15 Min Language Story | Chris Howell

Humility, Connection, and Seeing Beyond Our Biases: A Conversation with Chris Howell

There are moments when a conversation shifts the way you see the world—not in a dramatic, overwhelming way, but in something quieter… more lasting.

In this episode, Chris Howell, co-founder of the Pulsera Project, invites us into one of those moments.

At the heart of his story are three guiding ideas: impact, education, and employment—but what stands out most isn’t the structure. It’s the mindset behind it.

“One of our main values is self-awareness… being aware of how our own biases… can hinder our capacity to connect with people.”

That idea sits at the center of everything.

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Unlearning What We Think We Know

Chris challenges something many of us don’t even realize we carry—assumptions.
We label. We simplify. We fill in gaps with stories we’ve been told.
But what happens when we pause?

When we question those automatic thoughts?

That’s where connection begins.
Instead of seeing someone through a single lens—like nationality or economic status—he encourages us to step back and ask:

What am I bringing into this interaction that might not be true?

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Redefining Our Biases

One of the most powerful moments in the conversation is when Chris reframes how we think about our biases.

In many places, it’s measured in dollars.

But that’s only one version of the story.

“There’s community… a poverty of the spirit that even in these economically impoverished communities, people don’t have.”

It’s a reminder that wealth isn’t always financial—and that connection, family, and belonging can exist in ways that challenge everything we thought we understood.

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A Different Kind of Partnership

Another core idea Chris shares is solidarity.

Not helping from above.

Not giving to someone.

But working with people—on equal ground.

A true 50/50 relationship.

Where both sides learn. Both sides grow.

And both sides walk away changed.

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Learning to Be Uncomfortable

Growth rarely happens where things feel easy.

Chris puts it simply:

Learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Because it’s only when we step outside our familiar environments—our routines, our perspectives—that we begin to question what we’ve always accepted as “normal.”

And in that space, something opens.

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A Small Slice That Still Matters

In a world where problems feel overwhelming, it’s easy to feel stuck.

Like nothing we do will make a difference.

But Chris offers a different perspective:

Even a small, clear action… still matters.

Even a small impact… still changes something.

And sometimes, that’s where everything begins.

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Final Thought

This conversation isn’t about having all the answers.

It’s about approaching the world with:

• Humility
• Curiosity
• A willingness to listen

Because every person, every culture, every language…

This excerpt captures the essence of Episode 120 in a way that is reflective, personal, and deeply human — the kind of story that stays with you long after it ends. Listen to Episode 120 The Pulsera Project : Chris Howell.

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Transcript

Chris (00:05)
I’m Chris Howell. I’m one of the co-founders of the Pulsera Project. And the Pulsera Project is a nonprofit organization where a fair trade, nonprofit service learning organization.

when we talk about the three main components, the tres componentes is what we call them, impact, education, and employment. And that’s always how we’ve explained the project to other people.

So one of our main values is self-awareness. And when we say self-awareness, and these are all values that again, we’re mostly like guiding posts for us, but eventually we realized actually this might help other people too. being aware of how our own biases, our own preconceived ideas about another country or a people.

can actually hinder our capacity to connect with people. If you see someone and you say, oh, this person’s Guatemalan, they’re poor, you’re already putting a bunch of values onto that. And we try to be really self-aware so that we’re bringing as little of that to the table as possible. And also aware of how our own actions impact other people. Another core value is solidarity. And…

That one is really more easy to understand, and it kind of goes hand in hand with self-awareness. We see our partnership with any of the artists, the leaders we work with, it is 100% a 50-50 horizontal relationship. And that is really important for us. And same thing with the partnership for the students. We want the students to think you’re not just helping someone else out, but you’re also getting something in return.

through this education. And then we really, as we were spending time down there, realizing that we had preconceptions about poverty. We had this idea of, in our country, we think of poverty as an economic metric. You’re rich, you have a lot of money, you’re poor, you don’t have a lot of money.

And one thing that we learned is that there’s different levels, there’s different metrics that you can base poverty on. There’s community There’s a poverty of the spirit that even in these economically impoverished communities, people don’t have that. People are very connected. They have this very full sense of family, sense of community. And so to sort of push back on the idea that we’re just helping out poor people,

Let’s think about the different ways in which we are well off and also poor. And that helps destigmatize that as well. And, you know, through all of that runs this really important strain of humility. I think that captures everything that we do. It is kind of, you know, a, in some ways a selfish act to say, I’m going to go into the world and change it.

I’m going to make it different. I’m going to make it better. And when that becomes all about the person who’s doing the change, you can really lose your way. Because we’re not doing this for ourselves. We’re trying to make the world better through partnership, through collaboration, through mutualism. And the more humility that everyone brings to the table in that, the better off you’re going to be. So that’s sort of what we, in a nutshell,

humility, self-awareness, solidarity, and thinking about poverty differently, that informs not only how we develop our educational resources, but everything that we do within the project as well.

you see a lot of people in whatever community you live in, it’s a

it’s limited by, you know, who you’re around and the ideas that are conveyed there. But then when you step into another country and you step into a world where the realities are so different, there’s a lot of opportunity to learn and to challenge again. You can’t really challenge the air around you, the water, you know, you can’t change the water you swim in or challenge the thinking, the thought processes you have until you step outside of them.

So that’s something I really want to encourage with Conrad is, you know, challenge, getting outside of your comfort zone is something that we always, one of the old Pulsar project mottos was learn how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. And I think that’s another thing that is just, it’s really important. It’s increasingly important in today’s world where we are, thanks to technology, aware of so much of the bad things that are going on in the world.

and the good things, but, and that’s double-edged, because on the one hand, you have this awareness, you can learn more, ideally do more, but in a lot of cases, there isn’t that clear call to action, there isn’t a clear way that you can actually make a difference. And so that’s really important. It’s another thing that I like about what we do, is that even though it’s a small slice of the pie, it’s a very clear call to action, this is what you can do that will, you know.

Change things for in a small way

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