I don't know about you, but it can be hard to figure out how I'm feeling from day to day, or heck, from moment to moment.

And that's because it can be difficult to identify my emotions. In fact, that's what therapists spend a lot of time doing, trying to get people to understand their emotions.

I know this from personal experience because let me tell you, I am an emotion suppressor,

or at least I used to be. My therapist would ask me how I'm feeling, and I would say,

tired. Her response,

tired is not an emotion. Being in touch with my emotions regularly is challenging, especially in the workplace. It takes a lot of effort to be introspective when your plate is full and you're running from meeting

to meeting. But so much of the work we do is influenced by how we're feeling and how we manage

our emotions. This is even more relevant when dealing with challenging situations and difficult

conversations about performance, about people, and about so many

other structural issues like race and gender. So how do we get better at having open conversations

in our organizations and not be controlled by our emotions in the process.

I'm Madhuacanola. This is Ted Business.

Our speaker today is educator Africa Afini Mills.

In this talk, Africa explains how to have productive conversations about race. She offers tips on how to confront our apprehensions and actively participate in these discussions at any stage in life. Then after the

talk, I'll share a practice that can be helpful in having any type of conversation that focuses on being aware of

your emotions. But first, a quick break.

My name is Africa Afani.

Africa, spelled with a K, and Afani after Afani Shakur, member of the Black Panther Party

and mother of Tupac Shakur. As you might imagine, I grew up talking about race with my family.

My father built bookshelves in the living room of our Brooklyn apartment, and my parents

filled those shells with the books of black authors

whose words we were unfortunately unlikely to encounter outside of our home. I have Alex Haley's

...