Kaia Culotta '25 RGLP Reflection: Embracing the Uncomfortable

I came into RGLP wanting to push myself out of my comfort zone. But sometimes it's easy to say that, and it's another thing to put it into practice. From our very first session, I was thrust into activities and scenarios I'd never encountered before and could never have imagined. After being tasked to negotiate a business settlement with my peers as a representative from a fictional country, I began to realize the importance of embracing things that may make you uncomfortable at first, especially in a global context when it comes to interacting with cultures that are different from your own. In this case, the peers I was negotiating with were representing a different fictional country that had customs such as never making eye contact and staying very still. This made the negotiation a bit awkward and uncomfortable at first, but my partner and I chose to lean into this and we ended up reaching a compromise that left everyone satisfied.

From here, my understanding only continued to grow as I did things such as eating my food in a way that represented a specific culture, or attending the Capoeira session where we shouted, sang, kicked, danced, and played musical instruments as a group, all while laughing as we made mistakes or even when we felt as though we looked silly. These experiences helped prepare me for future scenarios where I encounter and work with people and groups from cultures and backgrounds that are different from mine. Leaning into the uncomfortable and embracing other's differences rather than feeling awkward or thrown off and allowing that to color one's interactions are very important skills when it comes to building dialogue and collaborating across cultures.  

As someone who is mixed race, I come from two different cultures. I'm leaving RGLP feeling as though I not only know how to navigate interactions across cultures better, but I also know a bit more about to navigate my two cultures internally as well. Sometimes I can feel uncomfortable knowing that I don't completely belong to any one culture, but I think it's important to know that doesn't make one any less worthy of embracing multiple cultures and learning from them. This is a skill that I definitely believe is an important aspect of becoming a global leader.