All Up in It with coach SB Rawz

democratizing career literacy with Dr. Hoda Kilani

Episode Summary

Dr. Hoda Kilani has been sharing her expertise in career literacy for a long while now. What makes this a learning curve? She’s challenged herself – to honor her value of democratizing her expertise – to start releasing meaningful content in one of her other languages which means navigating not only language but cultural norms, too.

Episode Notes

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About Dr. Hoda Kilani | Career literacy expert, podcaster, educator, mom

Dr Hoda Kilani is a Certified Professional Career Coach and the President of Right Career Fit, a career coaching practice that focuses on education and career guidance. Hoda’s continued lifelong learning, career, research and volunteer involvements provide her with up-to-date expertise in career and educational project design. She holds a Master of Education and a Doctor of Education with a focus on youth learning. Hoda strives to be a spokesperson for the importance of career education and works tirelessly to create awareness of its value including career conversations on YouTube and two podcasts, Hoda’s Musings and Hoda’s Career Info as well as a radio show, Career Buzz.

Learn more at https://www.rightcareerfit.com/

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Key moments in our conversation include…

Knows herself as a human who:

• Pushes others to know themselves so that we can find our best-fitting careers
• Keeps happy by focusing on gratitude in which mindfulness is baked in
  • She tries to name 5-10 things she’s grateful for each morning
  • Helps her give back more to her community and family
• Makes a podcast and has a YouTube channel
• Loves to travel
• Speaks Arabic and Spanish
• Has a mission of worldwide career literacy

She’s all up in:

• Trying to take her career literacy work into other languages and the challenges of interpreting rather than translating the messages
  • She committed, right here in the conversation, to publishing in either Spanish or Arabic in January 2024
  • She feels that part of gratitude is stretching outside of our comfort zone
• Dad would say, “If you think the grass is greener on the other side, you’d better go check it out. You can always come back.”
• Hoda described an uncomfortable moment of awareness of cultural differences when presenting in Dubai and how it’s reinforced her concerns about moving into another language
• She also fears that it would sound like she’s less of an expert in career literacy than she is
• That she was born and raised in Lebanon made the cultural gaff stir in the inner critic all the more: “I should have known that!”

The tools she’s using to move through this time include:

• Planning though she understands they are flexible and meant to not always work
• Daily language practice including reading books about careers in Arabic and Spanish
• Reminding herself that it’s okay to fail
• Her value of democratizing info and skills of teaching

For her non-profit spotlight, Hoda suggested local food banks. As she said, we think of ourselves of living in the land of plenty and yet there are so many people experiencing food insecurity.