Episode 19

Finding Freedom Through Authentic Expression with Dr Rose Aslan

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EPISODE SUMMARY

Rose is a transformational, healing-centered coach who specialises in coaching spiritually oriented women to find the wisdom and compassion within themselves.

Prior to becoming a coach Rose worked as a tenured professor of religious studies in California before moving to Istanbul where she currently lives.

Rose has travelled extensively and has a visible passion for meeting and connecting with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures. In this podcast episode we’re talking about her experience to bringing that love of connection online and what it means to show up as your authentic self in what can often feel like a noisy and crowded online space.

CONNECT WITH ROSE

If you enjoy this episode and would like to find out more about Rose and her work, you can find her getting visible online in the following places:

• Instagram: @dr.rose.aslan

• Website: www.compassionflow.com

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

00:02 - Debbie (Host)

Welcome to Beyond Business the podcast, the show for purpose-driven founders who want to be part of a bigger change and make a difference that reaches beyond your business alone. I'm your host, Debbie, and you're so welcome here. This week on the podcast, I'm speaking with Dr Rose Aslan podcast. I'm speaking with Dr Rose Aslan. Rose is a transformational, healing-centered coach who specializes in coaching spiritually-oriented women to find the wisdom and compassion within themselves. Prior to becoming a coach, rose worked as a tenured professor of religious studies before moving to Istanbul, where she currently lives.

00:43

Rose has travelled extensively and has a visible passion for meeting and connecting with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures. In this podcast episode, we're talking about her experience of bringing that love of connection online and what it means to show up as your authentic self in what can often feel like a noisy and crowded online space. If you enjoy this episode, I'd really encourage you to check out Rose's Instagram account, where you can follow her journey online for yourself. I hope you enjoy the episode. Let's dive in Good. I was going to say good morning, good day, to you, rose. A very super warm welcome to the Beyond Business podcast. It's wonderful to have you as a guest and I so appreciate you sharing your time and your energy and your wisdom with us this morning, so welcome.

01:39 - Rose (Guest)

Thank you, it's great to be here and I always appreciate seeing your shining, radiant face and in your beautiful, cheerful mood.

01:47 - Debbie (Host)

oh, thank you, what a beautiful reflection. I, yeah, I really appreciate that. Thank you, I I wonder how you're arriving this.

01:56 - Rose (Guest)

More art today how am I arriving? Well, today, I mentioned earlier my son is home sick, kind of sick, so it's been a little a morning full of distractions. A little bit, because when you're trying to work but someone speaks to you every five minutes, it's a bit harder than usual. At the moment he's occupied in his room, so I come in a slightly distracted state, but I think I'll be able to focus for the duration of our conversation. Yeah, thank you for asking.

02:25 - Debbie (Host)

Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I recognize that juggle and I'm pretty sure there's some research that suggests that those interruptions you mentioned it like it takes like three times as long or something to get back into focus each time you have an interruption, even if the interruption is only like momentary yes, yes yeah, and and yes, get well, son.

02:52

Get well soon. Wishes to your son. So we're going to talk more about getting visible in your business or getting visible online today and I wondered, maybe to set the scene a little bit, if you could share a little bit about what led you to become a coach in the first place.

03:18 - Rose (Guest)

Yeah, sure. So. For most of my adult life, until until a couple years ago, I was involved in the academy in the United States and elsewhere. Ever since I started my undergraduate and all my other studies after that, I've been very much on a trajectory to become a professor and I did just that. I spent many years, way too many years, studying medieval text in Arabic and Persian to become a professor of religious studies with a focus on Islamic studies. So I did that for more than 20 years I mean starting from my undergraduate studies until I became a professor, and I thought that's what I wanted in life.

04:00

But over the years things changed. My priorities changed. I realized that I had a career that was actually that had taken over my entire life essentially, and I couldn't quite untangle my personal life from my work life. There was no such thing as a work life balance expectations from my workplace in terms of in the United States, to get tenure, which is like permanent job security as a professor, you have to do a lot of things over over six years when you're on the track to tenure and it's unknown what exactly will be enough. So you just do as much as you can to get that elusive tenure. When I got tenure it was a month before COVID hit. I was like, okay, now I'm tenured, I've been promoted to the rank of associate professor. Now what?

04:51

And COVID, of course, came right after and I had quite the breakdown, many existential crises. I was also going through a divorce and, you know, trying to survive as a single mother on a single income in a very expensive city in Los Angeles. So I just realized that my priority wasn't work anymore, which is interesting because I was so single minded and so obsessed with my work and research and teaching for so many years. But during COVID and afterwards actually during COVID, I took a sabbatical year and I came to Istanbul, where I live now, and I started to heal and find myself and just become much more authentically myself and become much more balanced and really started a new life.

05:43

And in the early months that I was here I started to realize that I needed a different career. I didn't want to go back. I thought I would go back for a couple years more and complete that. But I also was doing some research into possible other career trajectories and I just I kept on coming back upon coaching. I had some beautiful mentor coaches along the way who really supported me and helped me see my life in the world in a very different way, and they had such an impact on me that I was like I love what they did and how they helped me. I was like can I do that too? And that's why I chose to do that, because it was so impactful on my life and it just made sense because I wanted a way to make money but also have a good work-life balance. I wanted to live here in Istanbul. I didn't want to return to the US. I wanted to be location independent and have a lot more freedom, especially time freedom. So it made sense at the time.

06:40 - Debbie (Host)

Yeah, I really get that and it's so interesting to reflect on that journey of working so hard, like I imagine, to get tenure. You committed endless amount of time and hours, but also a lot of your skills and your passion and your emotional energy. Skills and your passion and your emotional energy, like the things that are more difficult to quantify in many ways and, yeah, it sounds like you got to that point where it just felt like it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Yeah, exactly.

07:19 - Rose (Guest)

And you know the thing is, once you get tenure in the United States, what happens is then you just have more responsibilities. So junior faculty often work so hard and then they're like I got tenure, now it's like the, it's like this destination they've been working towards and thinking about ever since they were like undergraduates or graduate students. And then they get there and then it turns out there's just more responsibility, more work. It's not like this place where you can rest, and it's not where the work obligations, uh, lessen. Usually they often increase with higher responsibilities committee, you know, serving as chairs of committees and all these sorts of things. So it's not what a lot of people think it is either yeah, yeah, I heard um in when you first shared that I.

08:01 - Debbie (Host)

I heard you, um, iterating that question of I didn't quite know what was enough. Like when you don't know, like where the the boundary is or what the expectation is, maybe in some ways, and it's difficult to to know what's enough. And it seems such a pertinent question for so many aspects of life.

08:23 - Rose (Guest)

Like other, universities, for example, have much clearer uh tenure standards. Like you need one book and five articles plus serve on two committees, and it's very like quantitative. My university was like you don't need a book, you need some publications. We won't tell you how many you need to serve on committees, but we won't tell you how many or how much time you have to give.

08:42

So it's just very and very uncomfortable not knowing if we're enough, and it's the elusive question that, as coaches, we like to ask ourselves and others like what is enough? And I don't think I thought I was enough and that's really important now because I do believe I'm enough, but then I definitely didn't believe myself to be enough or to be sufficient in how I was at that moment I was, I was lacking in many as I saw it yeah, well, what a great segue, then, into this topic of visibility.

09:12 - Debbie (Host)

Um, and I yeah, I invited you to talk on this topic because I witnessed you showing up really quite frequently online and sharing really generously lots of different aspects of your life today. But what was it like for you back then as a new business owner? Like starting to become visible online?

09:35 - Rose (Guest)

It was really rough in the beginning. You know, as an academic, I was active on Facebook specifically because we're of that generation. I'm still active on Facebook, but the main reason I used it was for networking with other academics and policy makers and journalists and activists around the world and mainly I just shared informative articles, career updates, announcement about events, things like that. It was very. My online profile was extremely formal about events, things like that. It was very. My online profile was extremely formal and, yeah, I didn't really share anything personal ever. So when I became a coach and I was researching it like and trying to study other coaches online presence, I was like what they really share a lot, I think.

10:20

If I go back to my Instagram account and look at my first post, I'm like posing awkwardly in this photo, like I was like I hate having these photos of just myself as a mother. My son was younger back then. I had lots of photos of him but hardly any of just me. I realized it was very hard to even find a single photo of just me. Now I have tons of them because I need them for social media, but even having a friend take that first photo of like just me, like why are you going to take a photo of just me?

10:47

And then it was like me saying hello, welcome, I'm going to start doing this. In the beginning it was so rough, it just felt so hard to say anything and I didn't feel very authentic at that time because I was still figuring things out, I was still recovering from burnout and just trying to find myself. So I'm sure that if I look back on my early posts, I'm like, oh, that's a bit awkward. I mean, I'm sure they're fine, but it's very different than how I present myself nowadays, which is very awkward, raw, and I'm planning on getting even more raw as I get more comfortable online.

11:23 - Debbie (Host)

Yeah that. So it sounds like a real transition then, from showing up but on the inside feeling really awkward and uncomfortable and unsure and all the uncertainty that goes with that, to now having, yeah that, that inner feeling having really changed. And it would be interesting, like it would be interesting, to go back and look at those early posts and see if you can track that journey or not, because I know myself I have this tendency to think like, oh, like before this particular date or this particular event, like everything I ever produced was just rubbish. And then I go back and I'm like, oh yeah, I'm sure it wasn't.

12:05 - Rose (Guest)

It's just that how we, the way we felt about ourselves and the comfort level we had was much higher. Now my first one, the first business coaches I worked with in a group program she was a very she kind of presented herself as a very kind of shiny person and like very polished and and not that vulnerable. She's actually gotten more vulnerable since I worked with her a number of years ago too, but at that time, even learning from her about how to be present online, it didn't seem like you need to be vulnerable, you just need to be a generic coach online. But that was like really boring to to just be another generic coach and I don't feel like a generic person, so I didn't want to do that but I didn't know how to be myself. Like that's so scary Because, yeah, I can like send a text to a friend who I know and trust and share something deep, but like sharing that online where first, the biggest thing that was scary for me about sharing anything is that so many of my colleagues from academia are on my social media networks and that was a huge source of shame to me of, even before I left, of the fact that most of them only share very professional, formal kind of sides of them, and being vulnerable is detrimental in academia.

13:24

Really, it's getting slightly more common, among some women primarily, but still, people are very formal in academia and you don't reveal any of your weaknesses ever. So to know that I was going to post something that my colleagues in my department and my university were going to see, that like people who've hired me to like or who've, you know, paid me to give a lecture on, about academic topics at their university, that people I've written books with, like all these people that expect a certain level of professionality, would be seeing it that that's what held me back for the longest time is, oh my god, I am like sinking low, you know I am like sinking low. You know I am like define what it means to be an academic. I am just like humiliating my profession, you know myself, by like being vulnerable.

14:10 - Debbie (Host)

Really, that was, those were some of the thoughts that were going from my mind and why it was a big struggle for me to get visible in terms of who was watching me yeah, really I am struck by really honouring that fair, because it's a well-founded fair as well, like I'm sure there are judgments there and yeah, like your assessment of the situation is real in so many respects.

14:37 - Rose (Guest)

It was June 2022 when I officially quit my job and I resigned and then I wrote my big I quit post. You know, I put a picture of myself and I wrote I quit. I kind of wrote the main reasons why. It got huge engagement on all my main social media channels and I got so much feedback from really prominent academics in my field who were like encouraging me, cheering me on. I got tons of private messages from people like you're so brave. I wish I could do it myself.

15:07

How did you get out? Like people are really being excited about this because there's been some I quit, other I quit stories in other fields in academia, but in my subfield of I mean, I was in the discipline of religious studies and the subfield of Islamic studies specifically no one had done it publicly in my subfield, right. So I was like the first person there's been quiet quitters, right, who don't do other things but I did like a big announcement. I even sent an announcement to the listserv of Islamic studies in like North America and I think includes some Europeans. So, like every single person I've ever interacted with in academia in my field, read the email, basically, and I just felt like going big.

15:49

So like that was scary, debbie Writing the post and then sending the email. Like no one ever shares emails like that in the listserv. It's a really boring listserv of sharing announcements about conferences, asking for resources, talking about syllabi, you know, and I just shared that and I got great feedback, you know, and responses from people. But wow, that was stressful but relieving and cathartic at the same time. Wow it's.

16:14 - Debbie (Host)

Do you know? It is so interesting like I've never. I've never heard you describe that story in that way before and it seems to me that that has been a red thread, like a real theme of your work since then, like saying the thing that is going otherwise unsaid, exactly I know that you've been a big advocate for that and many of the issues that are done in your life. Wow, and that's what? Yeah, I love it. What a way to yeah set the theme of what was to follow.

16:45 - Rose (Guest)

Exactly. Yeah, that was one of the biggest kind of confessions. I don't know what you call that An I quit genre. You know, during COVID a lot of academics quit and then there's lots of articles about people quitting, and so it was like it was like the thing that a lot of people were quitting. I don't know if it's still going on now, but it was like the thing that a lot of people were quitting.

17:11 - Debbie (Host)

I don't know if it's still going on now, but it was like part of that wave of people quitting and getting so frustrated. Yeah, yeah, a lot of relatability.

17:14 - Rose (Guest)

Yeah, I could take my power back by sharing the things we're not supposed to share, by being vulnerable in an environment you're not supposed to be vulnerable, and it felt empowering amazing.

17:24 - Debbie (Host)

I would love to. I would love to circle back to that topic in a little bit um and first I feel drawn to ask what has supported your growth along the way or I don't like that the word growth like your evolution or your development along the way with in, specifically with getting visible yeah, I like the word evolution, um, I, I, we spoke about this earlier.

17:49 - Rose (Guest)

But uh, my favorite kind of marketing coach she didn't call herself that anymore, but is simone soul um, who previously I was her program. When I joined it was called Joyful Marketing and now she calls it Home. I highly recommend anyone. I joined it two and a half or more than two and a half years ago and I remember even when I signed up I got the next day I was like, oh my God, it's too much money. I'm going to have to ask for a refund. I'm actually saying, is it too late to get a refund? Like I'm like I was so scared about spending that kind of money but I'm so glad I invested in her program because it's a big program, there's a lot of people. It's not like a one-on-one kind of intimate program but it's like there's Facebook coaching and she actually does a really good job coaching people through Facebook.

18:45

I will write a question or a challenge. She has very specific rules and regulations for how you post. She wants people to ask very high-level questions and not to be lazy or crowdsourced. But when you ask a good question you get amazing answers in that group and then she has regular calls and I've been coached by her numerous times on calls and she has a curriculum and I've gone through her old curriculum and her new curriculum and the community is really awesome. It's like all the weirdo coaches and small business and the misfits. They're all there, the ones who don't like to conform to how you should be as a shiny coach. But if you just want to do things differently, to conform to how you should be as a shiny coach, but if you just want to do things differently, it was a really good environment.

19:25

So she had back then she I don't know she still has it she calls it the garbage post challenge and so you're supposed to, in 30 days, post 100 things. And she doesn't have specific rules. You kind of make up your own rules. So for me I was like, okay, a post a story on Instagram, like anything right, as long as it has like at least one English word on it with an image that counts. And the first time I did it it was so hard. Second time I did it I don't know how many times I've done it. Now my, the way it posts is just a garbage post challenge and it's the idea is you do so many posts that it starts to just feel easy because you're posting all the time. You're like I live in Istanbul with a lot of cats, so I post a lot of cats. As long as I write beautiful kitty or cute kitty, that's enough right. And it got me really comfortable with just the idea of posting things that aren't serious or deep. You know I can post deep things too, and I do, but also just posting anything. That's why it's called garbage post. You're not meant to think about it, you just do it so that the serious things feel easier to post.

20:31

One thing she always talks about is how, when you post something, it's just pixels. You know that you're sending out to the world and I always keep that in mind because I'm like it feels like the biggest thing ever that I'm posting. I'm sharing my deepest, darkest secrets. It's so hard. Blah, blah, blah. And then it's out there. I'm like whatever, what can I do after that?

20:48

What's very interesting is watching the people other people in her program post like I did so much work to share this. I wrote this. This is like my deepest, darkest secrets. And I read it. I'm like, okay, it's like someone sharing a nice story, like I don't think twice about their story, because it just seems like a nice story, right. But I'm not thinking about, I'm not judging them, I'm not thinking about anything specific and I forget about it moments after. But I'm sure it took so much effort for that person to be able to write it and post it and prepare it right. So it's the same thing for, like, when I post, right. So it's the same thing for, like, when I post and when I realize who's watching, reading it and watching me. What state are they in? How much energy do they give to it? Hardly any, if at all. Right. So that those kinds of ideas really help me post because no one really cares. So I might as well do it, because it feels really good to be a truth killer, really.

21:41 - Debbie (Host)

So I might as well do it, because it feels really good to be a truth killer. Really. I love what you said there about it's just pixels. That's like what a great reframe. I've got to keep that one in mind and it's true. It takes me back to what we said earlier on about the internal world. Like the evolution really is all about shifting your internal world to become more comfortable with it. And, interestingly, that's what I was gonna say about authenticity.

22:13

I think the best Definition of authenticity that I've ever come across is somebody describing it as being able to ever come across, is somebody describing it as being able to adequately represent what's going on inside of you, on the outside of you, and I love that. It felt so true to me and I think it takes two things. It takes um one. Well, for me it has taken two things, like one actually understanding my own internal world. It can feel like this mass of spaghetti sometimes where I'm like, oh, I don't even know where to begin. Like what, what on earth? Like which bit of this would I even begin with if I wanted to share it? And then, once I've done that, then actually knowing which, using a bit of discernment, I guess, to know which bits of this I want to keep inside and which bits I do want to share with others as well. And yeah, that I that, as authenticity has really stayed with me.

23:17 - Rose (Guest)

Thank you for sharing, debbie. That's really beautiful to hear that definition yeah, yeah, and so I wonder.

23:25 - Debbie (Host)

I guess the question I had for you was, um, I guess it's a bit of a leading question and I might know your answer, but I want to like talk about the idea that we don't necessarily have to share everything, like all parts of us, online, like we don't have to make all parts of us visible online in order to be authentic yeah, 100.

23:47 - Rose (Guest)

Yeah, I am still a very private person actually and sometimes I struggle with that. You know, like in the past couple weeks I've had some challenges with the, my son, who's entering early puberty. I hope he never watches this episode and gets annoyed that I just shared that. But we're having some challenges at home because of that and I've been very tired, you know, and my posting has gone down a lot Like I just haven't felt like I've had the energy to post, you know, and also the energy, but just like I'm like why am I going to post right now? You know, I go through different kind of ups and downs in life. I must admit, when I go through downs I don't really feel like sharing that much. Occasionally I'll share some of the downs, but you know, and I want to be vulnerable, but sometimes I just want to be quiet as an introvert who loves people, but I really like my quiet time and there's times when I just don't want to post, you know.

24:37

So I don't talk about my son hardly at all, like occasionally, about being a single mother, but like I don't talk about my son hardly at all, occasionally, about being a single mother, but I don't talk about him. I don't talk about my ex-husband, for example, being divorced. I talk about being divorced, but I don't talk about him specifically although he'll be a character in my upcoming memoir because I can't not write about him. There's definitely a lot of things I don't talk about. For example, I do date. I mean not right now, but I, you know, I would like to find a life partner. I don't talk about that very often. I occasionally talk about the idea of dating as a Muslim woman, but not very much, you know. So, as many things in my life, I definitely don't bring into my online presence.

25:17

I know my online presence is strong, though, and I don't need to share all because I don't feel comfortable and I like having a private life, but I know that I share enough because the responses I get from people are really powerful. I just get people thanking me, you know, so thank you for sharing that. I know I'm not alone. It's just like really powerful to hear that you've experienced this and I've had something similar, or just it feels inspiring when I read your work and these sorts of things. So when I hear from people about how my writing touched them and my sharing really touched them, that really means a lot and I know I don't have to share everything. It's really that's based on one's intuition, on how far you go and sharing. Some people share so much.

26:05

But the whole thing about children I'm very careful. I don't show pictures of my son ever online because there's so much discussions from online security experts about warning parents of keeping their kids offline for many, many reasons. You know I'm very worried about how technology will affect my son's life as he grows older, but I also don't need his future employers to Google him and find his entire childhood online. You know so, not only for security reasons, but because I'm thinking about him as a grown man and I don't need everyone like to see his childhood, so I like keeping his life private and my life with him private, you know so I'm careful and I think it's up to every person to decide how much they share, what they share, what they leave out, and it's up to the person who decides to share. We have no obligation to anyone whatsoever to share, but it's what feels good.

27:01

Yeah, because it's just pixels after all as well, yeah, like pixels on my son, though that doesn't feel comfortable.

27:09 - Debbie (Host)

Yeah, it's not, it's more than just me yeah, I really get that and I really think that, um, yeah, it's like so, keeping those things private to you, like that is authentic as well, because those things are private to you and maybe for someone else who shares all the things online, that that can be authentic to them as well. If that is the way that they they are in the world and equally, you know, if you're a very private person and don't want to share much at all, that can be authentic as well although I do worry about people who share too much about their children.

27:42 - Rose (Guest)

I do worry about how that will impact their children. I think that people should have a harder line on sharing about children. It's um, it's problematic with AI and everything. So I think there's a level of authenticity when people should be careful, more careful than some of them are yeah, yeah, I think with my.

27:58 - Debbie (Host)

I also don't share about my kids online and to me it's something about like a respect of that they're not old. My kids are still quite young and I don't feel like they're old enough to make an informed choice yeah, about it as well. So yeah, yeah um, you mentioned earlier that you see this. You said about wanting to get more raw. I think you described it and I wonder do you see this as this ongoing journey?

28:30 - Rose (Guest)

Definitely, definitely so. I just recently published my first book, but it's an academic book and it's the very opposite of truth telling. It's just an academic book and it's it's an book, but it's based. It was written mostly by Rose the academic, with very long page, long paragraphs and citing hundreds of sources and being in conversation with other scholars. It's not a truth-telling book, but I'm glad I got it out. But right now I'm working on a memoir-type book right, which I actually didn't anticipate it would be a memoir until the summer.

29:05

I've been trying to write it for the past year or even more. I thought it would be more, cause I work a lot with Muslim clients, muslim women, and I thought it would be more of a book for Muslims about their spiritual experiences and how to have more of a compassion based approach to Islam versus fear-based, and it's going to have that theme. But what happened? I spoke to a lot of people other writers and people who inspired me from their own perspective and what resonated with their advice and their feedback is my book needs to be a memoir. It makes it much more accessible and engaging. I had no goal to be a memoir. It makes it much more accessible and engaging. I had no goal to write a memoir.

29:49

I've been told many times in my life to write a memoir because I've had quite an interesting life in the short time I've been on earth. I've done some really wild things, you might say, and I've lived so far in six countries and doing some interesting things and but I never thought I'd write one. You know like, oh, those people, some of those people write a memoir. I'm not going to. But it became very clear. I took a sabbatical this summer and I went to stay in a mountainous village in Southern Bulgaria for some time and that just gave me a lot of clarity about my book and so I'm writing this book. That is going to be a lot of rawness. I'm still working through it. I have a writing partner who we started to work with one another.

30:32

All we do is just share things we've written that we've never shared publicly because it feels really hard. And the amazing thing is, once we read it, we read out loud to each other. Once we do that, I'm like, oh, it wasn't that bad, I can share this. But before I share it I'm like this is like impossible, I'll never share it publicly. And they're like, oh, okay, so it's been a really powerful experience. We've not even been doing it that long, just a few, like three sessions so far.

31:00

I'm quite inspired by the likes of like Glennon Doyle and others who write authentic memoirs that are thematic, and so I'm writing something like that. I'm not exactly sure how it's going to turn out, and I think I'll be doing more postings where I share bits and pieces from the memoir, but it's not the book I thought I was going to write. It's like I'm not doing. I'm doing it willingly, but I'm surprised that I'm writing this book, you know, because it's not the book I thought I was going to write. It's like I'm not doing.

31:23

I'm doing it willingly, but I'm surprised that I'm writing this book, you know, because it's much more personal than I anticipated, you know, and it's this fight between my scholarly self who likes to write about things and analyze things and ideas and people I'm really good at that, I'm trained to analyze people and thoughts and then it was a fight between that or this, like reconciliation between that side of me and the side of me that's the truth teller and uses my life and other people's, like lives, to illustrate lessons learned and things like that. So I think the reconciliation is leaning more towards the truth teller, but allowing a little bit of the scholar to be there to kind of, you know, illuminate some issues based on more scholarly understandings of topics. But she thought she was going to be the dominant writer for this book. It turns out the truth teller is going to be the dominant writer and the scholar can come in a little bit, but she will not control the narrative wow, what a lovely compliment to each other as well.

32:26 - Debbie (Host)

is there's something there, um, that I hear about integrating, a real integration of these different parts of yourself and then I imagine, on first outside world, beautiful. What a lovely note to finish up on. I wonder if you could, yeah, if you would like to share more about your book, if that feels relevant, or if there's other places that people listening can find you online. Yeah, sure, do you mean the book?

33:01 - Rose (Guest)

that's been published or my upcoming book. That's been published or my upcoming book. That is to be determined what it's about.

33:07 - Debbie (Host)

Either I was thinking of the book that has been published if you want to share about that, or maybe where people could follow the journey of your second book.

33:18 - Rose (Guest)

Yeah, the journey of the second book is here. I don't think we can find it online anywhere. Yet I haven't like officially, like shared publicly that I'm writing this book and I like to keep things like that more private. You know, until things are very firm and like have a pretty good chance of coming out I don't like to share. That's another thing I don't like to share is I don't share plans before they're firm and I don't know it's like superstition, but I don't want to jinx things. You know it's feel like it's happened before. So I guess here I'm talking about it, but I'm not. I haven't written a post yet about it, for example. I might. Who knows it's happening. I just it could take two months and it could take two years or 10 years to come out, you know. So I'm not sure how long that will take. If they want to follow me, instagram or Facebook is a pretty good place. My Instagram is at drroseaslan and I have been a little bit quiet lately, but usually I'm pretty active there and I have some recent truth telling posts there.

34:24

The book that just came out, I mean I'm pretty proud of it. I don't have it right here, but it's called Muslim Prayer in American Public Life. It was published by Oxford, so that's like I feel good about that. You know that like I went out from academia with a bang, you know, and got published by a nice press with a good reputation, but it's. I was in the field of religious studies, as I mentioned, and it's a multidisciplinary study where I was curious about how Muslims in America navigate prayer outside their homes, in the mosque.

34:55

Because, you know, I live here in Turkey where there's mosques everywhere and because, even though half the population in Istanbul is secular, non-practicing, they are all Muslim-ish, you know, and there's a mosque everywhere. If you have a workplace, you can usually find a place to pray. If you're at a store, you can ask and everyone will let you pray somewhere. There's always somewhere to pray. People here don't have to think about prayers in most situations. There's a few situations where they do, but in the United States, if you're a practicing Muslim who wants to carry out your five daily prayers, especially the ones in the middle of the day there's a prayer that's around the noontime, a prayer in the mid-afternoon when people are going to be at work, or if on the weekend, when they're out doing errands and outside the house, as an American, you can't. Just you don't.

35:39

A lot of Muslims don't feel comfortable just to go pray right, and the reason is because in the post-911 United States context there's a lot of Islamophobia and so to pray in public is a very scary thing and some brave people do it. But a lot of people have to do navigate a lot of ways to find a private, safe space where they can carry out their prayers or do all kinds of things that Muslims in somewhere like Turkey or any Muslim majority country they never think about right, and then non-Muslims also don't think. Oh, I work in HR, for example, and I have all these Muslim employees you know they need for religious accommodations in the UK. In the US, there's rules and laws to protect people's religious freedom and accommodations In the UK. In the US, there's rules and laws to protect people's religious freedom and ability to carry out their religion in the workplace, for example, but it's not always easy to navigate. You know, if you're working in a factory, it's Ramadan and you've got to break your fast, you've got to pray at a certain time, but it's not a break time, right. It's quite complicated to navigate religious accommodations and workplaces, schools, universities and the reason why Muslims are so anxious to pray publicly is because the perception of Muslims and Islam in America is very negative, and often I talked about how the media portrays prayer, specifically in Islamic rituals, as connected to terroristic activities.

37:07

Right, so many Hollywood films and TV shows, when they depict Muslims who are like, pious and practicing, and often when they're praying, it's often because they're terrorists, so they will will pray and then they go blow themselves up and kill a bunch of non-muslims, for example. And so the stereotype and associations that quite a few americans have with prayer is you pray and then you're going to engage in some violent activity. Even the um, the phrase that muslims say many times throughout the day, is allahu akbar. I'm sure you know this because you've probably heard some, watched some movie where the terrorist says Allahu Akbar and then he blows himself up in a terrorist suicide bombing.

37:51

Right, and it's really unfortunate because Muslims say this phrase all throughout the day before they pray, but it's turned into a very negative phrase that's really scary for non-Muslims, and so there's this lack of understanding that causes a lot of challenges for Muslims in the United States. So that's just like a teeny sample of what I talk about, but it's really my overarching interest in writing this book that is beyond just Muslims. Is intercultural competency, the idea of diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and how can people who are underrepresented, minoritized backgrounds, how can they feel safe and included in places that are not used to them and don't know how to include them?

38:36 - Debbie (Host)

Wow, yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. And what strikes me too, like one, what a valuable contribution. And two, a like an awesome foundation to be coming to your coaching work from as well. Yeah, I really appreciate that yeah. I shall. I'll put links to both of those in the show notes and I I love following you on Instagram, both for the variety and the depth of your posts, but also for your vibrant and beautiful pictures as well. I really, really love it. So thank you. Look forward to more to come.

39:16 - Rose (Guest)

Yeah, thank you.

39:17 - Debbie (Host)

Awesome. Thank you so much, Rose. Super super appreciate your time and your energy and your enthusiasm this morning. Really really lovely to spend some time together.

39:27 - Rose (Guest)

Thank you, and I appreciate you so much, Debbie, too.

39:34 - Debbie (Host)

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Beyond Business. If you've loved what you've heard, I would be incredibly grateful if you could rate and review the podcast so that together we can create a global ecosystem of changemakers, pioneering business as a force for good. Until then, I look forward to speaking to you in the next episode.