Meet Lana Reid

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lana Reid. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Lana, thanks for taking the time to share your lessons with our community today. So, let’s jump right in – one of the most essential skills for unlocking our potential is self-discipline. Where does your self-discipline come from?
To be honest, I’ve grown to a place where I simply don’t like the results that come along with not being self-disciplined.

When I was younger in age and mindset, I would set goals or make commitments and if I didn’t achieve them, there would always be an accompanying nagging in my soul that would never set well with me. But, like many people, I would go through various mental stages of making rationalizations to justify my behavior and shortcomings. In my quiet moments alone, those self-serving defenses would only work for so long and I’d start to have moments in which I would say to myself, “Now, Lana, you know all these excuses are really lame and you really can do better.” I eventually realized that the only way I could avoid feeling that self-inflicted discomfort was to avoid putting myself in those situations in the first place by sticking to a disciplined mindset.

There is always an underlying element of intentionality and purposefulness in many aspects of my life, whether it’s a personal commitment to diet and exercise, financial discipline, time management, or even the interpersonal connections that I nurture to make sure that the people I connect with don’t throw me off track.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step,” and that is truly that pathway that I’ve taken when it comes to founding Conversations in Color, a nonprofit 501(c)3 grassroots organization dedicated to providing uplifting and community-building spaces of dialogue for Black voices.

Two years ago, if you had asked me, I would never have thought that I would have started Conversations in Color. It was actually a chance encounter with a complete stranger who was listening to me explain some of the projects that I was doing and mentioned that it sounded like I had a servant’s heart and a nonprofit in my hands. I never encountered that person again, but for a few months the conversation and its urging stuck with me and about six months later I started putting the wheels in motion. It really is a testimony to the fact that many times other people see the light in you that you often can’t see in yourself.

Conversations in Color is a merging of all the work that I was already doing under one umbrella in addition to creating some new projects as well. The underlying theme is creating conversations in Black spaces. At this time there are three core initiatives:

-THE MALE PERSPECTIVE: The purpose of “The Male Perspective” is to dispel stereotypes and increase awareness of the experiences of Black men through open discussions, thought-provoking interviews, and sharing personal experiences that serve as a platform to highlight the diversity and depth of the Black male experience.
-SISTAS REBUILDING SISTERHOOD: “Sistas Rebuilding Sisterhood,” is an intergenerational group of Black women who come together for relaxed and non-judgmental gatherings to exchange ideas, experiences and collaborate in a collective effort to improve the quality of sisterhood interactions in our day to day lives.
-KNOW YOUR NEIGHBOR : “Know Your Neighbor” community engagement aims to foster connectivity and a sense of community in local neighborhoods through our video contest. The program seeks to encourage interaction among neighbors in their immediate area and create a sense of community that can lead to thriving, connected and safer areas.

It’s an exciting time because it amounts to planting small seeds of change through simple dialogue that have the potential to create great benefits for this generation and beyond.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I think the character traits that have served me well in my journey have been adaptability, humility, and understanding the idea of “sunk cost fallacy” (even when I didn’t have the correct language for it at the time).

I was destined to learn about adaptability at a very young age. Due to my father’s military career, we traveled around a lot. So I was always exposed to people who talked differently than me, ate different foods than me, had different family backgrounds than me, had different skill sets and knowledge than me. So it was always a state of perpetual learning, and in combination with the constant state of moving around, it has allowed me to yield to change when it happens in life.

Another personal quality that has served me well is that, while I understand that I might be different from some people, I have never felt better than other people. I think this personal humility has played a big part in my ability to navigate in many different environments. Whether I’m sitting at a formal table with an evening gown on or eating with my fingers at an Ethiopian spot in a sweatsuit, I will feel right at home in either place.

Also, my “ok, I’ve given this all I’ve got… It’s time to walk away” game has always been strong since I was a young girl. I’ve never understood why I was that way, but my gut just always told me when it was time to cut my losses and pack up. Now that I’m older, I understand that this is my personal aversion to the “Sunk Cost Fallacy,” or the mental fog that ties us to unfruitful relationships, ventures or possessions simply because we’ve invested so much time, energy or other resources into them.

Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?
God.

In the Black community, especially when it comes to older Black folks from church environments, you will often hear them say, “If it had not been for the Lord on my side, where would I be?” I did not fully grasp the truth of this principle until I got older as well. Today, I sit back and reflect on many of the events throughout my life, and I can only say that the reason I’ve overcome all things is due to God’s hand in my life.

Life has many twists and turns, bumps and bruises. It is with awe that I reflect on my life up to this point when it comes to my accomplishments, growth, and the woman that I continue to evolve into and say, “But God.”

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