Speaker 1:

Welcome, advocates, to another episode of The Leading Equity Podcast, a podcast that focuses on supporting educators with the tools and resources necessary to ensure equity at their schools. Today's special guest is Mr. Damion Taylor. So without further ado, Damion, thank you so much for joining us today.

Damion Taylor:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

Speaker 1:

The pleasure is always mine, and I'm glad you and I had a chance to talk a little bit before we hit record. So I'm really excited about today's topic. We're going to be talking about racial bias among school counselors, and I'm looking forward to hearing your story and for you to share your story with the audience. But before we get into that, I'd love for you to share a little bit about yourself and what you currently do.

Damion Taylor:

Yeah. So Damion Taylor, I run a company called Prometheus Digital. We consult for brands of all sizes, but really focusing on technology and media, to help them not only understand diversity, but really use data in a way that's useful and practical every day. So it's not an afterthought, it's not a I'm going to make sure I can cover myself in case I make a mistake, but it also helps a lot of the people who we work with who are minorities or people of color to come into a situation, to a story, into a meeting from a position of power, versus asking to be heard.

Damion Taylor:

Because now they have support. They know that they have an audience behind and money behind them, the revenue, whatever that is, bringing that data, it changes the conversation. And so for us, it's been really exciting to be able to empower people in that way, but also to help people understand that there's not only power in data, but that numbers and data are things that can be brought to life and actually are around us in everything that we do.

Speaker 1:

You know, one of the things, when I work with teachers and they tell me, "I feel like I'm the only person," or, "I'm getting this pushback where folks are telling me, oh, that's not here, that's not at our school," and I say, "Well, a lot of school admin, I don't know a school administrator who doesn't appreciate data."

Speaker 1:

And so if you're bringing that data to, you know, who's being sent to the office the most, or who's getting the most referrals, or what does our special ed program look like, versus our gift and talented program? Look at this data and show it to them. So now it's not just me telling them, "Hey, we have some challenges that we need to fix," but we actually, I can support that with the data. So I'm glad that is part of your platform and what you do. How do you produce that data? What do you do to collect it?

Damion Taylor:

So for most of our clients, they have lots and lots of data that they're just sitting on, and they don't know what to do with it. So it's easy for us to then go in and review it and take a look and understand what's really happening. When that's not present, then my background, I started off as a scientist, so I started off being a neuroscientist, so researching and finding things out, that's what I do. And we'll pull together some research, we'll do some surveys, we'll do focus groups, whatever that takes to get that nugget that we're trying to understand.

Damion Taylor:

And I think the key in that is we always go in with, this is our hypothesis, but we could be wrong. We're okay being wrong. And depending on the topic, sometimes you hope that you're wrong. But always coming in with a plan and being very, very specific in what's that thing that you're focused on, because a lot of times people go in and they'll try to boil the ocean. We want to understand this one thing or these two things. And then what are the metrics that tell us about that?

Damion Taylor:

And that's where the schools and the brands and whomever we're talking to really get excited. I wish we had more work with schools, to be honest, but I think that'll come. And we are, I don't know if I can talk about this too much yet, but we're working on a project, an education project, to really help bring media and technology into school. That'll not only teach students about media and being in front of the camera, but the business behind it, the technology behind it, and how to really leverage that.

Speaker 1:

Well, I know you say you can't talk about it, but if things come to fruition and you want to come back on the show, we can definitely talk about it, if you have that opportunity. So just, yeah, keep me posted on that one

Damion Taylor:

For sure. For sure. I mean, one of the things that I'm really adamant about is we see a lot of people, especially Black kids and people of color, going into media thinking they have to be in front of the camera, where the real power's actually behind it. If you own the technology that's driving that, if you understand it, you're suddenly in really high demand.

Damion Taylor:

My career is what it is because no one else had the skillset of understanding data and being able to merge it with media and communications the way I could. And I just so happened to be there early and saw something happening and figured I should jump on it. And so understanding that phenomenon is powerful in education. It's not just memorizing the numbers. It's understanding how what you're learning comes to life.

Speaker 1:

So I'm glad that you said the ownership behind, because I was watching something with my sister, and I didn't know that the owner of The Weather Channel was a Black man. And not only that, but he has acquired all kind of different channels. And I mean, I can't remember his name. I have to look him up. But that kind of influence, and just having that, I mean, how many channels, I mean, you've got Oprah and then this guy, this brother. Those are the only two people, Black people, that I know of, let alone people of color, that I know of that have their own channels. So I'm glad that that's something that you're focusing on.

Damion Taylor:

Yeah, and it's interesting. So one of the things that, especially in the media space, is there are a lot of, not a lot, but there's a significant number of Black owners, but then those channels don't get distribution because of the assumption it's niche, no one's going to watch it. So there's The Africa Channel. One of my colleagues who I used to work with at NBC Universal, she was one of the owners of The Africa Channel. And that was all Black people.

Damion Taylor:

There are a couple streaming sites that are profitable and have some amazing content made by Black and African and other creators from the diaspora. And no one knows about them. They don't get the funding, even though unlike a lot of the streaming sites, she's profitable and actually bringing in and growing her audience. So it's really being able to understand the power behind that.

Damion Taylor:

And when people start to see the history of just technology and math and the influence that we've made, like the creator of the cell phone, GPS, these are all Black individuals, Black scientists who brought something to life, things that are integral to our everyday life. Like with GPS, how many people would get around today, right? Or without their cell phone? Both of those things every day are things that people are using. And so realizing the impact that just influence in those areas can have, more than being the person made an app that goes on that cell phone.

Speaker 1:

The GPS was a Black woman, right?

Damion Taylor:

Yep.

Speaker 1:

She's also the one that did the voice over IP, right?

Damion Taylor:

Yep.

Speaker 1:

Where we do our streaming, not streaming, but like Skype and all that technology.

Damion Taylor:

The fact that we're even right now on Zoom, I mean, it's all her.

Speaker 1:

I've got to look her up. I'm supposed to know this stuff off the top of my head. I should know this. I'm a former history teacher. I'm supposed to know this stuff. However, and that's unfortunate, and unfortunately, that's the case. A lot of people didn't know that it was created by a Black woman, let alone her name. I'm going to have to look her up. But that is important.

Speaker 1:

So all right, let's get into the topic because I would love for you to share your experience in high school when it came to, you know, you're looking at college. I guess I'll let you share your story when it comes to your experience that you wanted to bring up today.

Damion Taylor:

Yeah. So I talked about this a little bit on my podcast, and it was actually probably one of the times that was most difficult for me on the podcast because it was personal. And you had to kind of share a bit of yourself. And for me in high school, I did really well, I'm not going to lie. High school was pretty easy for me. But my senior year, especially, so when I started my senior year, I also started my freshman year of college. So I was doing the two concurrently, but the college I was going was a local college. It's not like it's a bad school. It was UC Riverside. So it was definitely a good school. But I wanted to really, really go to Stanford. That was sort of my dream. I wanted to be at Stanford.

Damion Taylor:

And at the time, I remember I had all of these, now that I look back, I had all of these accolades, student president, I mean, my grades were straight As. Every now and then I might get a B, and that was like the end of my life. Oh no, I got a B, right? I was on track, I played football, I was in the choir, everything you would want to see on paper. And then outside of that, I still had what I was doing at church and my social life and all of those things. And so it made sense for me to get into whatever school I chose to go to.

Damion Taylor:

And I remember a couple incidents in particular. One was I had an econ teacher who said, "Oh, you're applying to Berkeley? I don't think you should do that. It will eat you alive. You should just stick to a community college." Despite the fact that I was already attending UC Riverside and in high school, on top of doing all my regular high school stuff.

Damion Taylor:

I mean, I remember one of my midterms or my final at UC Riverside for my calculus class, my professor's like, "The calculus is on the 17th," and it was like, "I can't do that." And he asked why. "I'm graduating from high school that day." And he looked at me like, "What? You're in my calculus class at this university, and you're not graduated from high school yet?" So I mean, at the time, I'm not saying that to brag, I'm just saying that now when I look back at it meant that I had to work three times as hard as everyone else, just to be able to get to that one step.

Damion Taylor:

And through all of this, I knew that I was going to be able to go to Stanford. I was super excited. I was going to major in biology, and this was going to be my thing. And so I applied to all these schools, got in to every school except for Stanford. I was wait listed. And for me, I mean, 17 year old me was devastated. Why didn't I get into Stanford? But I called the school. I'm like, I'm going to get to the bottom of this. What happened? And they were actually really great, and they talked to me and told me, "Well, your application was late."

Damion Taylor:

And I [inaudible 00:10:09], "Late, it couldn't have been. My counselor was writing my recommendation letter, and said she was going to mail it for me." "Nope, your application was late." "That can't be right though. She said she was going to ... Hold on. Okay, thank you." And then I was just fuming, as you could imagine. And I told my mom and she's like, "Well, do you want me to talk to your counselor or not?" And I'm a grown up. I can do this. That was my attitude at the time. I could do this.

Damion Taylor:

And I asked her about it and she goes, "Oh, well, Stanford's a hard school anyway. You should be lucky you got in everywhere else. And it's not like you were going to probably get in. So I'd forgotten about it and then I just sent it in late, but it's fine. You got wait listed. You can go to any of the other schools you got. You're at UC Riverside. That's good enough."

Speaker 1:

Wow.

Damion Taylor:

I beg your pardon? I mean, it's not your decision to make, what's good enough for me or not. I mean, I wouldn't honestly have asked her to write a recommendation letter if it hadn't been a requirement on the application, that your high school guidance counselor writes something for you. But in that moment, I was looking around, trying to figure out why is it that I could have an econ teacher who tells me that despite everything I'm doing, the schools I would apply to would eat me alive and I should look at a community college, a counselor who, despite everything I was doing, thought, well, you won't even get into where you think you've been working for?

Damion Taylor:

And the only thing I could come up with is that I looked different than the other kids who they were talking to. I wasn't white. I wasn't Asian. All of my Asian friends were told, "Yeah, you could do it," because there's the ideal minority piece, and that's harmful in a whole nother way to Asian students. And then my white friends were just, well, it was expected. You go wherever you please. Like, that's what you do. I wasn't afforded that.

Damion Taylor:

And so I started to look back on the time that I had in high school and realized from the beginning, this was a pattern. This counselor my freshman year put me in remedial English because well, it would be hard. And I'm like, "Wait a minute. I'm not supposed to be in this class." So then my mom and I went back and we fixed it and we got me into the AP English class. And then my sophomore year, they did it again. And I'm like, "Wait a minute. No, no, no." And there was a couple of other kids in there, and nope. And mind you, at this time, I also spoke two languages. I was speaking Spanish and [crosstalk 00:12:42].

Speaker 1:

And you speak two languages. You forgot to mention that to us, Damion, in the beginning there. What was the basis behind them saying that? Why were they putting you into remedial classes?

Damion Taylor:

That's the thing that we never got an understanding, because we went to that school specifically because there was a program called international baccalaureate. I was part of that program. The goal for international baccalaureate is you're an advanced student who's doing advanced concepts and you're going to work on really hard stuff. That was kind of the gist of it. Knowing that, knowing from the beginning that's where I am, at no point should I ever be in those remedial classes. Knowing where I came from and the grades that I had, there's no reason I should be in those classes.

Damion Taylor:

The only thing, and no one ever gave a solid reason. It's like, oh, that was a mistake, but that's not the type of mistake you make when you know your students or purport to know your students [crosstalk 00:13:36]. Exactly. The only thing I can come up with was it was a Freudian slip of sorts, where my expectation of you is this and so I just put you here, not paying attention to who the student was. You just saw the face of that student. Like, oh yeah, I'll just put them over there where they go.

Speaker 1:

Wow. This, you're blowing my ... I'm sorry. I'm apologizing as an educator, but it's really unfortunate that that was your experience. So okay, so what happened next?

Damion Taylor:

So I mean, I ended up not going to Stanford, which is fine. I ended up going to UC San Diego and studying neuroscience and doing really well there. But the one thing that always stuck with me in that was what happens to a student or a child or someone who doesn't have the same family support I did, or doesn't have the same drive I did, where I wasn't willing to accept no and kept pushing to find out what was happening? What happens to that child?

Damion Taylor:

What happens to that kid who's the only one in their family who even has a hope of going to college right now? And they don't have the resources to know where else to look or how to do X or Y or where to find out about scholarships or whatever that is, that thing is. It makes it a lot harder for them, and it makes their lives, to some extent, it damns them to an existence that they don't have to be a part of, that they could actually overcome if someone just showed them the support.

Damion Taylor:

And with that, it put, at least for me, it made me not only empathetic, but also no matter what I did, even if I wasn't teaching in a classroom, I wanted to make sure that I was helping students not have to go through that experience. So in college, I started ... One of the classes that was hard for me was organic chemistry. So the first time I dropped it, I was like, I've got to come back to this when I can focus. And I did, and I did really well. I blew it out of the water. And I was asked to teach these special classes that were separate, made for students who came from underprivileged backgrounds, so people of color, people with low income, to really make sure that they were succeeding.

Damion Taylor:

Because the conversations that I heard happening in college, at first, I felt like it was a different world. Even with the support and the family I had, there were conversations and things that happened that I'd never heard of, I'd never seen. And it wasn't even really hard or advanced concepts. It was in my family we didn't do a lot of talk about investing in stocks and who was managing your portfolio? That kind of stuff was foreign to me. I didn't have a lot of knowledge around that. We didn't do a lot of talk around my family of organic chemistry or just random science things or physics. Because my mom was a beautician. My dad worked at Xerox, like in a factory, I mean, in a warehouse. So we didn't do that.

Damion Taylor:

But knowing that, and the fact that at first it seems overwhelming, it is something that you can overcome and learn, relatively quickly even, I wanted to make sure that the students who were in the school who had similar experiences and backgrounds to what I had were able to succeed. And so I started teaching these classes. I did organic chemistry and physics, intentionally because those were the two hardest classes. And I actually just didn't like general chemistry as much anyway. But they were the hardest two classes.

Damion Taylor:

And those are the ones that they used to weed students out of programs, especially in biology and science. And so I wanted to make sure that any student I worked with who wanted to go to medical school, who wanted to be a scientist or get a PhD in science, wasn't the one who was weeded out, that they would be able to actually not only thrive, but actually potentially be the one setting the bar.

Damion Taylor:

And so that's what I set about doing throughout college. So in addition to my schoolwork, I was actually creating lesson plans and teaching kids and trying to make sure that I wasn't the last one, that I was the one who was bringing other people along with me. And then in work, it's the same thing, bringing in mentorship and then visiting schools and talking to students and trying to get interns, so I can make sure that they can see the real life relevance of what they're doing and potentially get a leg up. So by the time that they get to their career, they've experienced a lot of the, not getting coffee, not that kind of stuff, but they've experienced the actual work part of it. They understand the industry that they're working in.

Speaker 1:

So here's, because I'm curious now, because like you said, you mentioned how there's students out there that don't have maybe the drive or feel like their voice isn't going to matter. Or they don't have that level of influence when it comes to maybe mentors or other folks that have had some college experience or career experience and things like that. I'm curious for you, when you think, besides your mom, are there people that have been in your life, maybe one person or somebody in your life that has been really influential with helping you develop as a Black male, as a neuroscientist, and just kind of navigating? Who would you say that person would be?

Damion Taylor:

To be honest, I can't say it's one person. It literally, it takes a village, and I think I've been very fortunate to have that village. There's, I mean, there's a network of aunties. Everybody has their aunties, right? Different ones come in. So of course there's my biological aunties, who are just like, "We've got you, we'll help you. What do you need? Then there's the communal aunties at church. "What do you need? Let me get food for you. Let me help you. Let me introduce you to so and so. I know somebody who went to college and did X, let me introduce you to them." And then there's been a network of people who, for whatever reason, saw something in me that they thought needed to be cultivated, even when other people didn't, even sometimes when I didn't.

Damion Taylor:

And so I never want to take for granted that it wasn't just me. It wasn't just one person who helped me. It was literally a community of people who have really done the groundwork and made these opportunities that I've had possible for me. And I think part of that has just been me being fortunate enough and blessed enough to have these people in my life. But the other part of it is just culturally, the way that we were brought up. In my family, it was always, if somebody needs help, you help them. And all the people around us did that same thing. I might not be able to pay for your college tuition, but I know you need paper or books or pencils, so I'm going to get that, or we'll ask the church to do it. Whatever that thing was, we did that, and I think that was particularly powerful.

Damion Taylor:

And as those people introduced me to people, "I know somebody who went to college and did blah, blah, blah. They taught history," I talked to that history professor, who then said, "I know a Black PhD in biological sciences. Let me introduce you." Or, "I might not know a Black one, but I know a PhD in the area where you're going. Let me introduce you to this person." And that person saying, "Wow, the fact that you had the gumption to come here and actually ask and be proactive about it, let me mentor you." That's really been what drove it. So I've just been very fortunate. And I want to make sure that for people who don't have that, I'm proactively giving that to them.

Speaker 1:

So when we think about your experience in high school, regarding college admissions, and you were told by multiple people that were adults, that were people of supposedly influence, that this is, you know, that school is not for you, even though you speak two languages, you're class president, you're in multiple activities, extracurriculars and all those things, what type of awareness and training do you think could lead to more equity in school, and maybe even why is this type of training so important when it comes to, let's say for example, not just your guidance counselors, but even staff in general?

Damion Taylor:

I think there are two types of training. I think the first is really going to be in cultural sensitivity, for lack of a better bucket for it. And not just in the sense of, oh, I feel so bad for you, because that's the approach that often happens. Oh, you poor underprivileged child, I feel so bad for you. I'm going to be the savior who brings you up. And that's not it. It's cultural sensitivity in the sense of before I act or do or assume, I need to ask and listen and learn. And I think that's really the training right there, about asking and listening and learning, not assuming that you know, or from this one data point, you know everything about a culture. It's the idea of monolithic, oh, I know this, you do blah, blah, blah.

Damion Taylor:

And with that training, I think comes the ability for people to realize, I'm not sure I understand this. Let me ask more from somebody who might be more knowledgeable before I make an assumption so that I can be most helpful to whoever this person is, this child, this young adult who's trying to build their future. I think that's the first piece.

Damion Taylor:

The other piece, I think, is training in terms of how does education live beyond what's in the classroom. And when people really start to apply education to real life, it makes it come alive for people. And the only example I can give is, so my son is four, right? And for a really long time, I've tried to get him to, he would want to do colors, but he'd get bored with it after a while. And his teacher said he didn't really like writing letters. He didn't care about them. And so it was like, well, let's work on it. Because I was trying to teach him two languages, too.

Damion Taylor:

And then what I realized really quickly is if I couched it in something that was interesting to him, he loves cars. How do you spell car? Now he'll spell car. Give it to him in two languages. He'll spell it. Let's write the word so you never have to ask somebody. Yes, let's do that. And then he found a song that he liked about the planet. So he learned everything he could learn about them. He'll tell you which one's a gas giant, what kind of gases they have. And he started wanting to spell the planets. And so as long as I was able to couch it and bring it to real life for him and tell him then about the things he was interested in and how then later, you know what you can use this to do, it made it real for him. It made it exciting.

Damion Taylor:

When it was just write your letters, C is for cat, and he's like, I don't care about cats. Well, what do you care about? What do you think starts with a C? As soon as I took the time to ask what he wanted, just learning exploded. But there's training in terms of, and this is just not at the teacher level, this has to happen at administrator and district levels and state levels, where the approach that we've had for learning for so long, it's really made for an industrial revolution. It's meant to make workers and keep the status quo. So you build more workers for somebody else to hire.

Damion Taylor:

And that doesn't always work well for the individual. It works well for the status quo and the society, or whoever's building it, but it doesn't work necessarily for the individual. And if our goal is to really make sure that we're educating students and we're optimizing their potential, then there has to be a training on how we can individualize education without breaking everything. It doesn't mean that every kid has their own lesson plan, but how do you understand what's relevant to that child, what means something to that young adult, that child, whomever they are, and how do you bring that to life for them in a way that's meaningful?

Damion Taylor:

And that takes leg work. It's not easy. I remember one of the hardest things, I had this one class in organic chemistry that was really hard for me to teach. It was a bunch of like really stoic, quiet 18 and 19 year old men. They didn't want to talk. And I was trying to teach them about electrons, and they were just like, and they're like, "You're just so nerdy, dude. Why am I talking to you?" And they're like, "I just need to know why the electrons repel each other."

Damion Taylor:

And then I realized, and this was totally not my normal way of teaching, but I had to be a little bit more of a bro, right? Like, they were in college and they just wanted to party. I'm like, "All right, look, let me tell you about electrons. You get a bunch of dudes in a room, and I say, take off your clothes. How close are you guys going to stand to each other? You're standing in your underwear. Now, how close are you going to stand? If you have to sit down," and I was like, "Think about the urinal. Do you skip one? Or do you not?" And they were like, "Oh, electrons repel, I got it." But I had to figure out what was relevant for them.

Damion Taylor:

And then after that, they're like, "Oh, you're cool. All right." And so then we started to be able to have conversations about what's the structural change in this one chemical if you add heat versus not. But before that, I had to figure out what mattered to them, and they had to see that I was willing to work to meet them where they are, versus trying to make them come to me.

Speaker 1:

I wish you would've been my science teacher, because man, I used to be lost sometimes. I didn't [inaudible 00:26:33]. So just, yeah, but I mean, but the reason why was because stuff wasn't relatable to me, like why should I care about the science formulas and about this law and that law? Why should I care about it? How does that relate to me? And I liked how you just had that moment of like, you know what, my approach is too strict, it's too quote unquote traditional and conventional with my approach to teaching. So therefore, I need to make sure that like, what did you say, bro it up, so that they could-

Damion Taylor:

I mean, they were definitely, the kids were like, "No, bro, I'm not cool with that." I'm like, what do I do with this, right?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So I'm glad you switched that perspective. So you talked about, again, cultural competency, and not from a sympathy, I feel sorry for folks, and you make these assumptions most of the time probably off of stereotypes, but also making sure that you ask those kind of questions and see what kind of supports you can provide.

Speaker 1:

You also mention making sure the content is relatable to the students. And when we say relatable, not just seeing pictures of themselves, but also the stories and the way that you're explaining it, oh the kids can relate to, oh yeah, that's something I would do on my own time. And I love how you use that example of electrons. Are there any other things that you wanted to add to that conversation?

Damion Taylor:

I think it just, honestly, it comes down to building trust. Why should I trust you when you're teaching me? I think from a lot of times, people are taught that as a teacher, you're supposed to know everything and you're supposed to dominate the class. And the first time I heard a teacher say, "You know, that's a really good question. I don't know the answer. I will look it up and get back to you. And if I don't know it, we can figure it out together," my mind was blown. Because I was like, aren't teachers supposed to know everything? And then I realized I could trust somebody who told me when they didn't know something, versus someone who pretended to know everything. Because I had a couple teachers who pretended that.

Damion Taylor:

And I remember later on finding out that what they told me was completely wrong. And I'm like, how are you teaching the subject when you don't know this? And you're just going to just tell me that blatantly, right? And so the one thing that is really hard, at least for me teaching, was it's a two way street and a lot of times we treat it like a one way street. I'm on send and you should be receiving, but you actually have to be willing to give of yourself, as well as receive and learn from your students.

Damion Taylor:

I've had students that, I won't deny it, by far smarter than I will ever be. And so my job is no longer teaching them the information in the book, because they can figure that out. My job is helping direct them and helping them harness it and how to think critically. So the responsibility of me as a teacher in those scenarios changed.

Damion Taylor:

Even in work now, there are people who are younger than me and smarter and know this stuff way better than I do. My job has not been necessarily to teach them that information. My job is then to help them apply it and learn how to navigate it and leverage it in a way that's beneficial to not only them, but building their career and helping those around them. And until we look at it as a sense of servitude versus sort of like a, I'm the boss of this classroom or it's just a job, it's going to be really hard. And I think some of that is you get a lot of teachers who are stuck. It's not just them. It's just the way that the schools are set up. They're not afforded that ability.

Speaker 1:

Damion, I have, again, I have, man, I really feel bad about what happened to you, but it seems like it didn't hold you back. You have very positive vibes. And so I appreciate you. I did a little research just because I didn't want to leave this episode without finding out who was the developer, and her name was Marian Croak.

Damion Taylor:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. The venture of voice over IP. So I didn't want to end this episode without bringing that up. But I could definitely consider you as someone providing a voice in equity. What is one final word of advice that you can give to our listeners?

Damion Taylor:

I think the biggest word of advice that I've ever got from one of my mentors is lead with empathy. Always start with empathy, which means starting to understand or listening to understand, not listening to speak or listening to be heard. It's listening to truly understand. And any time you can take yourself out of the equation and let somebody else be the center, it's better.

Speaker 1:

Nice. If we've got some folks that want to connect with you, what's the best way to reach you online?

Damion Taylor:

LinkedIn is the best way to get me. So you can find me at LinkedIn and then Damion Taylor. Straightforward, it's really easy. So linkedin.com/damiontaylor. Yeah, and I'd love to connect with people, especially people who are looking at just different ways of looking at diversity, breaking up monolithic ways of thinking, and understanding the individual.

Speaker 1:

And if anybody wants to work, reach out as far as doing some training or any of those kind of things, how can folks get in touch?

Damion Taylor:

Yep, you can reach me on LinkedIn as well. That's the easiest, best way to get ahold of me. It's on my phone. It'll get me. It'll ping me wherever I go. And from there, you'll get my website and all the things that people look for, for details.

Speaker 1:

Okay. Sounds good. Well, Damion, it has been a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining me.

Damion Taylor:

Thank you so much. I was so excited to be on.

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