Innovators & Disruptors: M. Gabriela Alcalde: Reclaiming Our Shared Humanity
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Innovators & Disruptors: M. Gabriela Alcalde: Reclaiming Our Shared Humanity
In this episode, Kristine Michie sits down with M. Gabriela Alcalde to explore the deeper costs of comfort, particularly the ways dominant-culture comfort sustains systems that limit our shared humanity. Drawing from her book What Your Comfort Costs Us, Gabriela unpacks how individualism, workplace culture, and societal structures shape both harm and the possibility for transformation.
Together, they discuss the need for collective healing, the role of storytelling in building empathy, and how workplaces can serve as powerful spaces for change. Gabriela also brings in the importance of play, joy, and embodiment, showing how creativity and connection are not distractions from leadership, but essential to reimagining a more just and human-centered world.
Key Takeaways:
Comfort maintains systems that limit our humanity, often protecting the status quo at the expense of deeper connection and equity.
Healing cannot be done alone; the work must happen in the space between us through relationships, culture, and shared responsibility.
Workplaces reflect the broader world, but they also offer a practical space where change can be tested, practiced, and expanded outward.
Stories create connection in ways data cannot, helping people see patterns, build empathy, and understand experiences beyond their own.
Play and joy are essential leadership practices that unlock creativity, deepen connection, and sustain people through difficult work.
True leadership is grounded in service, requiring alignment with values and a commitment to something greater than personal success.
A more human future is possible when we move away from scarcity and fear toward collective imagination, dignity, and shared flourishing.
“We give up our humanity when we stop laughing, when we stop playing.” — M. Gabriela Alcalde
“I believe we have to share in the healing… We need to work on the space between us, the culture, and that can only be done in community, collectively.” — M. Gabriela Alcalde
“There are so many other ways to be human… and that doesn’t take anything away from anybody else. It just adds to our collective well-being.” — M. Gabriela Alcalde
Episode References:
What Your Comfort Costs Us: How Women of Color Reimagine Leadership to Transform Workplace Culture - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/773170/what-your-comfort-costs-us-by-gabriela-alcalde/
Elmina B. Sewall Foundation - https://www.sewallfoundation.org/
Inclusion On Purpose, With A New Preface And Readers' Guide: An Intersectional Approach To Creating A Culture Of Belonging At Work - https://www.ruchika.co/inclusion-on-purpose
More About M. Gabriela Alcalde:
Born in Lima, Peru, Dr. Alcalde is a creative leader with experience in the philanthropic, academic, governmental, nonprofit, and grassroots sectors. She writes and speaks locally, nationally, and internationally about shifting the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors, culture change, racial justice, and leadership of women of color. She earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Louisville, a master’s in public health from Boston University, and a doctorate in global public health from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. What Your Comfort Costs Us is her first book.
Connect with M. Gabriela Alcalde:
Website: www.mgalcalde.com
Connect with Kristine:
Website: https://www.impactfullinc.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/impactfull_inc
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristine-breese-michie/
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