Assimilation to Self-Discovery to Healing with Analiza Quiroz Wolf

Update: 2024-10-02

Description

True success isn’t just about individual achievement; it’s about the collective rise of our communities.

Analiza Quiroz Wolf, CEO of Women of Color Rise, coaches diverse leaders, including social entrepreneurs and C-suite executives. She recently published The Myths of Success: A Woman of Color's Guide to Leadership, drawing on research and stories from her podcast, Women of Color Rise. Analiza is a former non-profit CEO, U.S. Air Force Captain, Fulbright Scholar, and graduate of the Stakeholder Leadership Governance Institute. Analiza has experience serving on nonprofit boards and hopes to serve on a corporate board.

As a daughter of Filipino immigrants, she shares three major phases in her life: assimilation, self-discovery, and healing. Chasing the "American Dream" and facing cultural pressures to fit into a predominantly white society took a toll, causing her to hide her true self. Then, Analiza’s self-discovery led her to deep healing and specific experiences from which she now sees the world.

Her analogy of babies in the river and the value placed on demographics highlights the flaws in our system’s thinking and approach. In K–12 education, Analiza advocates for a system that encourages critical thinking, empathy, and communication, allowing students to explore their identities and beliefs. That is why she is so focused on coaching leaders of color and creating supportive communities.

Collective success, community, and empathy are fundamental for creating equitable and inclusive environments for all of us to thrive in, and Analiza is a great showcase of that.

Show Notes
🇵🇭 Analiza's story is a typical Filipino immigrant story: it was all about assimilation. 04:05
🎭 It was also a traumatic story of hiding behind a mask: she lost herself. 06:18
👧🏻 Growing up, it was all about being seen but not heard: following orders and achieving perfect grades. 09:56
👧🏻 How Analiza got from the number one brand school in the world to working in education. 14:53
🏫 She used her education to work on starting and scaling schools. 19:16
👩🏻‍🏫 Analiza is a multi-sector leader: education systems need to get stronger. 22:26
👉🏻 The system isn't broken; it's designed to be this way: the K-12 ed system is about exploiting poverty. 27:12
🏷️ When the system sees a person, based on demographics, there's automatically a value placed on them. 30:45
⚠️ When we are enough, it provides critical thinking, communication, and creativity to solve whatever issue we're facing in our community. 34:03
😇 It's much easier to survive when you're in a community. 38:26
🤓 Today, Analiza is in coaching: she approaches it with a cultural lens, as a woman of color and minority. 41:52
📙 She named her book, The Myth of Success: A Woman of Color's Guide to Leadership. 45:04
🌺 Her faith has opened up so much for her, personally, but also as a leader: it allows her to take risks and really go for what she believes. 46:31
💎 Analiza's RONdering: no matter what challenges you face in life, come back to yourself. 52:25