Kelly talks to Neuro-Linguistic Programming Executive Coach and Burnout Management Specialist Neelu Kaur about her new book,  “Be Your Own Cheerleader: An Asian and South Asian Woman’s Cultural, Psychological, and Spiritual Guide to Self-Promote at Work.”

You’re an NLP practitioner. What is NLP?

“The assumption is that linguistics impacts behavior. So, how you speak to yourself and how you speak to others impacts your behavior. And there's techniques that are rooted in NLP – which stands for Neuro Linguistic Programming - where you can basically reach and train your brain through different ways of speaking to yourself and to others.”  

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A lot of this book explores how being brought up in different cultures can be an advantage or disadvantage in the world of work in North America.

“Yes, absolutely so. Indian culture, Asian culture, South Asian cultures: they're very collective. It's all about group harmony. And North America is very ‘I’ based. It's very individual. So what happens is when you are raised in a collective culture, you're not really trained to talk about yourself or your accomplishments. You're actually told to just keep your head down, your work will speak for you. And that does not work in corporate America. If you don't know how to toot your own horn, it is not going to work in corporate America, and I learned that the hard way.”

You studied improvisation, right?

“I did improv because one of my mentors said, you know, Neelu, you really need to be quicker on your feet, because I tend to take time to process information. And so improv for me was more like professional development. Even as a facilitator, I'm in front of groups, thousands of people, hundreds of people. But it's a little different with improv because there's no practice, there's no rehearsal. There's just you and your scene partner and in that moment whatever comes out comes out. And so yeah, I think improv is hands down for everyone. I think it's really great, especially if you struggle with speaking up.”

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Photo credit: Irina Peschan