“Just be your best you, the best version of yourself because we are working in an environment with certain expectations, but we can influence change by being the best version of ourselves.”
KK Harris, business psychologist, executive coach, DEI (Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion) consultant, and mindset transformation expert
What does it mean to be professional? There are so many different interpretations of what that entails. For some, it means being impeccably dressed and well-groomed. For others, professionalism means speaking eloquently, behaving in a particularly reserved way, or adhering to certain standards. But at its core, being professional is about much more than just appearances or behavior.
Have we collectively projected ideas about professionalism that may or may not have anything to do with what being professional actually means?
KK Harris, joins the podcast to talk about what organizations and individuals miss when they adopt outdated notions and norms of what professionals should look like. She says, “Just be your best you, the best version of yourself…we can influence change by being the best version of ourselves.”
KK Harris is a highly skilled and sought after business psychologist, executive coach, DEI (Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion) consultant, and mindset transformation expert with extensive experience in public and private sectors. Her experiences, combined with her knowledge of psychology, have enabled KK to develop a deeper understanding of the complexity of people, which allows her to help leaders perform more effectively.
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Or read on for the transcript
Fizzy Noor: Welcome back to Voices with Talking Talent. My name’s Fizzy Noor and today I’ll be your host. We’re discussing the topic of what is professionalism, who decided what that is and what does it mean to be professional? And joining me today is KK Harris. She is our Talking Talent Executive Coach Director, and she’s a business coach psychologist. So, KK can you just quickly explain what the difference is between a coach psychologist and an Executive Coach Director?
KK Harris: Okay. Well, I’m a director, that’s a position at the organization but I’m an executive coach. So really working with executives within business, in corporations, or what have you and the coach is there to facilitate the change that a person is aiming to make, maybe development areas, is there to facilitate that change as well as kind of almost holding a mirror up to them. So, it’s really kind of guided by the coachee, the person in the coaching. Then, whereas the business coach psychology element comes into play is, I qualified as that psychologist because I was interested in exploring the deeper layers with the client in a psychological way and kind of utilizing psychodynamic principles as such. So, I think really that, that’s the difference. We’re still asking questions. We’re still facilitating the transformation, but we go a little bit deeper. As long as the client is up for it, we can explore really deeper layers so we can really see some significant change.
Fizzy Noor: And that actually really aligns with stuff that I know about you that you like working alongside clients to really transform or lead them on their journey of transformation.
KK Harris: Yeah.
Fizzy Noor: KK is very passionate about diversity and inclusion, and she does speak on it a lot. So, something that I know personally that she works hard towards is including neurodiverse employees in the workplace often as she has ADHD herself. In general, there are lots of intersectional identities that I’m sure KK can speak on in the context of professionalism and how to be more inclusive of these identities when we consider what professionalism means.
KK Harris: Yes.
Fizzy Noor: So yeah, please join me in welcoming KK to today’s podcast.
KK Harris: Aw, thank you so much. Excited to be here. I think this is a very interesting discussion point right now and particularly for me because last Friday I put a post on LinkedIn, and I was hesitant to change my profile picture and it was a picture that really represents me kind of daily, which is I usually either have one of my favorite hats on like this. I think I’ll just wear this for this session. I usually have one of my hats on when I take my lunch break, I put this hat on. It’s just something I like to wear, or you’ll see me in a baseball cap of some sort. I took this picture, and I had on a sleeveless sweater and a shirt, but I also had my cap on, and I thought, I love this picture, this just feels like me. I hesitated before posting it because I felt this, oh my God, what are people going to say? Are they going to say, she’s so not professional? That’s not a professional picture. She’s got a cap on. Are they going to take me seriously? I’m a business psychologist. Am I representing business psychologists with the cap on my head? I really struggled for these few moments and then I just went boom and I pressed it and then I wrote a little piece about that struggle and then questioned what professionalism is and then put the idea out there that we need to question these kinds of antiquated ideas of professional dress, for example. We just need to question that, and I’ve got over 550 reactions and over 100 comments where me and other people are going back and forth. It’s been absolutely beautiful, and it just made me feel really good. So, I think this conversation is really timely.
Fizzy Noor: I actually saw that post and yeah, I saw it and I liked it as well. I really agreed with it, but it did make me wonder who is it that has decided that wearing a baseball cap isn’t professional. I think you had made a comment in that post something along the lines of we shouldn’t have to hide who we are. We shouldn’t have to hide the way that we might dress on a normal day in order to be professional and it made me wonder why has that been decided that it’s not professional to be yourself. Why has it been decided that we need to fit into a very narrow box that excludes many people in order to be professional?
KK Harris: I think we kind of look at the historical context. We’ve got to look back in order to understand present-day behaviors. It was a man’s world. Men dressed in a professional manner of what would seem to be professional. If you even think back to 1920s or something and old black-and-white imagery and everything. If you think back to the historical context, that’s when you’re going to go ahead and really say, okay, this is just something that has been perpetuated and as fashion changes and that that idea of work fashion carried on. So, I think that’s what we have to kind of understand, look at the history. And then no one really questioned it but then they had to question it when women started working out in the office as such and we’re really talking about primarily the office or front facing say customer service is also, you have to have a professional look or even in restaurants. It’s all of this history I think is where we get it from, but no one’s questioned it.
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: Everybody just has accepted it as the norm. Okay. Well, they’re doing it. I’ll do this. If you go to Next, the department store Next.
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: When it’s kind of September, we’ve got younger people going out to work for the first time in the corporate space or in these places where they’re expected to look professional. You go in there, it’s the most boring clothing. The women’s selection, it’s a pale blue shirt or white cotton shirt, polyester. It’s a black suit. It’s just something that a lot of people can’t relate to. Then we start seeing changes the last 10 years or so where you have places like H&M saying, okay, well we can tweak this look, we can make it a bit more hip and funky. So, we’re starting to see the changes and maybe because of these changes, it’s starting to seep into us and say, well, hey, what is professionalism? What is it when we’re talking about dressing for example?
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: You did kind of mention around what’s professional to you is not necessarily professional to me or it’s not quite inclusive, right?
Fizzy Noor: Yeah. It’s constantly changing as well. I think that that is something that is changing both generationally and because of the circumstances that we’ve been placed in over the past few years. So, before this call, I was wearing a hoodie and for me, that isn’t an unprofessional thing, but I think that’s because I’m a young person.
KK Harris: Yeah.
Fizzy Noor: I got my first job during the pandemic so; I’m used to working at home in comfy clothes versus someone older with more experience who’s worked in an office in more professional settings than in their home. To them that’s a bit more of a shocking thing. So, I feel like ideas about what is professional and what isn’t professional are slowly changing. But where do we draw the line between setting a boundary of, I’m willing to make this change to be professional? So, for me not wearing a hoodie isn’t a huge change versus actually, I’m not willing to do that. So, for instance, being asked to change your hair as a Black woman or something like that. Where do we draw the line between, we’re going to go along with this because I can understand why that’s professional and coming across as obstinate because you don’t want to change certain things?
KK Harris: Right. Right. You brought up something important there. There are some key pieces here. It’s the changing from the hoodie into something that is still representative of you, and it comes out of your closet and you’re not having to go spend money to go and change to look this so-called professional cookie-cutter way. Right. I think there is a certain level of professionalism to adhere to, but not at the extent of losing ourselves to where we feel uncomfortable. Because if I go dressed in outfits from Next, I don’t feel comfortable in that look. So, like I said, I’m not going to feel comfortable. I might begin to resent the organization. I might begin to resent working in the corporate space and if I was 30 years younger it might be like, I’m not going to go dressed like that to work. Do you know what I mean?
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: If we make it. So, here you are, you look fantastic. I love what you’re wearing. It’s stylish. You’ve got the great background. You look great. The glasses, the big hoop earrings. To me, it’s not only cool. It’s modern, it’s diverse. You are different than a 40-year-old employee. So, it shows the diversity. Now, say if you’re going to the boardroom, right. You’re stepping into the boardroom. I personally want to clean up a little bit. I’m going to the board. I got a seat at the table. I want to look the best version of myself.
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: That’s the thing. Now I’m not going to go look the best version of myself like I look on Saturday night going to get my boogie on, right?
Fizzy Noor: Yeah. Yeah. Your best professional self.
KK Harris: Yeah. My best professional me.
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: My best professional me. That’s important. Now I’ve heard stories of let’s just take as a Black woman, braids for some time, were problematic for some employers. They didn’t like that. It was too ethnic, and they would say it’s distracting. Even at my daughter’s high school here in the UK some of the Black girls, 5, 6, 7 years ago, when she first got there at a boarding school, they were told that their hair was distracting. I mean, how insulting is that?
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: How is someone’s hair distracting? There is an issue around inclusion there. So that’s problematic. If you’re saying my hair, I take my braids out it’s an Afro. If that’s distracting, there’s nothing wrong with me. There’s something wrong with you.
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: There’s something wrong with your culture, your organization. So, yeah when we’re trying to tell people be more like me, whatever group is in there, the dominant group in there because it makes them feel comfortable then again that’s some training and some coaching needed from the top down.
Fizzy Noor: They need you to step in and give them some coaching targeting…
KK Harris: Here we go.
Fizzy Noor: Have you ever had to step forward and set a boundary in any of your career life in terms of the way that you dress or the way that you look and be like, actually, no, I’m not willing to change that for your company?
KK Harris: You know what? I never stood up to it. I think my first kind of protest was a week ago putting on my baseball cap. That was my standup in protest. And even here wearing this, wearing my hat that I always have on, if I’m on lunch break, my hat goes on. I go out. Right.
Fizzy Noor: How did that feel? I know that that post got so much engagement as well and positive engagement.
KK Harris: Yeah.
Fizzy Noor: How did it feel to step outside of a comfort zone and do something that you were worried might maybe come across as unprofessionally? And you made that caption saying people might see this, this way, but I’m choosing to be me. How did it feel to make a bold step and receive such positive engagement?
KK Harris: First it was uncomfortable. It was uncomfortable because like I said, it was a hesitation. So, it’s the discomfort. But as a psychologist, as a coach, we are taught and trained to work with the discomfort. and so, there’s that hesitation. There’s a little bit of discomfort, but then it was a whatever, like whatever. My people know how I work. The clients I’ve worked with, the hundreds of people that I’ve worked with, they know my quality. They know that I put the work first. I put their care first. So, it was uncomfortable, but it felt risky. But at the same time, my goodness, when my phone started pinging, I was like okay, people really championing it. People saying, I didn’t even notice the cap. I noticed your smile, or you look professional to me or saying statements like if this is how you show up, I want to work with you.
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: Just some wonderful feedback.
Fizzy Noor: To me that feels like a sign of the times. Like I said, times are changing to me that feels like. As someone who has much more experience than me, how does it feel for you to see that in action? Because for me, this is normal. This is my first few years in the working world.
KK Harris: Right.
Fizzy Noor: So, for me, all of this stuff is very normal, and I would expect that no one should react to you wearing a basketball cap. But I can imagine if you’re not used to that reception and you are used to having to look and sound and dress a certain way, that must be a really different experience for you.
KK Harris: Absolutely. You know what’s very interesting is I worked for a very big coaching firm prior to Talking Talent and in part of that role, a couple roles ago, I was a career transition. I was doing career transition consulting and it’s very interesting because I would be preparing and helping to prepare the client for interviews, and we’d be talking. We had a session. They would be able to go to a session on LinkedIn. Profile pictures…
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: …and I was directing them to the photographer that they had, the company that they were aligned with, and all the images were the same. So, I was conditioned…
Fizzy Noor: Like same pose, same everything.
KK Harris: Pretty much.
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: Pretty much. Same background for sure. So, I was conditioned to believe that that was professional. When I created an account years ago, I was conditioned to believe that you had to look really nice and you had to present yourself very well and everything was all nice and suited and booted and you’re kind of stuffed into your clothes and you’re like, I only wear this dress three times a year. Then for me to turn around and do a total change-up, that felt uncomfortable as well, actually, because it was like, well, how about all these people, hundreds of people that I said, do this, do this, do this? Here I am showing up completely different, but it feels really good. It feels good to be part of the new generation.
Fizzy Noor: It’s interesting as well. I see that you dress very professional even online working from home. You are stylish, but still really professional, which is so different to me that lots of times I will jump on Zoom with my hair in a messy bun and a hoodie on.
KK Harris: Yeah.
Fizzy Noor: I saw recently someone had commented on the difference in working from home and how that has changed for them what it means to be professional. So, this has come to my mind when thinking about professional as well, the topic of class, which I think whether you are in the office or whether you’re working from home is something that often, I don’t think people take into account. So, I saw one person talking about how working from home, their material differences have become even more obvious. At one point they were on Zoom, and they were called out by someone in one of their meetings, jokingly for sitting on a sofa and that seeming unprofessional. But what that colleague didn’t realize is they didn’t actually have a desk in their home.
So, things like this, when I think about it and often when we look at professional and the changing meaning of it, I think we look at it through a lens of race, for instance, and it’s not okay to tell people to change their hair. And we look at it through a lens of things are changing generationally, as I’ve said. But often I’m not sure if we look at it from a place of class and I think that that’s something that increasingly needs to change since now we have remote working and hybrid working and even the cost of living increasing. There are so many things going on around us that I think that that also comes into the idea of what we consider professional.
KK Harris: I think you make a very good point here around the living situation. But don’t forget what has also happened is you can filter out your background.
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: You can have the company that you work for behind you. People are accepting of the virtual background. I have a couple of colleagues I don’t know what their house looks like. I have for me a virtual background, and I know it’s partially because my ADHD is distracting and it throws me, it’s confusing. I like a light background, because again, with my ADHD, if there is too much color it’s a distraction…
Fizzy Noor: Is your background a virtual background?
KK Harris: No.
Fizzy Noor: Yeah. I was going to say, it looks so real.
KK Harris: Yeah. This is a real background. This is a backdrop paper.
Fizzy Noor: Oh.
KK Harris: A wallpaper type of thing…
Fizzy Noor: Okay.
KK Harris: …but it’s calming, and it keeps me calm if I’ve got to look at myself seven hours a day. You’re able to do a virtual background.
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: So that is a good thing. Now, somebody having a desk versus their bed, I agree with you. We have to understand not everybody’s got finances to do anything. When we have to take in consideration that the average wage in the United Kingdom is close to £27,000 a year. Not everybody’s going to be able to go out and buy an Ikea table, even from Facebook marketplace where they can get it cheap. That’s going to encroach on their budget. So, yeah, we have to have grace for people. We can’t make judgments because we don’t know what others are going through. I agree with you on that entirely. I think there’s a class thing, but I also believe individuals must with the likes of this, speak up to their line manager.
Fizzy Noor: And let them know.
KK Harris: Yeah. There’s no shame in it. However, I want to share with you that I work from my bedroom. I work from my bed. I don’t have a desk. If you guys were to give me a desk, I appreciate It.
Fizzy Noor: I’ll have a desk if you give me one.
KK Harris: Right. But I will be working from here, or I have roommates or whatever the case may be, or I’m working in my closet, and you might see clothes hanging. I will make sure I have the background filter thing on, but we just never know. Just to give people a heads up. Now that’s the ideal scenario. Not everybody’s going to feel comfortable like that. But again, having these conversations are important and that helps people feel comfortable.
Fizzy Noor: I think that brings me nicely onto something that I wanted to ask you as a coach, which is, so we kind of talked about what the line is between setting boundaries and choosing to give in and go along with what is deemed professional. In terms of thinking about if you were to make or if your workplace wasn’t wanting to make accommodations for you, but you love your job and you don’t want to leave what would be your tips for someone to come across as more professional while still retaining who they are?
KK Harris: Well, professionalism is understanding the playing field that you’re working in, right?
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: And what I mean by this is that it’s not your business. You don’t own this business. There’s an exchange going on. People are paying you for a job. If they want you to be professional, be your best self. Always be your best self so people can learn what that professionalism looks like to you and then you make decisions. We make decisions. Now, sometimes an organization may say, this is our look of professionalism. If they want you to dress in that way that is not authentically you, but you need your job. You need your job, there are ways around that. Is there a budget? Is there a budget…
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: …that you can give me towards this is? Secondhand charity shops. Some people still are antiquated in their ways of thinking what professionalism is and if it means you’re going to lose your job, well, do what you need to do. I’m speaking to everyone and particularly our younger generation coming in, graduates, etc., etc. In the beginning, we have to do what we need to do to bring money in the house. Let’s be honest.
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: But at the same time, it’s doing your best to show up looking sharp, your version of professional. I had a client one time; his version of professional was he was sharp. He’d wear a waistcoat. It was a beautiful waistcoat or nice shirt, cotton shirt up under it and then the nice trouser. They were all bright colors. He was a bit flamboyant. He had really a lovely loafer, but it was bright.
Fizzy Noor: He was professional with pazazz.
KK Harris: It was his professional.
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: Yeah.
Fizzy Noor: Outside of how we look professionally, I want to move the conversation onto professional behavior. I want to move it onto that because I think this is something you can relate to and I, as we both have ADHD. Ideas about what it is to behave professionally. So, one example I can give that often workplaces don’t understand, but thankfully Talking Talent does is the need to have more flexible working solutions because it’s very difficult to focus for long periods of time when you have ADHD.
KK Harris: Yeah.
Fizzy Noor: Or I can’t speak from my own experience, but I know for example, that people with autism might struggle with communication and social cues and things like that.
KK Harris: Yeah. Yeah.
Fizzy Noor: So, in terms of having a workplace that is inclusive in its definition of professional how do you think workplaces can be more understanding of neurodiversity and even other things outside of neurodiversity? So, say, for example, class. You might have learned to communicate in a different way, being from a working-class family than being from a middle-class family. How do we navigate those differences while still having a cohesive culture in terms of what we view as professional?
KK Harris: I think what we have to do is we have to broaden understanding of others, of diversity, number one, like everything you mentioned. Have an understanding, have an inclusive mindset. You spoke of understanding someone say with autism or someone like myself with ADHD. So, for example, as an ADHD person, we learned at Talking Talent the worst thing you can do for me is to book my sessions back-to-back to back. For me, it’s like suddenly I’m running on some high-octane fuel and it’s detrimental to the business if you do that and we learned through some mistakes.
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: I had a recent diagnosis going on two years, I think, Next year it will be two years and so, I was even late to the game of understanding that that’s not a smart move. So, we set things in place to where I do get breaks. I do get a half-hour break. If I’m going for a few hours, I’d better have a break.
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: I can’t shift. It’s just the way I am. If I’m going do-do-do-do-do next, next, next, next. So, it’s broadening the understanding of what maybe these invisible identities are. So, then when you see it or when someone discloses particularly, and even before you are asking questions of your staff when people come in from new in the business, is there a need that we need that I need to know of? So, it’s hiring managers, your line manager as well needs to know who you are. I think there’s responsibility on both the employee and the employer to be aware and to make aware.
Fizzy Noor: How far do you think it’s reasonable to ask for that understanding? Say, for instance, you just said that you actually had a fairly recent diagnosis and I imagine that that came with a lot of trial and error in figuring out what works for you and what doesn’t work for you. I can imagine, like, trying to figure that out, there are probably a lot of mistakes along the way. How do you think we can ask for grace in your employer understanding it’s not that I’m unprofessional, it’s that I’m learning how to be professional within the parameters of what I can do.
KK Harris: Yeah, of my condition. I think what I realize is that when we’re working for an organization we have to come with a solution. We can’t just say, I’m ADHD you guys figure it out. It’s like, no, this is my situation. This is what I go through. This is an idea. These are some of the ideas. These are some of the ways that work better for me, and you’ll get the best out of me. So, we’ve got that right there. Maybe someone would say, autism may not be as communicative as that, but if they disclose that they are because I think that’s important. You don’t have to, but I think it’s important, so people don’t misunderstand you. If you’re willing to disclose that information and say, I just don’t know what to do. This is my first time in a workspace or a late diagnosis, which I’m dealing with and I’m trying to figure out. Can we come together? Can we work on this together and just get some ideas? I think it’s a two-way street. I’m not a believer in it’s my way. It’s all for me. No, they’re paying you to do a job you’re there to deliver so therefore, let’s make it work.
Fizzy Noor: Deliver. Yeah.
KK Harris: Deliver but let’s make it work. I want to work. I want to have my job. Maybe like in my case beyond three or four hours, if I’m doing a group call, we often do Women in Leadership Program. That’s a four-hour program. Well, just naturally, we’ve got time built in those programs for everyone to have a break.
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: And so, the more I do this work, the more I understand we’ve got to work as teams and the onus can’t be on one or the other.
Fizzy Noor: Speaking of working as teams what is, I think the… I’m trying to think of how to phrase this. What is something that you struggle with, and that other people might struggle with professionally that you wish people would understand more and have more? I know that there is working as a team and there is compromise and you should work towards it and employers should work towards it. But what are some things that generally people don’t have understanding for and there isn’t much willingness to compromise on it and you feel that there should be? I have some things in mind, but…
KK Harris: I was asked to do something for our online platform and give some tips and things around invisible identities. It was interesting as I was doing this, just a bit of research, I was looking at things like people have these invisible disabilities. The type of things like the Crohn’s disease or colitis or something that causes a lot of discomfort and some things that can be very embarrassing as well. This is where to disclose or not to disclose is obviously a choice that I think somebody might say oh, they’re always in the bathroom. Why are they always taking off going to the bathroom? They must be playing about. You used the word earlier. I think we have to have more grace and curiosity. Those type of remarks, if overheard by the person that’s suffering in some way from the colitis or something can be very embarrassing, hurtful, and pressurizing. So, I think we have to be a bit more mindful about what we say about other people.
Fizzy Noor: It’s interesting that you brought that up because that was actually one that I would’ve brought up too because I’ve also been doing work recently on invisible identities. This was exactly the thing that I was reading about and I thought this is so true about the idea that sometimes people aren’t comfortable to explain to you why they aren’t able to do X, Y, or Z, or maybe someone’s not comfortable to explain to you why they struggle to be professional in this sense. I think that the ideas that we have around professionalism often push us to be exclusionary towards people unless they go out on a limb to tell us their most deepest personal secrets which shouldn’t be the case. Is there…?
KK Harris: Yeah. That’s sad. That’s sad when we’re being exclusionary and quite often unintentionally. That’s sad.
Fizzy Noor: Well, I think what also makes it sad is something we haven’t discussed. I think what also makes it sad, well, we briefly discussed it, in the beginning, is the fact that often what’s decided as professional is decided by the majority in society, which is white middle-class men able-bodied, able-minded, etc. and so we… Yeah, all of these majority identities that even while trying to be conscious of our bias, we do have a lot of unconscious bias that needs unlearning. It is difficult for any person to unlearn all of the bias that they’ve picked up over their many years in life, which means that essentially there are some people where if we are not constantly telling ourselves, have grace, this isn’t my business. Maybe they have something going on that I don’t know about etc. If we’re not constantly telling ourselves that we run the risk of excluding those very same people who have already been excluded.
KK Harris: Well, that’s agreed but I’m hopeful.
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: I’m hopeful too and I tell you why, because if I learn something and I share that with you, well, that compounds, because you might share it with two people who might then share it. It just grows and grows and grows and grows.
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: And so, I think that’s how cultural change happens and it can happen very quickly in cultures where maybe there was say a bias towards women with children. But the culture says, well you start hiring people that challenge that, that creates a more inclusive environment through creating groups at the organization and then that spreads to the higher ups and then it just grows and grows and suddenly a culture can change in a matter of a few years.
Fizzy Noor: Like a domino effect.
KK Harris: Yeah. Then we have the societal changes and norms that are happening externally too and then it’s affecting the organization. So, I’m hopeful…
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: …by conversations like this, we get people thinking. If we only get 10 people to listen to this, that’s 10 people whose thought process have been affected and then we can have…
Fizzy Noor: And 10 people who have their own connections of 10 people who have connections of 10 people, etc. It ends up being a whole constellation of people who are influenced by an idea even if initially it’s only one person or two or 10 that hear it which is why I think a lot of this kind of work is important and why I think these kinds of conversations on these kinds of podcasts are really important. Because even though it’s not direct change right now, we’re influencing what people are hearing or what people are wanting to discuss.
KK Harris: Absolutely. Absolutely. There is a level of it being direct change. If it resonates with the person receiving it, it’s change automatic, it’s change immediately.
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: A lot of people fail to realize that. I follow Tony Robbins, Anthony Robbins. I keep it here along my “Strategize to Win” and my other books that I’m always encouraging my coaches to check out. But I love his work, and he says you can change your habits immediately, but then it’s the act of building up that muscle.
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: And changing your attitude immediately and you brought it up. It’s like, you’ve got to be conscientious. You have to be present of mind. We have a lot of people just going, just going like zombies. I know, go to the right or get my coffee, go to there or grab the bread instead of, oh, noticing what’s going on outside and thinking, do I want that coffee?
Fizzy Noor: Yeah.
KK Harris: I want a green juice. So, when we become consciously present then that’s when we can implement change continuously.
Fizzy Noor: And it’s something that takes a long time. Habits take a long time to form, but even more than habits, worldviews take a long time to change and that’s really what is being tackled here, a worldview about what is professional or a worldview about any of the topics that we discuss.
KK Harris: Yeah. Yeah.
Fizzy Noor: But yeah, I’m just aware that we’re coming up to an hour. So just to wrap this up is there anything that you would like to leave listeners with on the topic of professionalism?
KK Harris: Yeah. Again, I think I said it. Broaden your understanding of these invisible identities. Question what professionalism is to you and also, would I say this language in front of my mother if we’re talking about professionalism. Would I speak the same way? It’s almost a commonsense thing, isn’t it? It’s me looking at that picture and saying, I look professional. I do have a baseball cap on, but it matches actually. I like the style. But I’m casually professional. That picture’s a casual professional, but I just happen to have a hat on. If you can press publish anyway, then do it. If you can go and change from maybe the hoodie is not the right thing, but the very cool black denim dress thing that you’re wearing really feels good and it makes me feel like if my boss came in, I’d feel comfortable standing, asking professional questions if you talk about that conversation. But yeah, I think just be your best you, the best version of yourself because we are working in an environment with certain expectations, but we can influence change by being the best version of ourselves.
Fizzy Noor: That’s a really great note to leave things on. Thank you so much KK for all of your insight. Obviously, love talking to you all the time, and thank you. Thank you everyone for tuning in, please like share comment and have a good evening KK.
KK Harris: You too, happy Friday.
Fizzy Noor: See you next time.
KK Harris: Okay. Bye.
Fizzy Noor: Okay. Bye.
