The Price of Nice + Resiliency with Amira Barger (part 1)

Have you ever swallowed your truth to keep the peace? Felt the exhaustion of maintaining a "nice" facade when you wanted to speak honestly? You're not alone.

Join us for a thought-provoking conversation with Amira K.S. Barger, Executive Vice President and Global Head of DEI Advisory at Edelman. Amira shares her remarkable journey from growing up as a minister's daughter on the tiny island of Guam to becoming a powerhouse in strategic communications, particularly within healthcare environments.

At the heart of our discussion is Amira's upcoming book, "The Price of Nice: Why Comfort Keeps Us Stuck and Four Actions for Real Change." Through a pivotal childhood story about hair braiding gone wrong, Amira reveals how being told "that's not nice" taught her the painful lesson that politeness often trumps truth – even when that truth could prevent harm. "No matter how right you are or how true the thing is," she observes, "if it makes someone uncomfortable, you are the problem."

Amira's expertise in behavioral communications illuminates how "words shape worlds" – not just a catchy phrase but a profound reality that influences how we move through professional and personal spaces. Drawing from psychology, sociology, and anthropology, she crafts messages that move people to action, demonstrating the powerful intersection of art and science in effective communication.

For anyone who's felt trapped by expectations of niceness or struggled to reconcile authenticity with social acceptance, this conversation offers validation and a pathway forward. Discover how breaking free from the prison of pleasantness might be your key to unlocking greater impact, deeper connections, and a more fulfilling life.

More About Amira Barger
Price of Nice

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Reignite Resilience
• 1:39 Silent Retreat Reflections
• 5:01 Introducing Amira Barger
• 7:21 From Guam to Communications Expert
• 14:48 Behavioral Communications in Action
• 21:11 The Price of Nice Origin Story

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

All of us reach a point in time where we are depleted and need to somehow find a way to reignite the fire within. But how do we spark that flame? Welcome to Reignite Resilience, where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. Resilience where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. We'll discuss the art of reigniting our passion and strategies to stoke our enthusiasm. And now here are your hosts, natalie Davis and Pamela Cass.

Speaker 2: 0:42

Welcome back to another episode of Reignite Resilience. I am your co-host, natalie Davis, and I'm so excited to be back with all of you today, and joining me, of course, is your co-host, pam Kass. Hello Pam, how are you?

Speaker 3: 0:53

Fantastic. It's a beautiful day and you and I are kind of. We'll let our listeners know that we've got the cover of our book, the interior of our book, and it's in production right now. And we're we've got the cover of our book, the interior of our book, and it's in production right now and it's getting a little little surreal. So, for those of you who know us, you will probably be getting a reach out to see if you will be part of our launch team.

Speaker 2: 1:20

It's becoming a little real and it's exactly. If you and I have shared the same space and air in the last year, you're going to hear from me, so just be prepared. There it is. I love that. Well before we dive in, I know that we're going to have listeners that are curious, because on our last episode, you shared a little bit of insight behind your silent retreat. How are you days, weeks after the silent retreat? How are you feeling? What have you downloaded? How's it going? Silent retreat, how are you feeling?

Speaker 3: 1:44

What have you downloaded? How's it going? So, have I changed my morning routine? No, I just went right back into. You know the old habits. Have I spent more time away from my phone and technology? Yes, now, when I take my dog, I don't bring anything with me and it's much easier for me. Before I was getting really anxious about, oh my gosh, what am I going to miss. Now I'm just kind of like, eh, it'll be fine, and I'm spending more time kind of just outdoors, just being a little more.

Speaker 3: 2:11

I think I'm more aware of my surroundings when I'm outdoors now, which is good, and I am doing some meditating, like this weekend I was down in the springs and I sat out on a porch. I didn't bring anything with me and I just closed my eyes and listened to the birds and was able to get into a meditative state, which I've never been able to do before. So, yeah, so it went really well. I've shared it with a lot of people and am encouraging people, because everyone I say it to, they're like, oh, I could never do that. I could never do that. I'm like, yeah, well, I didn't think so either, but actually you can, and I did not burst into flames like I thought I would so.

Speaker 2: 2:53

Exactly. Well, we're glad to hear that you're still doing fine and still uncovering and peeling back the layers as you go through it. Right, it's not that you were going into it expecting some big, massive, life-changing, life-altering experience, but it is. I think that it's definitely put a spotlight on some key areas for you and given you a chance to, like you said, just be more present and having appreciation for everything around us.

Speaker 3: 3:12

Yes, absolutely. And it was such a powerful reminder because I had a coaching call this week with a coaching client that he was a student. I've known him for years and he lost a very dear friend, someone he considered a brother, very unexpectedly young, like 61. And just, it was such a reminder of the pause, the presence and just how we don't have we don't know what's happening tomorrow, and so if we're just constantly just checking the boxes and doing the tasks, you know we may wake up one day and not wake up. Yeah, exactly, and what have we missed? So, yeah, so good reminder, love it.

Speaker 2: 3:52

Love it Well, wonderful. Well, today we haven't done anything adventurous for our listeners. We're not going to report out that we've done any other retreats or things like that, but we do have a wonderful guest that's joining us today. So, pam, why don't you let our listeners know who's joining us today?

Speaker 3: 4:06

Yes, today we have Amira K S Berger, mba, cva, cfre. She is an award-winning communication and DEI leader, author, professor and speaker. She serves as Executive Vice President and Global Head of the DEI Advisory at Edelman, where she provides senior counsel on reputation, equity strategies and leadership communication, especially in healthcare and corporate environments. The author of the upcoming book the Price of Nice why Comfort Keeps Us Stuck and Four Actions for Real Change. So excited to have you with us today. And Natalie has an advantage she has met you before. She has heard your story. I have not, our listeners have not, so I would love to hear your story.

Speaker 4: 5:01

Absolutely Well. Thank you both, first of all, for the gift of time and space to be here with you. I always love talking about this book baby that is about to be out in the world, but also just getting to talk about it, especially with other women, because I think that's who it's going to resonate with very deeply, in particular because we know how to play nice and we've been conditioned to play nice in very specific and deep ways. But a little bit about me, amira Barger, as you mentioned, I am so many things to so many people. I talk a lot about the layers of my identity because I think that's so important to people understanding a little bit about why I took the time to write a whole book. But I am black, disabled, cisgender, heterosexual, a September Virgo. That one's one of my favorite identities. We all are just the Virgo call.

Speaker 4: 6:00

This is the.

Speaker 1: 6:00

TV you see, the universe knew that we needed to be together to talk.

Speaker 4: 6:05

I'm a communications executive, a writer, professor, a partner to my 20 plus year partner, jonathan, and a parent to my now 12 year old going on 30. Sometimes it feels like daughter Audrey, and I'm also a fur baby mom to my two dogs, bucky and Potato. So there are many layers to who I am that have really helped shape my world and how I show up in the world, including a very interesting upbringing, which Natalie got to hear about last time we were together. My parents actually raised us during the formative years of my childhood on the tiny island of Guam.

Speaker 4: 6:46

It is 30 miles long, eight miles wide and I think today there's about 150,000 people. So it was like growing up in a, you know, mid-sized town where everybody knew everybody and see the same faces. And my parents were actually not military that's a good guess and most people's first guess but my parents were actually ministers and so we were there helping people with a host of things, of course their faith. But before you can address someone's faith needs, you have to think about the basics, like food in your belly, clothes on your back and a roof over your head, and we did a lot of work to just help meet people's basic needs and to be in community with them.

Speaker 2: 7:29

I love that, I love that. And then making your way back to the main island. What was that journey? How did you come back to the mainland, the mainland United States.

Speaker 4: 7:39

So it was right around Y2K because we thought the world was ending right. All the computers were going to shut down and roll back to 1900 and nobody knew what was going to happen. We had extra canned goods and extra water and flashlights and a generator right, we were prepared. And then we thought maybe we shouldn't be in this remote place where everything has to be shipped and flown in in the middle of nowhere. If the world's going to end, maybe we should go back to a bigger place. So we made our way back to the mainland United States, california.

Speaker 2: 8:14

Yeah, love that, love that. And then your journey into the corporate space. Tell us a little bit about that journey, because you I mean just hearing your bio, as Pam introduced you quite a few accomplishments. You have what we like to say in the real estate world the alphabet soup behind your name, right Like all of the designations and the certifications you have invested in your career. Tell us a little bit about your professional journey.

Speaker 4: 8:41

I always knew I wanted to be in the healthcare space, and I do get to practice communications and DEI in the world of health, the entire health ecosystem, everything from hospital systems to medical schools to pharma you name it and so much of that was influenced, in fact, by my upbringing. One of the most inaccessible resources for us to help provide people with when my parents were serving community as ministers was health care. It's one of the most expensive, it's hard to come by and it was something that always stuck with me that it was something people needed and a basic human right. And yet so many people had to go without good health care physical and mental health care and so I knew I wanted to be a part of the solution and do something about that someday. And so I started my undergraduate career, my first four years as a pre-med student, and I did that for three years.

Speaker 4: 9:41

And then I took a general education class. It was an intro to business class, and in that class, bonnie Stachowiak who's a dear friend today, but Professor Stachowiak to me then Bonnie Stachowiak, who's a dear friend today, but Professor Stachowiak to me then she had talked to us about one aspect of business I had never considered nonprofits. Her mother was the CEO of a nonprofit organization and in my very young, naive mind I thought that everyone at those nonprofits were these saintly wonderful volunteers. It did not cross my mind that it was a career path or that this is what these people did as vocation to feed themselves and their families in addition to helping community.

Speaker 4: 10:21

And so I learned otherwise through Bonnie, and she had noticed that I'd always had a knack for communications and presenting.

Speaker 4: 10:30

And I mentioned I'm a minister's kid and oftentimes that's the case You're often thrust on a stage and meant to lead and so you're talking in front of people and presenting all the time or performing little skits and Christmas plays and things. And so I really did have this upbringing and this training of speaking to people and presenting and through Bonnie's influence I actually started exploring what I could do to help the world of healthcare and patients with communications, because the idea of being a physician and the reality of being a physician very quickly became actualized for me. I was in an advanced program during my undergrad where I got to shadow clinicians and I got to go into these spaces and start to understand earlier than most pre-med students what that career would be like, and so I ended up switching in my junior year of college from pre-med to marketing and communications and found my way to helping patients, advancing health equity and putting good back out into the community through strategic communications and DEI work.

Speaker 2: 11:47

Wow.

Speaker 4: 11:48

That's impressive.

Speaker 2: 11:49

Yeah, I wasn't expecting the course to be the intro to business. I was actually expecting you to say it was anatomy and physiology, because that's usually the course where everyone says no.

Speaker 4: 11:58

Or organic chem it's like oh no, chemistry, there's so much math, Nope, can't do it yeah.

Speaker 4: 12:03

So no, and I now. I get the pleasure of working within a communications firm, and so I love the variety that a firm provides. I get to touch so many different organizations, leaders, products, services, ideas that really help shape every patient's every day, and we're all patients. Everyone's a patient at some point in your life, from you know the womb to the grave, as they say, and I get to be a part of what that experience is like for patients all across the globe Incredible.

Speaker 2: 12:41

And what does that look like? Amira, Like just on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis? Are you hands-on, Are you out in the field? What does that really look like?

Speaker 4: 13:45

Yeah, every client is so different, which is why I love the agency world. It really keeps me on my toes. There are some clients where you know we're their agency of record and so we're doing all kinds of communication from what they look like to the external world, to their internal employee communications and videos and social media, to what their products look like and what the words are on the product packaging. And for others, we're doing a lot of work of understanding and serving. What do your audience members, your consumers, your potential patients, your potential employees want to hear from you, want to see from you out there in the world. So there's a lot of variety in my day-to-day and sometimes it is super hands-on writing a press release, pitching and placing an article for an executive at a healthcare company or building a deck.

Speaker 4: 14:39

In the world of agency and consulting, you live in decks. Everything's communicated in a PowerPoint deck. I'm building decks to present ideas and to present communications that will really move people, and that's what I tell people that I get to do is I work in behavioral communications. I get to help shape the things and the words that move people to action and mobilize entire communities, whether that is what we saw in COVID of wash your hands for 20 seconds or to the tune of the happy birthday song. Twice. That would be an example of an impact of the kind of work I get to do. You have experienced it and seen it in the real world. But you may not know that behind the scenes, behavioral communications strategists like Amira was a part of helping to make sure those messages got to you out there in the world and help to make sure we were all hygienically washing our hands to care for and protect one another. And that's just one small example of how the work I get to do every day shows up in the world. I love that.

Speaker 2: 15:44

Behavioral communication. That's such a thing. I think within our space, we talk about communication from like knowing who's your audience, like who are you talking to, when are you delivering the right message? But when you're wanting to really evoke action or people taking action, I think that there is definitely a deeper level and I was going to say this the psychology and science that's on the back end of that. It's true.

Speaker 4: 16:07

It's art and science we draw from every day. I tell people that's why my nose is in books all the time we draw from psychology and sociology and anthropology and all of these different practices and sciences that influence the world of communications, and it's such a powerful tool. And media literacy plays into a part of that and it's something I talk about a lot as well, because words shape worlds and that's not just a quip saying, it's a reality. They shape what we will do at any given moment in time and the reality that we all get to live together.

Speaker 3: 16:43

Wow. So when you're going to work on a project, like you said, you go into books like psychology books and everything. So what is like your first step where somebody is like okay, we need this messaging? What does that look like?

Speaker 4: 16:55

We always start with a brief. That's the agency way. We start with a brief, which is basically a series of questions, right, and from the world of cognitive psychology we borrow a framing that any communicator would know think, feel, do and say what do you want your audience members to think so that they will feel something, that they will do and then say something? We really do go through the steps of getting into the persona and the mind of the audiences that you're trying to reach, and that's what helps us to shape the most right messages that will hit all of those, the six R's right, the right person at the right time, in the right way, with the right message for the right reason, and so on and so forth. It really is starting with a brief, a set of questions, and I tell people all the time.

Speaker 4: 17:44

One of my favorite things that I get to do as a communicator is I get to ask questions all day. That is a lot of what shapes my work. We use inquisition as a strategy, and the same is true for the work I get to do in DEI advisory. Inquisition is a strategy. Sometimes we're asking the most right questions to elicit more information so we can then decide okay, now how do we move based on the data and information we collected? What's the best next step here?

Speaker 3: 18:14

Yeah, the art of question asking, which is kind of lost. We don't see a lot of it. As coaches, you know that's what we do all the time. What were some of the things that you did to become such a great question asker?

Speaker 4: 18:28

It's been in me since forever.

Speaker 3: 18:30

I remember.

Speaker 4: 18:31

I was the child who you know was often told. Why are you asking so many questions? You know, sometimes the adults around me didn't have the answers and I think that's where some of the frustration came from. My questions were so big and I think you'll understand this because you're both Virgos too. I think it's innate to me as a September Virgo is I want to know the data, the information, so that I can decide my most right steps. I want to be informed.

Speaker 4: 18:58

It's a very Virgo behavior to know to ask questions, so that I can be prepared, because I always want to show up well prepared. I want to see around corners before I need to and I don't want to be surprised, and so asking questions has been a strategy from the days of little Amira to now, here today, the work that I get to do as a communicator, and it's just curiosity. I think curiosity is what helps us grow, curiosity is what opens our minds to new ideas, new people, new places, is to make sure that you stay curious, and you can start to work that muscle of curiosity just by asking more questions. Beautiful.

Speaker 2: 19:44

Love that. I love that Pre-med figuring out that you need to step into the space of communication in the nonprofit world. And then is it the lightning bolt that hits you when you realize niceness is a thing that shows up in the workspace and not in a great way at all times. What is your journey to becoming the soon to be published author of.

Speaker 4: 20:07

The.

Speaker 2: 20:07

First Place, yes, yes.

Speaker 4: 20:09

So many things. So it really does start back with little Amira, nine-year-old little amira. So I'm going to tell you a story. I am an 80s baby, but the 90s raised me is how I always say it to people and I mentioned I grew up with minister parents and so they maintained discipline with really sharp looks and heavy size and a raised eyebrow that could really like stop you in your tracks and the occasional, you know, rebuke to the backside.

Speaker 4: 20:37

That was a thing back then, and nice wasn't a suggestion in our world. It was a non-negotiable demand and for much of my life I really tried to live up to that. In fact, I was known. It was my late mother-in-law, pearl, who started calling me this. She would call me precious sweet Amira, as if it were my full government name, and other people started doing it too. I was precious sweet Amira and I kind of played into it. I did. My husband would joke with me. I kind of played into it, that persona, and I wore it like a badge of honor. But I started to realize that that kind of existence came with a price right. The problem was that nice never quite fit me. I was a really good actress. I still am today, I should have gone into acting. That's what I should have done I tell my husband and daughter, I should have been an actress.

Speaker 4: 21:28

you know, you're still young, you can still do that.

Speaker 2: 21:29

I am still young, I can still do it.

Speaker 4: 21:32

But there was this unrelenting sort of tug of war between the suffocating expectations of the daughter or daughter-in-law I was supposed to be and the daughter that I truly was inside, the one who asked questions, who wanted to be heard and not just seen. And for a long time it was a trap for me and I couldn't really figure out for myself how to free myself from it. And so when I was nine, you know my sisters and I. We grew up with these two best friends on the tiny island of Guam. They were blonde haired, hazel eyed and our best of friends. Even today, 30 plus years later, we are still sisters in every way that matters.

Speaker 4: 22:14

And they were fixtures in our household and we were in theirs, and the twins would return sometimes from vacation every summer, and we didn't have the gram back then, right In the early aughts and the nineties. And so the best way for people to know that you had just gone somewhere fabulous was what we call vacation hair yes, so it's the, the braids and the little beads on the end. Right, think jamaica, the caribbean. You come back with your braided hair and the beads and painfully burned scouts. Yes, and very soon after returning with the twins. Their cornrows were more like these fizzy haystacks and they'd be sitting cross-legged on my mom's bedroom floor begging for her to fix it. You know, can you please braid our hair like theirs? And pointing at my sisters and I and my mom would shake her head but very kindly do it. So she'd sit there and part their very fine thin blonde hair into sections and start braiding. And there was one year where they were sort of squirming and wincing and squealing like ouch, it's too tight. Why does it hurt so much like? Does your hair hurt like this? Is my hair falling out? What's happening?

Speaker 4: 23:24

And so little nine-year-old Amira is standing there in the doorway, my brow furrowed and my arms crossed and I'm just like what is going on here? And for whatever reason, the September Virgo in me snapped and I just said well, it's because your hair isn't made for braids. And I felt like the room fell silent. My mom gave me quite a stern stare. My little sister was in the corner stifling a giggle because she knew I was about to get it. I was in so much trouble and one of the twins I recall her whipping her head around so fast. The beads went flying everywhere and her eyes were wide, her mouth open, and just this expression of like shock and hurt and confusion. And my mom said Amira, that's not nice. And the twins and my sisters just stared at me.

Speaker 4: 24:19

And later my mom came and talked to me and said you know, you can't just say things like that, even if they're true. And there it was for me the Price of Nice, a lesson that had been ingrained in me until I unpacked it, which is what you'll discover in this book that being nice is more important than being real. That no matter how right you are or how true the thing is, if it makes someone uncomfortable, you are the problem. Now, my mom didn't intend for that to be the lesson, but that's what little Amira took and that's what I've been unpacking for the entirety of my almost 40 years on this earth, and that's why I wrote a whole book about it, and looking back now, I realize I could have handled the situation differently. I was still right, though. To be clear, I was not wrong. You know, that's the Virgo in me as well. I was right. You just want everybody to know that, just just for the record that sword is the one I was not wrong.

Speaker 4: 25:23

I was correct and what I said was true. Your hair will fall out because it's not made for those type, right?

Speaker 1: 25:31

thank you for joining us today on the reignite resilience podcast. We hope you had some aha moments and learned a few new real life ideas. To fuel the flames of passion, please subscribe on your favorite streaming platform, like or download your favorite episodes and, of course, share with your friends and family. We look forward to seeing you again next time on Reignite Resilience.