In this educational episode, host Jill interviews Laura Vann La Russo, a dedicated coach for professionals who speaks English as a second language. Laura’s mission is to empower individuals to make presentations in an inclusive and culturally aware manner.
Find Laura Vann La Russo on LinkedIn
Get in touch with Laura Vann La Russo directly via email
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Transcript
Transcript
Hi and welcome to the You World Order Showcase podcast.
Today we are speaking with Laura Vann La Russo.
Laura is.
A coach for professionals who speak English as a second language, she helps them be able to make presentations in an inclusive and culturally aware way.
Welcome to the show, Laura.
I'm really excited to learn about all you're doing and who you work with and how you got started.
Your story so share spill the beans.
So exciting first of all, thank you so much Jill for inviting me on.
It's a wonderful opportunity to share our stories.
And our dedication to empowering people so.
OK, you've got.
My story, OK, this is my story I became.
And, well, let me back up.
I have been an advocate for underrepresented communities my whole entire life.
In fact, I was an advocate before I knew I was an advocate, even as a child, it was just something I came into the world with.
I'm born with this need to.
Inform and empower people and help them to gain the confidence to stand up for themselves and to represent themselves fully.
You know, take up space in the room.
I love that expression.
So with that kind of nature, I became a New York State advocate.
Many, many, many, many moons ago, and I provided testimony for immigrant communities and for the disability community.
We testified and fought for greater accessibility.
And language translation at the voting site.
All kinds of wonderful things.
We shut down federal buildings.
We had a grand old time, OK.
And then as I began to work with many of these colleagues, clients and community stakeholders, I noticed that there was this bias that really needed addressing.
And what was that?
Many of my clients who were speaking English as a second language were being denied translation in the schools translation.
If there was some sort of incident that required a, let's say, for example, a police report now, we've gotten much better at that.
1520 years ago we were not consistent in supporting second language learners, and so I ended up becoming the director of a dropout prevention program.
For immigrant communities and for students with disabilities, and the idea of the program was to inform parents of their legal rights, rights to translation, and also the educational rights of their children, whether they were disabled or they were considered.
Second language learners as well.
And I did that for about maybe seven years or so.
And then I became very friendly with a lot of the folks in the educational system.
And they said you should become a teacher.
And I said you're crazy.
Oh my God a teacher.
But I ended up.
Getting my masters in English as a second language.
Through a Delphi University, shout out to a Delphi.
We were one of the first graduating cohorts of people who were instructed to get degrees in shortage areas, and one of the shortage areas was English.
As second language.
So I did that as an educator.
And then I did that for another seven years.
I guess 7 must be my lucky number.
And finally, finally COVID came and it was time to reinvent myself.
And so for the last year and a half or so, I have been a communication coach for corporate professionals who speak English as a second language.
And I specialize in confidence building presentation skills, inclusive language and cultural awareness.
I do it all online and for 10 weeks.
And each program is individualized.
It's not traditional.
Look at me.
I can't be traditional.
So it's a personalized action plan, if you will.
We would meet and we would have a private conversation about what your pain points are in English, and I would design A curriculum specifically for you.
And that's how it all goes.
That's my story.
That is a great story, and it's a really necessary field.
I know.
You know, I'm older too, so I remember back in the days when, you know, people would come in and like hospitals for one thing and schools, but they wouldn't be able to communicate with the.
Medical staff, because there were no translators and it.
Even things like DMV places where you know you have to go and you have to make transactions, but the communication barrier was really bad.
And as a person who has lived overseas, a lot of my life, I understand what it's like to try and communicate with another person when you really didn't understand their language all that well, you know, you learn a few words, but it's not enough to communicate.
Big ideas, you know.
Big ideas happen because you have a big, big vocabulary and when you have a limited vocabulary, you're not going to have the conversation that you need to have.
So I'm thinking that what you're providing is really a, a great.
Coaching program for professionals that are trying to increase the vocabulary or to be able to be culturally aware of the different.
Ways of.
Saying things in English, every country has different idioms and different things that are offensive.
Yes, and people think ohh, this is just America.
Everything goes well.
Everything doesn't just go, especially if you're talking to older generations.
They're there are.
Norms and standards, and if you aren't aware of them, you could just get into all kinds of trouble and not even know you're in trouble.
That's so true.
You know, miscommunication.
Happens all the time.
And so absolutely it is what motivated me to pursue this coaching career of mine.
This self created coaching career because there's a nuance to communication.
Right.
There's a nuance and.
And I have the benefit of at this point of having taught from the elementary school level all the way up through adult, continuing it and now.
With corporate professionals who speak English at the intermediate and advanced level, and frankly, many of them speak better English than I do, why they learned their English from the ground up, right?
So they don't have some of those nasty, lazy habits that US native.
Speakers might have and their challenges.
I want to say or their pain points right.
They do follow a pattern.
What's the pattern?
Well, yes, sure. I speak English very well, but I'm self-conscious about my accent.
I speak English very well, but I'm worried about my pacing.
I worked with international lawyers, for example, who spoke Spanish as their native language.
So when they presented in English, Spanish is much quicker.
And supervisors would say you have a lot of knowledge in your head, but your presentation skills are terrible and this prevented access.
To promotion to professional recognition and obviously really did damage to people's self esteem so.
It's really kind of.
When you look at the whole picture to show me different levels to being able to communicate effectively, right?
Especially around something like the corporate world, because they also have their own jargon and their own way of communicating with each other.
And you know the good old boys Club is alive and well and living in corporate America still.
To all of our chagrin, yes.
They do things differently, and if you're not aware of the nuances you're going to get left behind.
You know, it's very, very a great point there because I have had clients, for example, I've had Asian clients who.
Who may not be forthcoming or make eye contact, for example, because in their cultures to look directly in someone's face when their supervisor could be considered offensive.
And then in terms of miscommunication.
What my place is my position, the power dynamics that exist.
I've had situations where I've worked with organizations and the organization will say we want you to come in and we would like you to encourage our staff.
That's bilingual, trilingual to speak English more.
More often, we feel they do not speak English enough at work and it's not good.
So then I'll go back to the staff and I'll say this is the complaint or concern that that I'm being told.
What's your perspective and the status perspective more often than not.
Is are you crazy or they're wrong.
They're wrong.
We do speak English very, very consistently, and we only speak our home language in social occasions, like during our lunch.
So what's the real concern there?
The concern is that I'm not hearing you speak English enough during staff meetings.
I'm not seeing you engage with other native speakers of English consistently, but maybe that perspective is not quite right.
Maybe really what it is.
Is that the professional that you are observing?
You're not considering that they.
Have the confidence or they are holding themselves back because they are afraid of being judged.
They are nervous about using the wrong word and also.
Especially New Yorkers?
Well, I'm from New York, but some of us are really right in your face.
And really, yeah, I'm going to make this point.
And for certain cultures and certain people, that can be really intimidating.
It's rude in some cultures.
Yeah, downright rude.
In some cultures.
Of course.
For me, it's rude anyway, no matter what.
But I can see how it can be overwhelming for some cultures compared to others and.
My role as a coach is to get clarity on what these challenges are, what the miscommunication or misimpressions are.
That's not a word.
What kind of communication coach?
The misunderstandings are.
I'm human, so the misunderstand.
Things and share that information with both the administration has asked me to come in and the and the staff and or colleagues or clients that I'm asked to work with and to create a bridge of understanding between both of those groups.
And then the second part is to establish a personal relationship based on trust and relationship between myself and either the individual or the groups that I'm asked to work with.
And how do I do that?
I take time to get to know each individual client.
I have a conversation about what are your pain points.
And then I identified those pain points, pardon me, identified those pain points and then I create an action plan and assessment based on that.
And so it's very personal.
It's not generic, it's very specific.
And that's the benefit of having a niche coach such as myself.
I specialize in working with corporate professionals.
And it's individualized.
No generalities here.
The viewer, mainly with the individuals on a corporate level.
I mean how would how would a client find out about you and or do you approach corporations and let them know what you do?
I mean, how does all that that look?
Well, I can be found on LinkedIn.
First of all, there's no one else with my name.
I have a hyphenated name because I am a feminist.
I grew up in the 70s and so forth, so I wanted to keep my name. My name is Larusso. My husband's name is van.
And then I'm so picky, I didn't like the way Larusso van sounded.
And so.
I went in.
There and argued with the officials and pointed out to them that there was nothing in the licensing marriage licensing.
That said, I couldn't swim.
Sit around and I wore the poor woman out and by the time I was done, she said no, it's no problem.
If you want to be Van Larusso, you can't.
So that's number one I could.
Be found on.
LinkedIn and there you will see also my e-mail which you can also send me an e-mail and in terms of reaching out.
I am trying to reach out every day I provide you resources on LinkedIn no less than four times a week.
I like to hear about the different areas where I could be of use to you, so I attend as many webinars as I can for corporate professionals, HR professionals, people who really need help in understanding what it's like.
To have a communication obstacle.
And need to improve upon it so that they can become successful.
Is that's.
What I'm feeling.
That that sounds great.
Any suggestion, any suggestions to improve, please contact me on LinkedIn.
I'm also on Facebook.
And I'm trying.
A little bit with what is that Instagram, but I don't know.
Mostly Facebook.
I mean, mostly pardon me, mostly LinkedIn.
I find that to be the best way to reach out to people.
Yeah, it would seem like that would make the.
Most sense because you're dealing with the corporate.
Corporate professionals, and that's kind of.
Where they hang out, go where they are.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
Do you hold workshops or anything like that for people?
To find out about what you do.
I do offer workshops.
They can range from three session workshop to two 7:00 to 10:00 session workshop.
Depending on the needs of the organization, again they are created after I meet with you because I want to know what your specific.
Challenges are.
I've done workshops, for example, for Cornell, for example, we worked on presentation skills and so that was a 10 week, 10 week seminar actually about how to improve your confidence as a presenter, how to be culturally aware and how to deescalate.
Certain situations where people don't feel safe in certain conversations, how to create safe environments and how to deescalate so.
Uh, yes, I do provide those webinars and I can provide short trainings.
It depends on what you need.
Just contact me.
Are you mostly online or off?
Or is it kind of a?
I am totally online.
I'm an online coach.
I did teach in the classroom, as I say for many years and it was great.
But I find the, you know, COVID was such a gift in so many ways is horrible of a nightmare.
Yeah, I'm with your sister.
Because like I mean, I was joking with my husband, my husband.
I was joking with my husband that she was.
I'm sitting in the middle of my living room like, how am I going to bring people to me?
Well, this online coaching has established relationships with clients.
All over the world and I just love it.
I love having friends in Turkey, in Germany, in Italy, in Paris.
Everywhere and it's also helped me in terms of how I approach my coaching because I'm learning.
I'm a lifelong learner as well as a coach, right?
And so I am learning from my clients what they value, what they need and their perspective from their place in the world.
Well, heck, that makes you pretty cool.
Not only as a person but as a coach.
So I'm grateful.
I am grateful for it, really.
And it really just opened.
It's opened up the world in a way that it wasn't before COVID and so many more opportunities exist now because of the results of what happened with COVID.
You know, everybody being locked in now.
We want to communicate.
We want to be with other people.
But we have a new way of doing.
It with zoom and.
Networking groups are popping up all over the place where you can meet people from all over the world, and it's just.
That's just so exciting to me.
I know, I know.
I can't believe it either.
And I keep saying ohh one day if I ever win the lottery I'll just travel all over and meet every single person that I've had the pleasure of interacting with.
You know, it's just, just wonderful.
And I have to give you tell you a secret.
So my sort of secret that's not a secret is I have a physical disability.
I have cerebral palsy, which means that I walk with this sort of severe limb, but, you know, attitude is everything, right?
And it's never really stopped me from working or helping others in fact.
But have working online, I have to tell you has opened up opportunities for me and for so many other professionals with disability.
So the inclusion piece is so important to me and to actually see this word inclusion come to life.
In a real way.
You know that.
Oh, all kinds of people from all kinds of country, all kinds of people and all kinds of conditions, sexual orientation, language difference, cultural difference.
We all can have an opportunity.
To know each other, which is.
It is really great and that's one of the things I really love about having this podcast is I get to talk to people that are so different and so varied in their thoughts and how they present themselves, how they were born or what's happened to them over their lifetimes.
I it's just.
And they all have something so unique to contribute to the world it.
It you know.
These other things are just, you know, part of their story.
It probably is.
What brought them to the point where they're able to actually contribute back, because usually our message, our message, but.
But it's really it's.
I keep using the same words over and over, but it to me it's amazing and it really, I mean it is amazing that everybody has something so unique to bring to the table, so to speak.
As far as contributing to making the world a better place and it.
For me personally, it's really.
Been a blessing in my life to be able.
To meet at least some of.
You you're the 101st person.
What an honor.
I love that.
Yep, Yep.
I really love that and I agree with you so much.
I'm very I can get very mushy and sentimental, but I really in my heart of hearts.
It is a blessing and I love what you said about sometimes your mess creates your message and I held back on telling you and sharing with you that I have a physical disability because sometimes, you know, I do also address this issue of unconscious bias.
Unconscious bias is unintended bias, as we understand, and sometimes I feel if I admit that I have.
This physical difference?
Unintentionally, maybe all that people focus on.
So sometimes I'm a little sneaky and I don't.
I don't tell people right away.
And isn't that great that I can sort of hide in my little square and not know?
But had it not been for.
All these experiences, the mess of growing up with a physical disability when there was no Americans with Disabilities Act when there was no accommodation.
I mean, we didn't even think about it.
Just dragged ourselves up the steps.
You know, we didn't even think to ask.
Yeah, I remember those days.
I remember the days when there weren't ramps everywhere and ramps, strides, huge strides have been made to make things more accessible for people that are otherly able.
Yes, yes.
Is having a disability is.
Is something that I consider a gift a physical disability is a gift for me because it's given me a certain perspective now.
There are days when it's just a pain in my ****.
OK?
It's just it's an I think of it as an inconvenience.
But I don't think of it as a limitation and it makes me a better coach.
While I may not have struggled with language barriers per se, as a native English speaker, I do understand what it is to be judged what it is to be misunderstood, and even if all of that was not intended, how it can impact you and so.
That's why.
And I offer these pillars in this program, right? It's confidence building for your presentation skills, it's cultural awareness and it's.
Creating opportunities for clarity about who you are and what you have to offer because it took a long time for me to feel brave enough and the first time I did do public speaking, I was an advocate for New York State.
Now, well, first of all, it rained all day and I came in soaking wet and then I had laryngitis and my supervisor said.
We have no.
One else to provide this testimony, that was for housing.
You have to do it.
So I got up there soaking wet makeup, running terrified.
My name is Laura Larusso at the time and I was absolutely terrified, and it was a.
Process for me.
And that's what it is for my clients, and I'm sure many of the people that you've worked with, you see gross with support.
And with good conversation and personal connection.
Yeah, absolutely.
And having a disability, it is a communication.
There is a communication barrier there because people for some reason think that, you know, if you're physically disabled, that it somehow has affected your brain.
I know it's so annoying.
I can imagine and they don't really.
Know how to talk to you.
And it's like, will you just?
Talk to me.
But you know it's about exposure.
You know, that's really what it is.
It's about exposure.
How many people with disabilities do you actually see in in the workforce?
You know how many?
Actually, if you're honest with yourself.
I actually worked for a man who was a dwarf and I was not expecting it when I walked into the office.
I was attempt and.
I had to really adjust on the fly.
He was the office manager and.
It was back in the early 90s, I think.
So he was probably one of the first.
Otherly able for people that I'd ever met in in a business setting.
He's really nice guy.
It didn't affect his ability to communicate.
No at all.
It was my problem, not his, but.
And I'm sorry, go ahead.
No, go ahead.
So, so I apologize for that.
So The thing is that first of all dwarf is we can't say dwarf anymore.
We have to say a little person and don't and don't worry and don't worry.
OK.
I'm sure there'll be another, even better title like in a year from now.
These titles change all the time.
But right now it's a little person.
So the thing is that.
You can't really be too hard on yourself if you've never seen this sort of dynamic before, and I'm not talking about stature.
I'm talking about seeing a person with a physical disability who's in a supervisory position that was more probably what.
What sort of surprised you?
It wasn't the norm of what you were.
Whatever Norm is, it wasn't the usual of what you were expecting, right?
Yeah, totally.
And then someone comes in.
Yeah, I understand that because I taught in the New York City Public School.
Well, first of all, when I first applied to this program through Adelphi, they were very supportive, but their initial reaction was, Are you sure you want to do this?
Could be really hard, you know, and.
And they were sort of were.
And I was the only person on staff with a physical disability, and there was plenty of discrimination.
By is there some intended, some not intended?
I cannot become fully angry.
I can only use that experience and create a plan of action, invite a conversation about it.
Right.
That's the best way to diminish that kind of a thing that can happen.
So that's what I said.
It was such an amazing story and I I'm so glad that it's brought you to this point because I really I believe in what you're doing and I believe that it's really a great space.
To help people.
Be the most they can be so.
What's the one thing you.
Want to leave the audience?
With today, Laura.
Well, again, I want to thank you for this opportunity and I thank you for your support and the one thing that I want to leave the audience with is your greatest.
Limitations are the limitations that you place on yourselves.
Think about that.
Don't limit yourself.
Get comfortable with asking for help.
Think of it as your growth journey as your communication skills, growth journey and please do contact me on LinkedIn, I'll answer any question you have.
I'm happy to do it.
Thank you so much for joining us.
This has been a great conversation.
It has.
Thank you.
I'm so excited.
Thank you so much.
And I will put your link to LinkedIn in the show notes below so people can reach.
Out to you.
Yes, please reach out to me on LinkedIn and there's also my e-mail there. It's LVL WRITES at Gmail. You'll see it on LinkedIn.
Perfect.