why we can't this is why we can't and people are so wetted and attach to their stories but they forget a bigger picture lives are at stake so much stress so much anxiety so much money being wasted our environment being destroyed right you just name it you know it's it's it's like a lose lose lose all over but because of these big feelings as you would know from any with therapic we can't get there so this is why it's so important for us to be doing this work internally and of course for me My Hope Is that one day I'll be able to talk about these big feelings and really get to the root cause but that requires a lot of patience but because people get can get so quickly triggered you know and they could resort to fear and run away and when we shut down and run away we just go to fight flight or

freeze right and that's what we're seeing ex sadly so if people find themselves especially during this time right now with all these political conversations happening and you know you're going into an environment whether it be business or family it doesn't matter like you said we're GNA find somebody on one side and on opposite within any room we could walk into if something ex starts getting you know accelerated and people are getting really emotional is there something PE you can do to CM that bias down and or should you Le like what's the best strategy for somebody to if they finds themselves in that situation I mean this is such a great question Heather so start with mindfulness become aware that oh it's getting heated oh it's getting heated and there's just disagreements and this could and we sense that already though this could go in a wrong direction so the second we become aware of it I think we start with

ourselves and really feel like oh how does it feel in my body just just a quick sematic check oh I feel tense in my chest okay and then basically then we move to like breathing or whatever we need to do but then we move to stereotype replacement which is why I mean I don't know if you've seen any I have some really wonderful mentors who are just so skillful they're able to just you know change the conversation change the topic laugh it off you know what I do sometimes I excuse myself and I do 10 jumping jacks or I just like I like literally set up my timer and jump for 30 seconds it moves the energy around that's the stereotype replacement because we don't assume to do that we're basically doing something that's completely different and then we move to just curiosity curiosity is really important because part of why these conversations become diet tribes and arguments is because we lose curiosity

and we want to be right so for me I've had to do this quite a bit it's like I don't need to be right you know I don't care about being right you know I don't care about winning I just want peace particularly with my parents particularly with my sisters or my best friend so but I'm also curious like where are they coming from tell me more three words tell me more and I talk about this incident in my book because um my dad for example he has this like weird notion that anyone who's poor or anyone who's like not doing well it's because of their genetics I was like this is like so dumb for like someone who's a doctor um because it's so simplistic but and of course I've had like fighting matches with him like my entire life except one day this was like eight or nine years ago I was like okay tell me more where's this coming from so I was it's very hard that I was like breing in practicing what I you know preach basically and I

eventually learned that he had a teacher in grade school who he loved and this teacher um really inspired him to become a doctor and he's a very successful doctor now my dad is and his teacher believed in this like simplistic view of the world education and social contact because this teacher is someone he woried right or revered he adopted his views and for him to drop those views is to drop his teacher W that little it's just so simple and so little right and this happens to all of us but for me the conversation has since been is like oh this says nothing about your teacher that you really respect what a wonderful person and a role model for you and he can be wrong about certain things as the science has shown since then right um so that's where we I mean if people really want to move into like but it requires transformation in ourselves first because I'm not trying to change my dad I'm not trying to make him anything he's

not but just being curious with it and being present to him but I'm sure he was completely unaware that that's where this all stem from yeah it was it was wild it was wild that's an incredible realization and just it's so powerful because it's making me think what beliefs and stories am I telling that is keeping somebody alive that is no longer here or keeps you in your mind in some positive way to someone that you're not working with anymore I or Mentor I mean I can't even imagine I've never thought about uh the power of those connections and and what you might do with that I mean it happens it's some of it is like so harmless like it happens in such harmless context but this is why we have challenges around sex you know sexism and RAC because these are just little stories you know what our dad said or our Minister said or our teacher said or what have you right and we respect them so we believe

them but there's a big information Gap and there's a lot of misinformation out there so this is the importance of breaking vies to correct that misinformation um and I hope that's what more and more of us can do like I had to I didn't even know what being gay was until I was 12 years old you know as someone who felt it because in the culture I grew up in there was no word for it right but then once I learned it and once I broke my own bias these like oh there's nothing wrong there's been people like me for Millennia right ancient Greeks ancient Romans ancient Egyptians ancient Indians ancient Chinese you name it they've always been around like it's just I was just born this way and was like oh okay so a lot of the narratives that we get stuck in are just stories that some person came up with and then they infected our Consciousness with it and for us now the goal is are we going to let them rule

over our Consciousness or are we going to become the master of our own destiny I choose the latter okay so give me I want to hear with all of the people that you have worked with I want to hear a success story of something that you've seen that you feel really proud of or like a transformation around bias whether it be a company and organization or a person in individually yeah this is such a great question and like the first person that comes there's so many right like 880,000 people um the first one that came to mind um is you know it's she's a woman um executive at a large Healthcare company and basically she was the only woman at her role at her first senior album like I think she's VP or even senior now probably and basically she always felt out of place not only because of her gender but also because she grew up in poverty so she comes from a very like workingclass background and she always felt like she was you know

she had imposter syndrome and as a result even though this is someone who's like high achieving talking to lobbyists and basically has people on their on her fingertips you know inside there was a lot of turmoil and the way it was manifesting this is interesting because this is part of the some of the work that I did with her was it was manifesting with her two kids her two kids who are four well they were at the time four and five she was extra hard on them they were going to like a private school but she was like you have to work harder and just like really tough and of course you know she felt really guilty about it all the time and yet she couldn't get out of this pattern so this is what we did we just practiced prism starting with mindfulness and particularly doing those compassion practices just for her for herself and the little girl within her for like several weeks and then she

started also teaching those same practices to her kids the four and five-year-old it's transformed it's transformed who she is she walks differently she talks differently she's behaves differently she doesn't have to be the man in the office anymore she's not trying to be someone she's not she's more of an authentic person more successful than she's ever been before at the workplace and more successful as a mother as a parent at home and she's one of my I would say I'm not supposed to have any favorite students but she's one of my favorite ones because every six months she'll send me an update so that's why she's so top of mine cuz she'll tell me like how our life has changed with such simple tools right we also worked on some of the stories right stories around gender stories are on Race she's also a woman of color so you know just like stories she learned and internalized about ourselves that are just not true based

on the signs they are not true whatsoever she was like oh that's how my dad or my teacher or my coworker learned these stories they're not true they're real where does someone begin how do you even begin to identify what those stories are and before you even figure out that they're not true well those are that's I talk about the story in the book uh but basically like I'll give you an example like often times and you'd be surprised how many doctors I've been with how many teachers I've been with who believe that race is biological that there's a gene for being black and white or being Asian or Latino there's no there's no genetic basis for race race is not biological it's literally a story that some humans made up less than 300 years ago yeah it's just completely made up and actually the science has shown that people who are in different raal categories might actually be more genetically identical than people in the

same racial category because they're categories they're made up these labels um so like to really explain how the story comes about and and how ridiculous basically for your listeners bunch of guys who love to collect skulls human skulls came up with the story of race in the 1700s and they basically said this one skull is so beautiful it must be the best type of person and they named it Caucasian and then they created a really silly hierarchy but this is the power of story because this hierarchy that they created infected you know all of our human consciousness they sound like a bunch of wackos create they're collecting skulls they were wackos they're called skull cabinets like there's so much research done on this they were complete wackos narcissist megalomania insecure you know probably lonely um you name it and we are stuck in their story and for me like when I first discovered this

you know you know last year of law school I was like are you kidding me this is why I was a bullied all my life this is why I was uttered all my life and the more I share this with people they're like crap I remember I did a training at Ted I was a Ted resident I give a TED talk but they also wanted me to do a a story there um like a sorry a workshop there and I led one of those workshops with their entire staff people just couldn't get over it they were like this can't be true you're lying I'm like no look it up and then they were like oh crap everything I said is true I mean of course I simplified it a little bit and then they were like crap like this is what our kids need to be taught in the first grade but it's not in our education it's not in our media and as a result because there's such information gaps we continue to perpetuate these false stories about ourselves and one another

and just how much time we spend wishing we were thinner wishing we were lighter wishing we were more be oh my God waste of time and energy can you like what could we do if we just like loved ourselves and just accepted ourselves for who we are that's that's it the answer always will be the answer and that's why people need to read breaking bias who did you write book for I wrote the book for basically everyday Americans and actually everyday citizens so like parents grandparents teachers doctors anyone who's a professional anyone who's a leader and the way I Define leader is not just someone who's like running a corporation or a nonprofit or government sector but a leader in their in their own lives right they're the leader of their home they're a Mom they're a Grandmom right they're stepparent and they deal with these issues with their kids mental health is such a big challenge for our

kids now they bullying so it's really for people like me basically right like everyday people right who are struggling and are also struggling not just to make ends meet because of financial reasons but struggling with their mental health because of these stories these lies that we've learned about ourselves and how it's impacting the way we make decisions the way we interact with ourselves and one another and to basically Inspire them to kind of bind more compassion for themselves and others and let's build a world where belonging replaces bias you know and that's the vision that's such a beautiful thing and this book is for me I mean having that realization that I think this is the work I do all day long and yet I was bullying myself and telling myself false stories before I got on with you today beating myself up for what a wild thing for and I'm so grateful you shared that with me had no

idea I was doing it so there's always more work to be done you are yeah and I think one of the things that I want to advise folks is like you know there's no shame or blame or you know there's no shame or blame in this game absolutely none and if it comes up it's wanting to be looked at it's wanting to be uncovered and that's the beauty of this because unless we really unleash it and really kind of Pierce through it it's going to restrict Our Lives um so this is why compassion and mindfulness are kind of the two wings that are holding the work of breaking bias where can everybody get breaking bias because I know everyone wants to get the book right now and they want to apply prison to their life yes anywhere you buy books you know whether it's an Amazon or Barnes & Noble or bookshop.org you name it or your local bookstore whoever you want to support it's available everywhere um in the US UK and

Australia and Canada of course well Anu thank you so much for writing the book Thank you for working to break bias in this world today it is so needed and thank you for being here today thank you so much for having me it was such a gift to be with you oh my gosh you're such a sweetheart okay guys get the book breaking by now you can get it anywhere I will put it at the link in the show notes below keep creating your confidence and start working on breaking your bias prism is going to teach you how until next week keep bring your confidence

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "#462: KICK Bias to the Curb with Anu Gupta, Founder & CEO of BE MORE with Anu"?

Heather Monahan (Host), Anu Gupta (Guest).

What is "#462: KICK Bias to the Curb with Anu Gupta, Founder & CEO of BE MORE with Anu" about?

Anu Gupta, an educator, lawyer, and scientist, discusses his work as the founder and CEO of B More, an educational technology company dedicated to advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and bias reduction across various sectors. Drawing from his personal experiences with racism and homophobia, Gupta emphasizes the importance of unlearning bias through mindfulness and compassion, ultimately…

What is mentioned in this Heather Monahan episode?

8 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Breaking Bias, Anu Gupta, Ted Talks, NYU Law, Fast Company, Newsweek. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "#462: KICK Bias to the Curb with Anu Gupta, Founder & CEO of BE MORE with Anu"?

The episode runs 56 min; the transcript is about 10,749 words in 62 timestamped sections.

More from Heather Monahan

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.